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Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.
On our radar
Gaza killings and starvation deaths continue amid growing aid sector discord
Four more Palestinians died of starvation on 14 August. The total number killed due to famine conditions orchestrated by Israel in the Gaza Strip now stands at 239, including 106 children, according to the Palestinian health ministry in the enclave. Over 70% of those deaths have occurred since 1 July. Israel is now allowing some aid and commercial goods into Gaza, but the amount is still drastically insufficient. Meanwhile, the Israeli military murdered Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif and five other journalists in a targeted attack on their media tent in Gaza City. At least 192 journalists and media workers in Gaza have been killed during the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) 22-month military campaign. Al-Sharif, 29, was one of the most prominent journalists in Gaza. Citing widely disputed evidence, Israel accused him of being a Hamas militant. As Israel prepares to invade Gaza City, one UN expert called his killing “a deliberate attempt to silence those who would have exposed the IDF’s atrocities to the world”. Over 100 NGOs are also warning that Israel is trying to “silence advocacy, and censor humanitarian reporting” through a new registration process. The process is creating fissures within the aid sector between organisations willing to abide by Israel’s diktats and those who say they are standing firm on humanitarian principles. Read our two exclusive reports for more on the potential fracturing of the international aid sector’s unified approach to Gaza:
West Bank settlement expansion aims to “bury” a Palestinian state
Israel’s government is poised to approve the construction of 3,400 housing units to expand a settlement in the illegally occupied West Bank, effectively cutting it in half. The plan is being advanced by far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is under sanctions from the UK, Canada, Australia, Norway, and New Zealand for inciting settler violence in the West Bank. Smotrich said the construction of the housing units, which would expand the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim towards Jerusalem, would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”. The announcement comes as numerous Western states – including the UK, France, Australia, and Canada – are pledging to recognise a Palestinian state at the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York City at the end of September. The pledges have been criticised as decades too late and for potentially distracting from other actions – such as cutting trade ties and imposing an arms embargo on Israel – that could be taken now to put pressure on Israel to end its starvation and mass killings of Palestinians. For months, Israeli military and settler violence, home demolitions, forced displacements, and movement restrictions have all dramatically escalated in the West Bank – overshadowed by events in Gaza.
DR Congo peace efforts threaten to unravel
Fighting has erupted between the Congolese army and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group nearly a month after both sides signed a declaration of principles in Doha, agreeing to a permanent ceasefire and to begin negotiating a full peace deal. The M23 claims the army deployed troops and military equipment to several areas in violation of the agreement, while the army accuses the rebels of daily attacks, including against civilians. Follow-up talks in Doha have been delayed, and the goal of a final peace deal by 18 August now seems far-fetched, with neither party currently present in Qatar. The Doha agreement came on the heels of a separate US-brokered deal between the Congolese government and Rwanda – an arrangement many critics see as another transnational resource grab by President Donald Trump’s US administration. For now, the M23 continues to occupy vast swathes of eastern DRC, including the region’s largest city, Goma. Our investigation in the city, published this week, documents multiple rights abuses by the rebels, including alleged summary executions, mass arrests of those suspected of ties to the army or allied militias, forced conscription, and a crackdown on civil society. Read the full piece for more: M23 rebels commit widespread abuses in DR Congo’s Goma.
Kenya crackdown over refugees angry at ration cuts
Refugees in Kenya’s Kakuma and Dadaab camps say they are being forced to accept a new ration prioritisation system from WFP and UNHCR at a time of extreme hunger, labelling it unfair and divisive. The new model creates four categories of refugees. Only the first two groups, deemed the most vulnerable, will receive food – but then only at between 20% and 40% of the recommended minimum ration. Refugees in both camps say the system should be suspended until the categories are reviewed. Anger boiled over in Kakuma two weeks ago with the police shooting and killing a protester. A refugee in Kakuma told The New Humanitarian this week that the police have been cracking down on critics – including people posting on social media – with “threats of deportation and the revoking of refugee status”. In Dadaab, the authorities similarly threatened those seen as ring leaders of opposition. “We’re afraid because they can easily say you’re [the insurgent group] al-Shabab,” explained a refugee. He said he witnessed vulnerable women denied rations and forced to beg from those in categories one and two to feed their families. Read Why we need a new playbook for refugee inclusion, and look out for our next instalment of Dadaab Voices focusing on the protests.
Europe’s heat problem
Wildfires have killed several people and displaced thousands, as a heatwave scorches southern Europe for a second time this summer, breaking temperature records across the region. Parts of Spain, France, and Italy have seen the mercury rise above 40°C as scientists project “extreme to very extreme conditions” across the entire continent this week, with particularly severe risks in much of the south. The wildfires have burnt through well over 400,000 hectares across the region so far in 2025, an 87% increase on the two‑decade average and nearly double the rate of previous years. A study conducted last month estimated that at least 2,300 people died due to extreme heat across 12 European cities between 23 June and 2 July, with researchers attributing roughly 1,500 of those deaths to climate change. Another study published in January estimated that extreme heat could be responsible for the deaths of up to 80,000 Europeans a year by the end of this century.
In Africa, is it better to be landlocked or land-linked?
The theory has always been that direct access to the sea delivers a major development advantage. But a new report by the United Nations Development Programme suggests that landlocked African countries may not have been dealt quite such a bad hand. By leveraging their central location, they can become hubs of regional connectivity. Take Rwanda: Its Kigali Logistics Platform is a new supply chain linking Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Burundi with the coastal economies of Kenya and Tanzania. Ethiopia also facilitates a crucial trade route from South Sudan to Djibouti that shortens rail transit from 72 hours to just 12 hours. Its national airline, Africa’s largest, is also a vital bridge between the continent and international markets. Meanwhile, new freight technologies are also enabling deeper participation by landlocked countries in regional and global value chains.
Weekend read
First person | I did not leave Gaza to forget it
You, in your embassies and press rooms and TV studios, you will hear from me. I will not be your success story. I will be your mirror. And you will not like what you see.
In July 2025, Nour ElAssy was able to evacuate from Gaza to France. Here, she writes about the pain of leaving and the promise of return.
And finally…
The trouble with Applebaum’s take on Sudan
Historian and journalist Anne Applebaum has a long read out on Sudan’s war – the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis – and, sorry, we can’t recommend it (even if she does generously link to one of our stories). Applebaum zigzags across Sudan – visiting hospitals, displacement camps, and speaking with survivors of atrocities – but beneath the reportage, her real concern appears to be with rehabilitating an American-led “liberal order” whose collapse, she thinks, helps explain the war. In her telling, the tragedy here isn’t just Sudan’s suffering – it’s that Washington is no longer swooping in to save the day. Missing from her analysis is any sense of US and liberal world order complicity in Sudan’s situation – from sanctions and missile strikes, to structural adjustments, to faulty peace agreements and power-sharing deals. Applebaum mourns the days when Americans rallied to “save Darfur” in the 2000s. Yet others remember that period more as a time when supporters of the Iraq War used Darfur to launder their moral credentials in a politically low-risk region. While Applebaum, who once defended Israeli attacks on Palestinian journalists (hardly a liberal stance) does try to explain some aspects of the war, her piece is replete with phrases – “nihilism”, “anarchy”, “pointlessness”, “meaninglessness” – that strip the conflict of politics and history, leaving Sudan as little more than a violent backdrop for a eulogy to a liberal order that never truly existed.
