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Outrage After Israeli Occupation Forces Shoot Live Rounds at Foreign Diplomats in West Bank
Among those shot at were representatives of three nations that threatened "concrete actions" if Israel doesn't end its assault and siege on Gaza and others that support a genocide case against the country.
May 21, 2025
Israeli occupation forces fired what they called "warning shots" at a large delegation of international diplomats visiting the besieged Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on Wednesday, an incident many critics said was an attempt to intimidate countries that just two days earlier issued an ultimatum to stop annihilating Gaza and others that have joined a genocide case against Israel.
Palestinian officials were briefing a group of more than 20 diplomats about the crisis in the illegally occupied West Bank—where Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians including hundreds of children since October 2023 while pushing ahead with massive land theft and colonization—when they came under fire.
According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the delegation "deviated" from the route approved by Israeli occupation authorities "and entered an area where they were not authorized to be," prompting Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers to fire "warning shots to distance them away."
"The IDF regrets the inconvenience caused," the ministry added.
Israeli soldiers intentionally fired at a delegation of about 30 Arab & EU diplomats, ambassadors and consuls, visiting Jenin refugee camp, in the West Bank. Israel claims "it was an accident" and that they fired "warning shots" because they "felt in danger". Israel was trying to intimidate them.
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— Anonymous ( @youranoncentral.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Israeli media reported IDF troops fired shots in the air. However, video footage of the incident appears to show soldiers aiming their guns and firing straight ahead in the direction of the diplomats as they scrambled for cover. Israeli officials have often been caught lying about the actions of IDF troops in Palestine.
The delegation included diplomats from the European Union and countries including Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, India, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Mexico, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
On Monday, three of those countries—France, the United Kingdom, and Canada—issued a rare joint statement condemning Operation Gideon's Chariots, the ongoing Israeli campaign to conquer and indefinitely occupy all of Gaza and ethnically cleanse much of its population.
On Tuesday, the U.K. announced it is suspending negotiations with Israel on a free trade agreement, explaining that "it is not possible to advance discussions on a new, upgraded FTA" with a government "that is pursuing egregious policies in the West Bank and Gaza."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza including extermination and forced starvation.
The U.K. additionally sanctioned three far-right Israeli extremists, including settler leader Daniella Weiss, as well as three illegal settlement outposts and two groups "that have supported, incited, and promoted violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank."
Also on Tuesday, European Commission Vice President Kaja Kallas—who is the E.U.'s foreign policy chief—said the 27-nation bloc would review its political and economic agreement with Israel in light of the "catastrophic" situation in Gaza.
Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, Jordan, Mexico, Spain, and Turkey have either joined or expressed support for the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice—which last year found that Israel's 58-year occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza is an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended as soon as possible.
Israel's 592-day assault and siege on Gaza has left more than 189,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and over 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned what it called Wednesday's "heinous crime" against the diplomats.
"The delegation was undertaking an official mission to observe and assess the humanitarian situation and document the ongoing violations perpetrated by the occupying forces against the Palestinian people," the ministry said. "This deliberate and unlawful act constitutes a blatant and grave breach of international law and of the fundamental principles of diplomatic relations as enshrined in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations."
Kallas said Wednesday that "any threats on diplomats' lives are unacceptable."
"Israel is also a signatory to the Vienna Convention, I mean the obligation to guarantee the security of all foreign diplomats," Kallas noted. "We definitely call on Israel to investigate this incident and also hold accountable [those] who are responsible for this."
The governments of other countries whose diplomats were targeted on Wednesday condemned the incident, with some, including France and Italy, summoning their Israeli ambassadors.
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Condemnation of Israel's Starvation and Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza Intensifies—Even From Within
"A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population," said one formerp Israeli lawmaker.
May 20, 2025
International outrage over Israel's intensified Gaza onslaught is mounting along with the death toll from airstrikes and forced starvation as a trio of Western leaders threatened "concrete actions" if the genocidal assault and siege on the Palestinian enclave don't stop—and as even prominent Israeli voices denounced their country's actions.
On Monday, the leaders of France, the United Kingdom, and Canada issued a rare joint statement strongly opposing the expansion of Israel's latest offensive, dubbed Operation Gideon's Chariots, which aims to conquer and indefinitely occupy all of Gaza and ethnically cleanse much of its population, possibly to make way for Jewish recolonization as advocated by many right-wing Israelis.
"Yesterday's announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is wholly inadequate," the statement asserted. "We call on the Israeli government to stop its military operations in Gaza and immediately allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza."
Five truckloads of humanitarian aid entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Monday, The Times of Israelreported. Israeli authorities gave the United Nations permission for about 100 more aid trucks to enter Gaza on Tuesday. This is a mere fraction of the at least 500-600 daily trucks needed to fulfill Gaza's tremendous humanitarian needs.
"Yesterday's announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is wholly inadequate."
"The Israeli government's denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching international humanitarian law," the leaders added. "We condemn the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli government, threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate. Permanent forced displacement is a breach of international humanitarian law."
Numerous Israeli officials have endorsed the forced starvation of Palestinians as a means to coerce them into leaving parts of Gaza. After calling for the "total annihilation" of Gaza earlier this month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sought to soothe those who decried his government's decision to allow a trickle of aid into the strip by assuring them Monday that "we're destroying Gaza."
The three leaders' statement stresses that "we will not stand by" while the government of fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "pursues these egregious actions."
"If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response," the leaders warned.
Shifting to the illegally occupied West Bank—where Israel is pushing ahead with a major land grab and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and civilian settler-colonists are killing, wounding, and forcibly displacing Palestinians—the joint statement added: "We oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the West Bank. Israel must halt settlements which are illegal and undermine the viability of a Palestinian state and the security of both Israelis and Palestinians."
"We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions," the leaders vowed.
"Further action" was afoot Tuesday as the U.K. announced it is suspending negotiations with Israel on a free trade agreement, explaining that "it is not possible to advance discussions on a new, upgraded FTA with a Netanyahu government that is pursuing egregious policies in the West Bank and Gaza."
U.K. Minister for the Middle East Hamish Falconer reiterated the "government's opposition to the wholly disproportionate escalation of military activity in Gaza and emphasize that the 11-week block on aid to Gaza has been cruel and indefensible."
The U.K. also announced sanctions targeting three far-right Israeli extremists, including settler leader Daniella Weiss, as well as three illegal settlement outposts and two groups "that have supported, incited, and promoted violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank."
The British move stands in stark contrast with the Trump administration's reversal of sanctions imposed on a handful of Israeli settlers during the tenure of former President Joe Biden. Both Trump and Biden have lavished Israel with billions of dollars in armed aid and staunch diplomatic support. Trump has proposed a U.S. takeover of Gaza and the transformation of the razed strip into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
Netanyahu hit back at France, the U.K., and Canada on Tuesday, accusing the allies of "offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities."
More than 1,100 Israelis and others were killed and over 250 people taken hostage by Hamas-led militants on October 7, 2023. An unknown number of Israelis were also killed by so-called "friendly fire" and under the Hannibal Directive, which authorizes lethal force against IDF soldiers in order to prevent them from being taken prisoner by enemy forces.
Also on Tuesday, former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin urged Western governments to "economically and strategically isolate" Israel over Operation Gideon's Chariots.
"After the reoccupation of Gaza, the second step will be deportation," de Villepin said. "The political objective of Benjamin Netanyahu and his government is the deportation of the population of Gaza, which is the hallmark of ethnic cleansing."
De Villepin said that "there are three things that must be done immediately," including the suspension of the European Union's trade and cooperation agreement with Israel, an arms embargo, and referral of Israeli officials to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
"If you want to stop what is happening today, you must make it clear to Israel that there will be a before and an after," de Villepin added.
The Hague-based ICC has already issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including extermination and forced starvation. Israel is also facing a genocide case before the International Court of Justice.
The E.U.—which is Israel's largest trading partner— said Tuesday that it would review the wide-ranging trade and cooperation pact, citing a provision stating that relations "shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles."
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said she would push for more punitive measures, including "sanctions against individual Israeli ministers."
"Israeli forces have begun a full-scale invasion to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from Gaza."
In the United States, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress,
said Monday on social media that "Israeli forces have begun a full-scale invasion to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from Gaza."
"War criminal Netanyahu announced plans to forcibly expel the entire population and permanently occupy the land," she added. "This is the final stage of their genocide. World leaders must impose sanctions and a full arms embargo."
More Israelis are also condemning their country's actions in Gaza. On Monday, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem accused Israel of "carrying out a deliberate, systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip" in a
social media post showing that hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in recent days.
Overall, more than 53,500 Palestinians have been killed and over 121,000 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023, with at least 14,000 others missing and believed dead and buried beneath rubble, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Millions more have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened by Israel's assault and siege.
Israeli Army Radio correspondent Doron Kadosh said Monday that Israel's planned location of humanitarian aid distribution centers suggests a more sinister motive:
The idea... is that anyone who comes from the north of the Gaza Strip to the dividing center will not be able to return north of the Netzarim corridor, but will be forced to stay south of the Netzarim corridor. This will be a "one-way ticket," and it will effectively force the Gazan population to come south of the Netzarim axis if they want to receive food. In this way, Israel intends to expedite and promote the evacuation of the Gazan population from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south. In this way, Israel believes, it will be possible to completely empty the northern Gaza Strip of its population.
"Despite dozens of evacuation notices, there always remained in the northern Gaza Strip a hard core of 200-300 thousand Gazans who refused to leave the south of the Netzarim axis," Kadosh added. "This time, Israel believes, it is a plan that will leave the Gazans no choice—and will force them to evacuate south."
Progressive former Israeli lawmaker Yair Golan—a decorated general who once served as deputy IDF chief of staff—faced sharp rebuke Tuesday after calling for the ouster of Netanyahu's "vengeful, unintelligent, and immoral" government.
During an interview with public broadcaster Kan, Golan said that Israel is "on the path to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa once was, if it does not return to acting like a sane country."
"A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population," Golan asserted.
Netanyahu responded by calling IDF troops "the most moral in the world."
"Golan and his friends on the radical left are echoing the most despicable antisemitic blood libels against IDF soldiers and the state of Israel," the prime minister added.
Meanwhile, United Nations experts warned that Israel's forced starvation—which has already killed at least scores of Gazans, mostly children and the elderly—could kill as many as 14,000 infants in the next two days unless the amount of aid entering the strip increases dramatically.
"We are witnessing, in real time, the deliberate starvation of a civilian population as a method of warfare," Human Rights Watch
said Monday. "Over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza are living in famine."
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'A Failure of Humanity': Acute Food Insecurity, Child Malnutrition Climb for Sixth Straight Year
"In a world of plenty, there is no excuse for children to go hungry or die of malnutrition. Hunger gnaws at the stomach of a child. It gnaws, too, at their dignity, their sense of safety, and their future," said the head of UNICEF.
May 16, 2025
Both child malnutrition and acute food insecurity rose for the sixth consecutive year in 2024, when more than 295 million people across 53 countries and territories endured severe hunger, according to a global report released Friday.
"This Global Report on Food Crises is another unflinching indictment of a world dangerously off course," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in the foreword of the annual publication, produced by the European Union-funded Food Security Information Network in partnership with U.N. agencies and other entities.
"From Gaza and Sudan, to Yemen, and Mali, catastrophic hunger driven by conflict and other factors is hitting record highs, pushing households to the edge of starvation," he warned. "Displacement has also surged, as violence and disasters rip families from their homes and condemn people of all ages to malnutrition and even death. Meanwhile climate extremes are growing in intensity—wreaking havoc on global food security, crippling harvests, and breaking supply chains."
"Hunger in the 21st century is indefensible."
Guterres argued that "this is more than a failure of systems—it is a failure of humanity. Hunger in the 21st century is indefensible...
Governments, businesses, and decision-makers must heed the clear warnings issued in this report."
In addition to the places Guterres spotlighted, countries that have the largest numbers or shares of people contending with high levels of acute food insecurity include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, and Zambia.
Last July, after over a year of civil war in Sudan, an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification panel declared a famine there, the first declaration since 2020. The IPC's Famine Review Committee has also warned of imminent famine in Gaza, the Palestinian territory that continues to endure a U.S.-backed Israeli military assault and humanitarian aid blockade, for which Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
The number of people enduring high levels of acute food insecurity rose by 13.7 million from 2023 to 2024. During that time, the number of people facing the worst level on the IPC scale—"catastrophe," or Phase 5—doubled to almost 2 million, "driven by conflict," the report states. "Over 95% of them were in Palestine (Gaza Strip) and the Sudan. South Sudan, Haiti, and Mali also had populations in this phase."
Over 35.1 million people in three dozen countries and territories experienced the next highest level, "emergency" or Phase 4, followed by around 190 million across 40 places who faced "crisis" or Phase 3. Another 344.7 million people in 39 nations were in Phase 2, or "stressed."
Some areas don't have IPC analyses. The publication notes that "in these cases, 68.2 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity" based on other reporting. While "conflict/insecurity" was the biggest driver of acute hunger last year, economic shocks and weather extremes also played major roles—and the report underscores "the interlinkages between drivers."
"For instance, conflict can exacerbate climate vulnerability by fueling environmental degradation and taking resources away from adaptation efforts," the report details. "Weather extremes can trigger or worsen conflict as groups compete over the changing availability and distribution of natural resources."
"Extreme weather events can cause economic shocks by damaging productive capital and infrastructure, disrupting economic activity, lowering productivity in agriculture, and diverting resources towards reconstruction," the report continues. "Economic shocks leading to unemployment and increasing levels of poverty can lead to social unrest, violence, conflict, and political instability."
This is the first Global Report on Food Crises to feature "nutrition crises" and "nutrition concerns." For the 53 countries and territories with data, 26 fell into the crisis category, and nearly all of them were in the IPC phase in which "at least 15% of children aged 6-59 months suffered from acute malnutrition."
"Around 37.7 million children suffered from acute malnutrition in the 26 countries/territories. Over 10 million of them had severe acute malnutrition. About 10.9 million pregnant and breastfeeding women in 21 of the countries were acutely malnourished," the report states. Sudan, Gaza, Mali, and Yemen "had the four most severe nutrition crises."
Catherine Russell, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said in a Friday statement that "in a world of plenty, there is no excuse for children to go hungry or die of malnutrition. Hunger gnaws at the stomach of a child. It gnaws, too, at their dignity, their sense of safety, and their future."
"How can we continue to stand by when there is more than enough food to feed every hungry child in the world?" she asked. "How can we ignore what is happening in front of our eyes? Millions of children's lives hang in the balance as funding is slashed to critical nutrition services."
World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain also emphasized financial concerns, saying that "like every other humanitarian organization, WFP is facing deep budget shortfalls which have forced drastic cuts to our food assistance programs. Millions of hungry people have lost, or will soon lose, the critical lifeline we provide. We have tried and tested solutions to hunger and food insecurity. But we need the support of our donors and partners to implement them."
The Global Report on Food Crises reveals a staggering reality: 295 million people in 53 countries/territories faced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2024. At @fao.org we know that #AgricultureCan be the solution, but we need the right support. ➡️ bit.ly/4khEGCx #FightFoodCrises #GRFC2025
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— Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (@fao.org) May 16, 2025 at 6:11 AM
The report also has a section on displacement, which notes that "nearly all countries with food crises have large displaced populations, but data on their acute food insecurity status are only available in about a quarter of these countries, despite clear evidence regarding the specific challenges displaced people have in accessing food."
Last year, forced displacement in countries and territories with food crises continued rising, to 95.8 million people in 52 places, consisting of 71.8 million internally displaced persons and 24 million refugees.
Raouf Mazou from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Friday that "as food insecurity worsens and humanitarian crises become more prolonged, we need to shift from emergency aid to sustainable responses. That means creating real opportunities—access to land, livelihoods, markets and services—so people can feed themselves and their families, not just today, but well into the future."
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