JERUSALEM, Israel – At the end of a frustrating week in the Middle East, talks collapsed between Hamas and Israel, France called for a Palestinian state, and humanitarian aid is piled up on Gaza’s doorstep.
At the same time, the United States is cutting short Gaza ceasefire talks and bringing its negotiating team home from Qatar after what it calls a disappointing response from Hamas.
State Department Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Piggot announced on behalf of envoy Steve Witkoff, “We have decided to bring our team home from Doha for consultations at the latest response from Hamas, which clearly shows a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza.”
Piggot added, “While the mediators have made a great effort, Hamas does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith. We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza. It is a shame that Hamas has acted in this selfish way. We are resolute and seeking an end to this conflict and a permanent peace in Gaza.”
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That announcement came just hours after French President Emmanuel Macron said France would recognize Palestine as a state. He plans to formalize the decision at the U.N. General Assembly in September.
Israel slammed the move, calling it dangerous and diplomatically irresponsible.
At the same time, Israeli officials are reacting strongly to what they’re calling a blatant act of antisemitism in Spain, after more than 50 French Jewish teens were removed from a Vueling Airlines flight in Valencia for allegedly singing in Hebrew. The airline claimed they were being disruptive, but Israel called Vueling’s action one of the most serious antisemitic incidents in recent memory.
To push back against growing international criticism over humanitarian conditions in Gaza, Israel’s military gave CBN News a tour of the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, where officials showed aid totaling a week’s worth of food for everyone in Gaza – all awaiting distribution by the United Nations.
Col. Abdullah Halaby, head of the Israeli Coordination Administration for Gaza, told us, “We have here approximately 1,000 trucks – humanitarian aid – that entered the Gaza side, awaiting collection and distribution to the people of Gaza by the international community and by the organization that we are working with from the international community.”
Colonel Halaby contends that Hamas is using hunger as a weapon in the court of public opinion, intentionally starving its people.
“They’re sending people to interfere and order inside the sites,” he said. “And they are doing that in order to build a picture of a crisis of chaos, of problems in humanitarian aid. It’s false, as I mentioned before.”
Halaby noted that 4,500 trucks filled with supplies entered the Gaza Strip in the last two months, and it was distributed to Gazans.
On our journey into Gaza, we saw literally millions of meals that were sitting out in a parking lot just inside the border fence that could be feeding the people inside the Gaza Strip, yet, the United Nations doesn’t want to distribute them because that would mean having to work together with the Israel Defense Forces to get the job done.
It makes some people wonder whether that means the United Nations would rather bash Israel than feed the hungry.
Morocco-based policy analyst Amine Ayoub writes on Stream.org, “While international calls for increased aid and a lasting ceasefire are critical, they must be accompanied by an unwavering condemnation of Hamas’s role in obstructing humanitarian efforts and exploiting its own population. The truth of aid in Gaza is that it is not merely hindered by war, but actively undermined by a terrorist organization that prioritizes its ideological war above the well-being of the very people it claims to represent.”
With negotiations stalled, aid blocked, and international pressure mounting, hopes for a hostage release and ceasefire seem further away than ever.
