In today’s newsletter: As Keir Starmer announces caveated plans to recognise the Palestinian state, and UN-backed experts say the ‘worst-case scenario’ is under way, is opening the borders to allow aid in the only hope?
Good morning. Humanitarians are running out of words to describe the horrors taking place in Gaza. The small strip of land has been brutalised, with all institutions that sustain life – from hospitals to schools – either completely destroyed or barely functioning. Now, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warns that “the worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding in the Gaza Strip.”
Thousands of children are malnourished and hunger-related deaths on the rise, particularly among the youngest. It is worth noting this is not a formal designation of famine in Gaza, and formal designations are incredibly rare and have only taken place a handful of times in the 21st century: in Somalia in 2011, in South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and in Sudan in 2024.
Asia-Pacific | A powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake has triggered a series of tsunami warnings and evacuation orders across Japan, the US and parts of the Pacific, after the shallow quake hit near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
Israel-Gaza war | A group of high-profile Israeli public figures, including academics, artists and public intellectuals, has called for “crippling sanctions” to be imposed by the international community on Israel, amid mounting horror over its starvation of Gaza.
Labour | Jeremy Corbyn has accused the Labour government of “appeasing” Reform UK by “scapegoating” migrants and minorities for its own domestic policy failures, saying his new leftwing political party would take on Nigel Farage instead.
Economy | Global growth will be stronger than previously expected this year after Donald Trump scaled back his most extreme tariff threats, the International Monetary Fund said as it upgraded the economic outlook for 2025.
UK news | Five women who were abused as children by Rotherham grooming gangs were also raped by police officers when they were as young as 12 years old, they have claimed.
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