Palestinians in front of a bombed building in Gaza City, where the need for aid is enormous, on Monday. Photo: Jehad Alshrafi/AP/TT
More than 900 aid workers worldwide were killed, injured or kidnapped last year, according to a new report from the UN's humanitarian coordination agency Ocha.
The Gaza Strip is the deadliest place for aid workers for the third year in a row with 186 deaths. In Sudan, 71 aid workers were killed.
A total of 350 people with humanitarian missions were killed worldwide. 322 survived, but were injured, in attacks and 235 were kidnapped, according to Ocha's estimate. The total number of attacks, 907, has never been higher, according to the UN.
So far this year, 82 aid workers have been killed, 97 injured and 39 kidnapped around the world.
The EU should impose joint sanctions against Israel's ultra-conservative Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, German politicians are demanding after statements that Palestinians "are not even human".
Sweden's Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard (M) says she reacts with disgust to Ben-Gvir's words.
Itamar Ben-Gvir has been noticed and clearly criticized in recent days after he was interviewed in a podcast that was released on Saturday.
- I think targeted killings should be carried out in Gaza, removing 30-40 people every night, he said according to Politico and continued:
- Not just those who pose an immediate threat. No, these are people who do not deserve to live. They should not live. They are not even human.
The words have prompted high-ranking German politicians to demand EU sanctions against Ben-Gvir.
“These are statements that the government cannot accept in any way,” says Lars Klingbeil, Vice Chancellor and Minister of Finance, to the television channel Sat 1.
“I stand in solidarity with Israel, but I do not stand in solidarity with such ministers,” he continues, and according to Tageschau is supported by the entire German political spectrum – from the far-right AfD party to the left-wing Die Linke party.
Sweden wants sanctions
Germany has repeatedly opposed EU proposals targeting Israel; as recently as June, Germany was one of the countries that opposed sanctions against Ben-Gvir. Some EU countries have independently imposed their own sanctions against Ben-Gvir, including France and Ireland.
Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard “reacted with disgust” to this weekend’s statement.
“The Swedish government has been absolutely right to take the initiative to impose EU sanctions on extremist Israeli ministers – such as Ben-Gvir,” she wrote in a statement on Monday.
Execution site unveiled
Itamar Ben-Gvir unveiled new hanging facilities being built on death row in an Israeli prison on Tuesday – cells and facilities designed for Palestinian prisoners sentenced to death for deadly terror attacks, a controversial bill that was hammered through this spring and that in practice applies to Palestinians but not Israelis.
“I promised to worsen conditions for terrorists in our prisons, and I kept that promise,” he said, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“We are making history. Our terrorists deserve only one thing, death by hanging.”
Corruption operation in Ukraine – elected officials involved
View of the Ukrainian capital Kiev. Image from June. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP/TT
Ukraine's anti-corruption agency is conducting an operation against a "criminal organization" with connections to the top echelons of power.
The organization has operated under the leadership of a current and a former Ukrainian member of parliament, the anti-corruption agency Nabu announced on Telegram.
High-ranking officials at the Ukrainian presidential office and "other people" are also involved, Nabu writes, stating that more details will come at a later stage. According to a source for The Kyiv Independent, this includes a deputy chief of staff.
Sapo, an anti-corruption unit within the prosecutor's office, is also participating in the operation.
Ukraine has long struggled with extensive corruption problems. In May, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s former chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, one of Ukraine’s most powerful men, was arrested on suspicion of money laundering linked to a major corruption scandal in the energy sector and the state-owned company Energoatom.
Yermak was forced to resign in November last year when the scandal broke. The then energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, and several other ministers also resigned at the same time.
US President Donald Trump in a picture from Monday. Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP/TT
South Korea and the US have cut short joint military exercises after US President Donald Trump said he wanted to scale them down.
The exercises will end on Friday instead of August 27, South Korea said. The two countries have also agreed to reduce the scope of some parts of the exercise.
The exercises began on Monday, and Trump said in connection with that that he wanted them to be reduced in scope. The president has said that they are too expensive but also that they “send signals that are completely inappropriate and hostile” towards North Korea – a country that, according to him, “has only been respectful and not threatening” during his time as president.
