Turkey trade cut with Israel…
Turkey said on Friday that it would suspend all trade with Israel until there was a “permanent cease-fire” in the Gaza Strip, the latest international sanction against Israel and one that underscores the mounting global pressure to end the war in the territory.
Turkey’s announcement built on statements the previous day that it had halted all trade with Israel until “uninterrupted and adequate humanitarian aid is allowed into Gaza.” But even as Turkey announced the measures, Israel continued its repeated warnings that it was preparing for an offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that the United Nations said on Friday could result in a “slaughter” in Gaza….
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Israeli isolation on the world stage grows….
Israel’s international isolation has mounted as its devastating military offensive in Gaza has unfolded. Some countries have downgraded ties while others have cut them entirely. Close partners such as the United States, Britain and Germany, while still remaining strongly supportive of Israel, have become more openly critical of its conduct and of the recently increased but still inadequate pace of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
On Wednesday, Colombia became the latest country in Central or South America to break ties with Israel, following Bolivia and Belize early in the war. Colombia had already recalled its ambassador to Israel, as did Chile and Honduras. Arab states like Jordan and Bahrain, with whom Israel cooperates closely on security, also sent their ambassadors home early in the war amid public outcry over the rising death toll….
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Gaza “full-blown famine” even as more aid gets in….
A top U.N. official said Friday that hard-hit northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine” after more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory.
Cindy McCain, the American director of the U.N. World Food Program, became the most prominent international official so far to declare that trapped civilians in the most cut-off part of Gaza had gone over the brink into famine.
“It’s horror,” McCain told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview to air Sunday. “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”
She said a cease-fire and a greatly increased flow of aid through land and sea routes was essential to confronting the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which controls entrance into Gaza and says it is beginning to allow in more food and other humanitarian aid through land crossings….
Israel briefs the US on a possible Rafh operation….
Israel this week briefed Biden administration officials on a plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians ahead of a potential operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah aimed at rooting out Hamas militants, according to U.S. officials familiar with the talks.
The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity to speak about the sensitive exchange, said that the plan detailed by the Israelis did not change the U.S. administration’s view that moving forward with an operation in Rafah would put too many innocent Palestinian civilians at risk.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to carry out a military operation in Rafah despite warnings from President Joe Biden and other western officials that doing so would result in more civilian deaths and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis….
“CIA Director William Burns arrived in Cairo, Egypt, Friday for the latest round of high-stakes negotiations over a hostage and cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel,” CBS News reports.
“Burns’ arrival signals negotiators may be nearing a critical window that could be decisive for a potential agreement. It was not immediately clear whether negotiators from Israel and Qatar were expected to join Burns in Cairo, as they did in previous rounds.”