Infectious diseases in Gaza ‘spiralling out of control’, says WHO – as it happened

A legal challenge to the ban on Palestine Action can go ahead next month after the court of appeal rejected the Home Office’s attempt to block the case.

On Friday, three judges, led by the lady chief justice, upheld Mr Justice Chamberlain’s decision to grant the Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori a judicial review of the group’s proscription under the Terrorism Act.

The ban, the first on a direct action group, came into effect on 5 July, categorising it alongside the likes of Islamic State and National Action. Since then, more than 2,000 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act for supporting Palestine Action, most for holding signs reading: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”

The Home Office argued at appeal last month that the proper forum for Palestine Action to challenge the ban was the POAC (Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission), which parliament had designated for that purpose, rather than judicial review.

Chamberlain had said that the high court could resolve the matter far speedier than the POAC and provide an authoritative determination on what should happen to those accused of criminal offences since proscription.

The high court hearing is scheduled for three days beginning on 25 November. It is the first time that an organisation banned under anti-terrorism law has been granted a court trial to challenge proscription.

Gideon Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, has described the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a Europa League match in Birmingham as “shameful” and urged the UK authorities to reverse it.

Yesterday it emerged that fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv will not be allowed to attend the Europa League match at Aston Villa on 6 November owing to safety concerns. The decision was taken by Birmingham’s safety advisory group, based on advice from the West Midlands police, who said the match would be “high risk” based on “current intelligence and previous incidents, ­including ­violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 Uefa Europa League match between Ajax and ­Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam”. There is more on the announcement here.

The decision prompted widespread condemnation from political leaders. UK prime minister Keir Starmer said:

This is the wrong decision.

We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets.

The role of the police is to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation.

But the decision has been welcomed by Ayoub Khan, the MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, the UK constituency where the match will take place. He organised a petition calling for the match to be either cancelled, relocated or held behind closed doors and last night he put out a statement saying:

From the moment that the match was announced, it was clear that there were latent safety risks that even our capable security and police authorities would not be able to fully manage.

With so much hostility and uncertainty around the match, it was only right to take drastic measures.

Khan is one of the five independent MPs elected at the last election wholly or partly because of their outright opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza and his petition suggests that his opposition to the match going ahead is motivated as much by the desire to make a political point about Israel’s conduct as by concerns about the risk of violence. The petition cites three reasons why the match should not go ahead. One is the “track record of violence by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans”, but the others are the “ongoing genocide in Gaza” and the “wider European context”.

You can read more about this story and reaction to it in Andrew Sparrow’s UK politics blog:

A team of Turkish disaster response specialists is stationed at the Egyptian border, awaiting Israeli authorisation to enter Gaza and help in search and recovery operations, a Turkish official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Friday.

The 81-member team from Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) is equipped with specialised search-and-rescue tools, including life-detection devices and trained search dogs.

They “are currently waiting at the border on the Egyptian side,” the official told AFP. The group is prepared to locate and recover bodies trapped under rubble.

“It remains unclear when Israel will allow the Turkish team to enter Gaza,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to the news agency. The official added:

Initially, Israel preferred to work with a Qatari team, but we are hopeful that our delegation will be granted access soon.

A Hamas source told AFP the Turkish delegation is expected to enter Gaza by Sunday.

AFAD personnel are experienced in operating under extreme conditions, having responded to numerous natural disasters, including the devastating earthquake in southeastern Turkey in February 2023 which claimed more than 53,000 lives.

The Turkish official noted that the Turkish team’s mission includes locating both Palestinian and Israeli bodies, including hostages believed to be buried or hidden in collapsed structures.

However, the task is complicated because some Israeli hostages may have been disguised in local clothing to evade detection by Israeli drones during transfers, reports AFP. “This situation is expected to complicate search operations and delay progress,” the official said, adding that Hamas is expected to provide location data related to hostages.

Concerns have been raised by some observers over the potential misuse of the Turkish team’s heavy equipment, with fears that it could be repurposed by Hamas to access underground tunnels, reports AFP.

The United Nations said on Friday it would take time to reverse a famine in the Gaza Strip and urged the opening of all crossing points into the war-shattered Palestinian territory.

“It’s going to take some time to scale back the famine,” the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) spokesperson Abeer Etefa told a media briefing in Geneva, saying the WFP had five distribution points up and running but wanted to get to 145 in order to “flood Gaza with food”.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday it has brought in about 560 tonnes of food per day on average into Gaza since ceasefire began, but it is still below what is needed.

WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa told reporters in Geneva:

We’re still below what we need, but we’re getting there … The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of opportunity, and WFP is moving very quickly and swiftly to scale up food assistance.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that infectious diseases are “spiralling out of control”, with only 13 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals even partially functioning.

“Whether meningitis … diarrhoea, respiratory illnesses, we’re talking about a mammoth amount of work,” Hanan Balkhy, regional director for the UN health body, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Cairo.

In a seperate update, the WHO in occupied Palestinian territory (WHOoPt), said on Thursday, via social media, that it had been scaling up deliveries of medical supplies to health facilities since the Gaza ceasefire came into effect.

WHOoPT wrote on X:

This week, more than 220 pallets of essential medicines and medical supplies were dispatched from our southern warehouse for partners supporting hospitals across Gaza.

Thanks to @eu_echo [European civil protection and humanitarian aid operations] for its continued support.

Turkey has deployed dozens of disaster relief specialists to help search for bodies under the mountains of rubble in Gaza, as US president Donald Trump fired a warning at Hamas on Thursday over a spate of recent killings in the territory.

Gaza’s civil defence agency estimates that the bodies of about 10,000 people are trapped under the debris and collapsed buildings. The task ahead of the rescuers is immense given an estimated 60m tonnes of rubble across the territory.

Trump characterised the killings as a breach of the ceasefire deal he spearheaded, under which the Palestinian militant group returned its last 20 surviving hostages to Israel, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Hamas says it has also handed back all the bodies of deceased captives it can access but the bodies of 19 more are still unaccounted for and believed to be buried under the ruins alongside an untold number of Palestinians.

Hamas stressed their “commitment” to the ceasefire deal with Israel, and that they want to return all the remaining bodies of hostages left in Gaza. But it said in a statement that the process “may require some time, as some of these corpses were buried in tunnels destroyed by the occupation, while others remain under the rubble of buildings it bombed and demolished”.

Turkey has sent staff from its disaster relief agency to help in locating the bodies but the families of the dead have criticised Hamas’s failure to deliver their loved ones’ remains.

The main campaign group advocating for the hostages’ families demanded on Thursday that Israel “immediately halt the implementation of any further stages of the agreement as long as Hamas continues to blatantly violate its obligations regarding the return of all hostages and the remains of the victims”.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his determination to “secure the return of all hostages” after his defence minister warned on Wednesday that Israel “will resume fighting” if Hamas failed to do so.

Trump had appeared to call for patience when it came to the bodies’ return – insisting Hamas was “actually digging” for hostages’ remains – but later expressed frustration on Thursday with the group’s conduct since the fighting halted.

“If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them,” Trump said on Truth Social in an apparent reference to recent shootings of Palestinian civilians. Hamas has been accused of carrying out summary executions in Gaza since the ceasefire went into effect.

Clashes have also taken place between the group’s various security units and armed Palestinian clans, some of which are alleged to have Israeli backing, reports AFP.

In other developments:

• The plan also calls for renewed aid provision, with international organisations awaiting the reopening of southern Gaza’s Rafah crossing in the hope it will enable a surge of supplies. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said on the sidelines of a summit in Naples that preparations were being made for the strategic crossing, and that he “hoped” it would reopen on Sunday, Italian news agencies reported. Israel, however, said earlier on Thursday that the crossing would only be open to people, not aid, and Saar did not appear to elaborate, according to the reports.

• The World Health Organization has warned that infectious diseases are “spiralling out of control”, with only 13 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals even partially functioning. “Whether meningitis … diarrhoea, respiratory illnesses, we’re talking about a mammoth amount of work,” Hanan Balkhy, regional director for the UN health body, told AFP in Cairo.

• France and the UK, in coordination with the United States, are working to finalise a UN security council resolution in the coming days that would lay the foundation for a future international force in Gaza, France said on Thursday. With a shaky US-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holding, planning has begun for an international force to stabilise security in the Palestinian territory, two senior US advisers said on Wednesday.

• An Israeli airstrike targeting the top leaders of Yemen’s Houthi rebels in August killed the chief of staff of its military, officials said on Thursday, further escalating tensions between the group and Israel even as a ceasefire holds in the Gaza Strip.