20 killed in crush at Israeli and US-backed aid site in Gaza, group says
At least 20 people were killed in a crowd crush at an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the controversial Israeli- and US-backed organization said Wednesday, the first time it has acknowledged deaths at one of its sites.
According to the GHF, the people died in a “chaotic and dangerous surge,” which it said was “driven by agitators in the crowd.” The aid group said 19 people were trampled and one person was stabbed in the crowd crush.
The GHF alleged that individuals who were “armed and affiliated with Hamas” deliberately instigated the chaos. “For the first time since operations began, GHF personnel identified multiple firearms in the crowd, one of which was confiscated,” it said.
Hamas’ Government Media Office (GMO) blamed the GHF for the incident, claiming the group called on Palestinians to receive aid at the site in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, then “proceeded to lock the iron gates after herding thousands of starving people into narrow iron corridors.”
The Palestinian health ministry said 21 people were killed in the incident, 15 of whom died from suffocation after tear gas was fired at a crowd of people awaiting aid, triggering a crowd crush. The other six people were shot in the upper body by Israeli forces, it said.
When asked about the alleged shootings, the Israeli military referred CNN to GHF’s previous statement on the incident.
One eyewitness, Yahya Al Sousi, told CNN that he was “running to get aid” when “the Americans closed the gates in front of us.”
“We went through an opened small gate and they started spraying us with pepper spray. Many suffocated and were run over by people, and all those who were on the floor are martyrs,” he said.
Mohammad Shatat, another eyewitness, described a similar situation. After “the Americans” closed the gates, people “started running towards” one of them, Shatat said. “When the Americans saw this, they opened the gate and sprayed us with pepper spray,” he said.
“People fell on each other and everyone who was behind was stepping on the people in the front,” he said, adding that “people were suffocating and dying.”
US security contractors operate inside the GHF’s aid sites, and the Israeli military is usually positioned outside. CNN has approached the Israeli military for comment on the latest incident.
Hundreds of people have been killed while trying to access aid in Gaza since the GHF began operating in the Strip, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Nearly 800 people were killed in this way between late May and July 7, it said, 615 of whom were killed near GHF sites.
Palestinian officials and witnesses have said the Israeli military is responsible for most of those deaths. The military has acknowledged firing warning shots towards crowds in some instances, and denied responsibility for other incidents. In late June, the military said it had “reorganized” the approach routes to aid sites to minimize “friction with the population.”
On Saturday, the Palestinian health ministry said 27 people were killed and many more injured when Israeli troops opened fire on people trying to obtain aid from a distribution site run by the GHF near southern Rafah.
The GHF denied the claim, saying “there were no incidents at or in the immediate vicinity of our sites” on Saturday.
The Israeli military also denied that anyone was injured by gunfire from its troops in the vicinity of the site but said it continued to review the reports. It told CNN Sunday it had no further comment.
A scathing US government assessment of the GHF reported on by CNN last week shows that USAID officials raised “critical concerns” about the group’s ability to protect Palestinians and to deliver them food.
The assessment flagged a range of concerns, from an overall plan missing “even basic details” to a proposal to potentially distribute powdered baby formula in an area that lacks clean water to prepare it.
A GHF spokesperson defended the organization’s work in Gaza and described the USAID assessment as normal for a funding application.
In its statement released Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry said that “the Israeli occupation and the American establishment are deliberately committing massacres in a systematic manner and using various methods against the starving people.”
Source: CNN
Ecuador’s capital rocked by water shortage crisis upending daily life
The daily lives of some 400,000 residents have been seriously disrupted by the emergency, which happened after a landslide damaged a pipeline that supplied water to much of southern Quito.
“We can’t live without water!” shout residents of the Chillogallo neighborhood as they line up along a street, waiting for a tanker to deliver water.
Emergency crews have been racing to distribute water supplies to six affected areas and remove sludge from the damaged pipelines, all while officials in Quito city government and national government officials bicker over how to address the crisis.
Older adults are the most vulnerable
With buckets, bottles, trash cans and other kinds of containers, residents wait in the street for a water tanker to arrive. Among them is Inés Castro, 74, who sits on a sidewalk under the sun.
“We’ve been waiting in line since morning, and no one has arrived,” Castro said, with tears welling up in her eyes when asked if anyone accompanied her. “I live alone, I’m all alone,” she replies and said she hopes a neighbor will help her carry the bucket home if she manages to fill it.
The municipality has mobilized some 70 water trucks, but they are not enough to serve everyone and don’t always adhere to a schedule.
Erselinda Guilca, who is now retired, says her health is failing and asks for a quick solution to the problem.
“We’re old and can no longer carry heavy buckets of water. We have been here in this cold since morning, hungry. We don’t even have water to bathe,” she said, adding that she would prefer not to have electricity than to be without water, which is essential.
With a plastic washbasin and a pot from her kitchen, Elsa Sarango joins the neighbors’ protest while waiting in line for the water truck.
“If we were young, we wouldn’t mind carrying it; this is very heavy. I just ask for a little water,” she said. She insists that as the days go by, the sanitation and hygiene needs in her home increase. “They don’t tell us the exact time. We have to make trips little by little, otherwise, how would we live?”
Untreated water: a desperate option
Elsewhere in southern Quito, people in the Nueva Aurora neighborhood have grown increasingly desperate and are gathering in the central park to collect water from a spring that doesn’t meet sanitary or purification standards.
Residents have to walk several blocks to retrieve this water. Others get there on vehicles and bicycles, and some rent small, homemade carts that are used to transport containers to avoid carrying so much weight.
“At least it works for me to use for the bathroom. My house is four blocks away. There’s no other option, even if the water isn’t drinkable,” a man arriving in a hurry tells CNN.
A bricklayer named Tomás Chiguano says he’s forced to carry water in black garbage bags because he doesn’t have any containers.
“We don’t have trash cans. We’re there carrying it in bags, and sometimes the bags come out torn,” he said.
Chiguano emphasizes that his work as a bricklayer is affected because he lacks water to mix construction materials like cement and sand, which are essential for his projects.
As of Tuesday, the government has installed the first portable water treatment plant in the area to prevent health problems.
‘Water is getting very expensive’
Residents of southern Quito who are looking for transportation to reach water distribution points are upset because the shortage is increasing their costs to access this basic service, saying they have to pay transporters to help them move the containers.
“We don’t have water to wash clothes. We’re tired of carrying it. Sometimes we pay $2 or $3 USD for the car to help us,” a woman tells CNN while waiting for her husband to finish.
Meanwhile, María Tipán said she has to make up to eight trips. Her biggest concern is not having water to wash the clothes of the grandchildren she’s raising.
“Seven or eight trips to carry water, and they charge us $5 USD. We don’t even have enough to wash clothes. I have grandchildren who make a mess. Water is getting very expensive, and they’ll charge us the full water bill,” Tipán said.
Tensions between authorities
The municipality of Quito has ordered the deployment of 71 water tankers, five hydrants, five inflatable systems and three fixed water distribution points in southern Quito to address the emergency.
Quito Mayor Pabel Muñoz expects drinking water service to be restored to residents of the six affected areas by Sunday. His office says workers have so far removed 77 percent of the soil in the area where the landslide occurred.
“This is the most serious water emergency Quito has ever faced, and it was caused by an extreme natural phenomenon. More than 500 people are working daily on this emergency. In the páramo or in the neighborhoods. At dawn, at night, or under the sun,” Muñoz stated.
Tankers from other cities and cantons have joined the efforts to aid and assist citizens. The Association of Municipalities of Ecuador coordinated the deployment of these units to Quito. The national and local governments are meeting separately to address the emergency, which has led to disputes over the management of the response.
The national government has tasked Vice President María José Pinto with supplying and distributing aid to the affected population. The National Emergency Operations Committee (COE) announced the installation of three portable water purification plants at strategic locations with the support of the Ecuadorian Red Cross.
Energy Minister and COE President Inés Manzano criticized the Quito municipality’s response to the emergency and indicated that the Ministry of Environment recently requested a crisis plan, which, according to the official, was not submitted.
“And in fact, we have insisted that they provide us with a technical report on what happened and what activities they will carry out to complement it. Since there hasn’t been such truthful and timely communication, we have intervened,” she said.
Meanwhile, Mayor Muñoz questioned the lack of fluid communication with the national government. “Why hasn’t there been contact with the Municipality? Why haven’t they been present at the Unified Command Post?” he said.
The government has asked the municipality for greater cooperation to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.
President Daniel Noboa has not yet commented publicly on the water crisis. In recent days, various social sectors and labor unions have protested Noboa’s lack of attention to social policies, as well as certain laws passed by the national assembly.
Noboa, who won reelection earlier this year, has been focused largely on national security issues, including a massive crackdown on violent criminal groups.
CNN’s Ivonne Valdés contributed to this report.
Source: CNN
A party resolution accusing Israel of genocide divides Democrats in a key swing state
When the executive committee of North Carolina’s Democratic Party passed a resolution in June calling for an immediate arms embargo on Israel, it set off another episode in the party’s ongoing struggles with how it addresses the Israel-Hamas war.
Some Jewish Democrats in North Carolina said the resolution was consistent with their support of Palestinian human rights while others characterized it as divisive. The resolution’s backers are talking to Democrats in other states who want to take the same stand. And top state leaders – notably the party chair and North Carolina’s Democratic governor – have declined to comment.
The Israel-Hamas war still divides the party as it did before the November election, when Democratic nominee Kamala Harris faced protests and boycott threats from parts of the base before eventually losing to President Donald Trump.
In North Carolina, where Sen. Thom Tillis’ retirement opened an opportunity for Democrats to flip a Republican-held seat, some in the party are worried the disunity will make it harder to compete in a race they almost certainly have to win next year to regain Senate control.
“This is an issue that’s going to divide Democrats at a time when Democrats need to be working together on the issues that voters actually care about, the kitchen table issues,” said Kathy Manning, who chairs the Board of Directors for the advocacy group Democratic Majority for Israel.
Alan Smith, a lead sponsor of the resolution and a member of the state party’s progressive caucus, sees it differently. Passing the resolution, he argues, shows the party is responsive to the will of Democratic voters.
“I think it’s only going to help the Democratic Party. It’s going to get people to come back,” Smith said.
According to a May survey from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Democrats younger than 45 are far less likely than their older partisan peers to favor the US supporting Israel militarily, with only 38% saying they favor military support until the hostages are returned, compared with 48% support among older Democrats.
Disputes over the war have shaped other Democratic races, notably the New York mayoral primary, where Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and strident critic of Israel, scored an upset victory despite criticism from some Jewish groups that he hadn’t sufficiently denounced antisemitism.
And in Michigan, where Democrats hope to retain control of an open Senate seat next year, the main candidates in the primary have taken sharply different positions on the war. Trump flipped Michigan in 2024 in part by capitalizing on anger in both Jewish and Arab American communities.
How the resolution passed
Though other Democratic state parties, in Wisconsin and Washington, have recently passed resolutions critical of Israel since the country launched its war against Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, the language passed by North Carolina Democrats is the only example that explicitly calls for an embargo on military aid and weapons transfers and accuses the state of committing genocide and apartheid.
“The military resources that have been made available to Israel through annual and emergency military aid have been used to commit the crime of genocide and other war crimes in Gaza,” it reads.
“The North Carolina Democratic Party supports an immediate embargo on all military aid, weapons shipments and military logistical support to Israel,” it continues.
The resolution also won the support of NCDP’s African American Caucus, the Arab Caucus, the LGBTQ+ Caucus, the Association of Teen Democrats, the Jewish Democrats and various other groups within the state party.
Israel rejects claims that its war against Hamas, which killed 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 attack and still holds Israeli hostages, constitutes a genocide. It also rejects allegations that its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is akin to apartheid. Earlier this month the Gaza Health Ministry reported the Palestinian death toll had passed 58,000, with the most recent rounds of casualties taking place near food distribution sites.
Manning says Democratic Majority for Israel is in conversations with Democratic voters across the state and helping them to make their displeasure with the resolution known to state party leadership.
The resolution’s advocates worked over a multiyear process to get the statement passed, starting at the local precinct level, on to the county convention, then through the congressional district convention, the platform resolutions committee and ultimately the party’s state executive committee.
“We see it as an issue of unity and an issue that is local, because we want taxpayer dollars to be invested here, and we believe that speaking up for human lives, including Palestinian lives, is actually a local issue and is a reminder that when grassroots groups come together, that they can accomplish the things that they wish to see within their party,” said Reem Subei, chair of the party’s Arab Caucus.
Since the resolution’s passage, Subei says those engaged with their state-level executive committees have reached out to her asking how they could mirror this effort, including organizers in Texas, Oklahoma and Minnesota.
Lisa Jewel, president of the state Democratic party’s Jewish Caucus, condemned the resolution as divisive and leaned on leadership to block the effort.
“Our leadership needs to call these extremists out. They need to take a strong stand against antisemitism. By placating these extremists, it helps raise the drum beat that leads to violence,” said Jewel, arguing that state Democrats should be focused on cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, women’s reproductive health, the cost of housing, gerrymandering, and other consensus-driven issues. She also voiced fear in the wake of threats against her own synagogue.
The Jewish Caucus was created last year in response to what Jewel described as growing antisemitism in the Democratic party and across North Carolina. This is not to be confused with the state party’s Jewish Democrats, a separate group that supported the resolution.
For a long time, party leadership resisted religious groups creating their own caucuses and wanted the groups to all fall within the Interfaith Caucus out of fear of these very types of disputes, but Jewel says some Jews did not feel welcome in the interfaith group and insisted they would go out on their own.
“It is not feasible for us to disconnect our Judaism from Israel, regardless of the politics that are happening there. It’s just part of who we are,” said Jewel.
Mark Bochkis, who leads communications for the Jewish Democrats, said he moved to Greensboro as a child from the former Soviet Union and that his extended family lives in Israel.
“We have to take a look at what wins statewide, and we cannot ignore the will of Democratic voters or their values. And their values right now are saying we care about Palestinian human rights,” Bochkis said.
“This is the new North Carolina Democratic Party. This is the way forward. I think the Jewish Caucus represents kind of a view that we’re moving past,” he added.
The next flashpoint will be if or when the resolution is ultimately adopted into the party platform. Its supporters believe they have cleared all the necessary procedural hurdles and that it will eventually be a part of the party’s mission statement, but its opponents argue party leadership can still block that from happening. The timeline for when the platform will be voted on is unclear.
Many state party leaders have stayed silent
There is no readily available record of who supported the measure and no video or even mention of the proceeding on the state Democratic Party’s website, though proponents of the resolution say it passed 161-151.
According to people who attended the vote, party chair Anderson Clayton and other party officers abstained. Clayton has not commented publicly in local press in the weeks since the resolution passed and declined to speak to CNN.
Gov. Josh Stein, the state’s first Jewish governor, and his predecessor, Roy Cooper, who many state and national Democrats are pushing to run for Tillis’ open Senate seat, also declined requests for comment. An adviser to Cooper told CNN that he generally does not opine on party resolutions.
Former US Rep. Wiley Nickel, who is already running for Tillis’ seat, dismissed the resolution as one-sided but also criticized the Trump administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“In an issue as complex as this, nuance is essential, and that’s something politics often overlooks. You can look at my record and see I’m a staunch supporter of Israel as a key U.S. ally, but I also care deeply about the suffering of innocent civilians in Gaza. The current approach by Trump and Netanyahu is not leading us toward peace or a two-state solution. Instead, their policies are fueling division and perpetuating violence, making a two-state solution seem more out of reach than ever,” said Nickel in a statement to CNN.
And Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee who could also mount a Senate run, reaffirmed his commitment to Israel as an ally of the United States.
“I believe that providing support to our allies, including Israel, is essential in our commitment to countering the threats posed by the Iranian regime and its associated terrorist proxies,” said Davis in a statement to CNN.
Source: CNN