Israeli strikes kill at least 42 in Gaza as ceasefire talks set to resume in Qatar

Update Israeli strikes kill at least 42 in Gaza as ceasefire talks set to resume in Qatar
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Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Al Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Friday. (Reuters)
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Updated 03 January 2025
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Israeli strikes kill at least 42 in Gaza as ceasefire talks set to resume in Qatar

Israeli strikes kill at least 42 in Gaza as ceasefire talks set to resume in Qatar
  • Israel said missiles were fired into the country from Yemen, which set off air raid sirens in Jerusalem and central Israel and sent people scrambling to shelters
  • Hospital staff say at least 30 people, including children, were killed in Gaza by Israeli strikes overnight and Friday morning

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people in Gaza, including children, overnight and into Friday, hospital and emergency response workers said, as health workers and Israel’s military traded claims over reported evacuation orders for two hospitals in the territory’s largely isolated north.

The assertions over Al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals occurred as stalled ceasefire talks to end nearly 15 months of war were set to resume in Qatar.

Staff at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said that more than a dozen women and children were killed in strikes in central Gaza, including in Nuseirat, Zawaida, Maghazi and Deir Al-Balah. Dozens of people were killed across the enclave the previous day.

“We woke up to the missile strike. We found the whole house disintegrated,” Abdul Rahman Al-Nabrisi said in the Maghazi refugee camp.




An Israeli strike hits Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Friday. (Reuters)

Later Friday, officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said that an airstrike killed three people in a car in Zawaida in central Gaza. And the Civil Defense, first responders affiliated with the Hamas-run government, said that an airstrike killed seven people, including four children and a woman, in the Shijaiyah neighborhood outside Gaza City, and another strike killed two people at Al-Samer junction in Gaza City.

The Israeli army said in a statement that during the past day it had struck dozens of Hamas gathering points and command centers throughout Gaza. And it warned people to leave an area of central Gaza, saying that it would attack following launches toward Israel. The military said that a few projectiles entered from central and northern Gaza, with no injuries reported.

Freelance journalist Omar Al-Derawi was among those killed Friday. A press vest was placed on his shroud. The Committee to Protect Journalists said last month that more than 130 Palestinian reporters have been killed in the war.

Israelis also woke up to attacks. Israel said that missiles were fired from Yemen, setting off air raid sirens in Jerusalem and central Israel and sending people scrambling to shelters. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen often claim responsibility.

 



While the UN Security Council met Friday to discuss the war’s effects on hospitals in Gaza, a hospital in the north, Al-Awda, said in a statement that Israel’s military had told staff and patients to immediately evacuate. It didn’t give details.

And a nurse at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza told The Associated Press they had received orders to evacuate. Speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly, the nurse said that they were still there with 19 people, including eight patients, and staffers had asked for ambulances.

Israel’s military said that it wasn’t “operating to evacuate” Al-Awda or Indonesian hospitals.

“Messages were sent to reiterate to officials in the health authorities that there is no need to evacuate the hospital,” it said of Indonesian.

Neither side’s statements could be immediately verified. The Israeli military heavily restricts the movements of Palestinians in Gaza and has barred foreign journalists from entering the territory throughout the war, making it difficult to verify information.

The war’s effect on hospitals has been a contentious issue as the health system has been largely devastated. Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of operating out of hospitals and said that the military tries to protect the facilities. The military has carried out raids on several hospitals, including Al-Awda and Indonesian, during the war.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk told the Security Council on Friday that a recent report by his office documented “at least 136 strikes on at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities in Gaza, which caused significant death and injury among doctors, nurses, medical staff and other civilians and damaged or destroyed many of the buildings targeted.” He said both sides must protect the facilities.

Indirect ceasefire negotiations were expected to resume Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said that he authorized a delegation from the Mossad intelligence agency, the Shin Bet internal security agency and the military to continue negotiations in Qatar.

The US-led talks have repeatedly stalled. Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed. But the militants, while greatly weakened, have repeatedly regrouped, often after Israeli forces withdraw from areas.

The war was sparked by Hamas-led militants’ attack into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive in retaliation has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which says women and children make up more than half the dead. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.

Israel’s military says it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in dense residential areas. The army says it has killed 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced about 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, many of them multiple times. Winter has now arrived, and hundreds of thousands are sheltering in tents near the sea.


Francesca Albanese, UN investigator and critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, shocked by US sanctions

Francesca Albanese, UN investigator and critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, shocked by US sanctions
Updated 4 sec ago
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Francesca Albanese, UN investigator and critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, shocked by US sanctions

Francesca Albanese, UN investigator and critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, shocked by US sanctions
  • Francesca Albanese: The powerful are trying to silence me for defending those without any power of their own
  • Albanese accuses US officials of receiving Israeli leader with honor and standing side-by-side with someone facing an arrest warrant
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina: An independent UN investigator and outspoken critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza said Thursday that “it was shocking” to learn that the Trump administration had imposed sanctions on her but defiantly stood by her view on the war.
Francesca Albanese said in an interview with The Associated Press that the powerful were trying to silence her for defending those without any power of their own, “other than standing and hoping not to die, not to see their children slaughtered.”
“This is not a sign of power, it’s a sign of guilt,” the Italian human rights lawyer said.
The State Department’s decision to impose sanctions on Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, followed an unsuccessful US pressure campaign to force the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, the UN’s top human rights body, to remove her from her post.
She is tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories and has been vocal about what she has described as the “genocide” by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. Both Israel and the US have strongly denied that accusation.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on social media. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
The US announced the sanctions Wednesday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting Washington to meet with President Donald Trump and other officials about reaching a ceasefire deal in the war in Gaza. Netanyahu faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, which accuses him of crimes against humanity in his military offensive in Gaza.
In the interview, Albanese accused American officials of receiving Netanyahu with honor and standing side-by-side with someone wanted by the ICC, a court that neither the US nor Israel is a member of or recognizes. Trump imposed sanctions on the court in February.
“We need to reverse the tide, and in order for it to happen – we need to stand united,” she said. “They cannot silence us all. They cannot kill us all. They cannot fire us all.”
Albanese stressed that the only way to win is to get rid of fear and to stand up for the Palestinians and their right to an independent state.
The Trump administration’s stand “is not normal,” she said at the Sarajevo airport. She also defiantly repeated, “No one is free until Palestine is free.”
Albanese was en route to Friday’s 30th anniversary commemoration of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica where more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in a UN-protected safe zone were killed when it was overrun by Bosnian Serbs.
The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and the Center for Constitutional Rights opposed the US move.
“The imposition of sanctions on special rapporteurs is a dangerous precedent” and “is unacceptable,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
While Albanese reports to the Human Rights Council – not Secretary-General Antonio Guterres – the US and any other UN member are entitled to disagree with reports by the independent rapporteurs, “but we encourage them to engage with the UN human rights architecture.”
Trump announced the US was withdrawing from the council in February.
The war between Israel and Hamas began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people captive. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead but does not specify how many were fighters or civilians.
Nearly 21 months into the conflict that displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, the UN says hunger is rampant after a lengthy Israeli blockade on food entering the territory and medical care is extremely limited.

ICC warns of worsening atrocities in Darfur, cites evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity

ICC warns of worsening atrocities in Darfur, cites evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity
Updated 45 min 39 sec ago
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ICC warns of worsening atrocities in Darfur, cites evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity

ICC warns of worsening atrocities in Darfur, cites evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity
  • Court’s deputy prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, tells UN Security Council the humanitarian situation in the region has reached an ‘intolerable’ level
  • ‘People are being deprived of food and water. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponized. Abductions have become common practice,” she says

NEW YORK CITY: The International Criminal Court has “reasonable grounds to believe” that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed in Darfur, its deputy prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, told the UN Security Council on Thursday.

The humanitarian situation in the region has reached an “intolerable” level, he warned.

Speaking in New York, Khan described an escalating crisis marked by widespread famine, targeted attacks on hospitals and aid convoys, and sexual violence.

“People are being deprived of food and water,” she said. “Rape and sexual violence are being weaponized. Abductions have become common practice. Things can still get worse.”

Her comments came amid escalating violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, where the Rapid Support Forces, one of two main rival military factions in the country, and allied groups have been accused of targeting civilians at displacement camps such as Zamzam and Abu Shouk, and during attacks on the regional capital, Al-Fashir.

Khan said the findings of the ICC were based on extensive evidence gathered from various sources over the past six months, including field missions to refugee camps in Chad, and cooperation with civil society organizations and UN fact-finding agencies.

“We have collected over 7,000 evidence items, documentary, testimonial and digital, supporting our conclusion,” she added.

Highlighting gender-based crimes as a key focus of the investigations, Khan detailed ongoing efforts to increase the visibility of such violations, which remain “underreported and insufficiently recognized.”

A dedicated team is working with Darfuri women and girls to gather testimonies of sexual violence, she said, adding: “There is an inescapable pattern of offending targeting gender and ethnicity through rape and sexual violence. These crimes are being given particular priority.”

There were signs of growing cooperation with the court from the Sudanese government, including a recent visit to Port Sudan that allowed investigators to identify potential new witnesses, Khan said, and a second visit is planned in the near future.

But she urged Sudanese authorities to take bolder steps, particularly in the execution of ICC warrants for the arrest of senior officials, including the former president, Omar Bashir, as well as Ahmad Harun and Abdul Raheem Mohammed Hussein, former officials wanted by the ICC over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Darfur conflict of the early 2000s.

“Transferring Mr. Harun now would carry exceptional weight,” Khan said. She noted that the charges against him closely resemble those at the heart of another ongoing case, against Ali Mohammed Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, a former Janjaweed militia leader accused by the ICC of orchestrating war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Darfur conflict. A verdict in that case is expected this year.

Khan urged the Security Council and the wider international community to act collectively to address the crisis and break what she described as a “seemingly never-ending cycle of violence fueled by impunity.”

She added: “Every single state here is appalled by what is happening in Darfur. Let us take our report as a blueprint. With your support, we can not only deliver justice but prevent this cycle of violence.”

Despite mounting challenges, including limited resources and obstruction on the ground, Khan said the ICC remains determined to pursue accountability in Darfur.

“We need your support now more than ever before,” she said. Though the ICC’s progress is “never sufficient, relative to the scale of the suffering,” if it can be reinforced through international support, “justice delivered collectively can reduce suffering and lay foundations for peace,” Khan added.

“If we can come together, if we can agree that such suffering needs the support of all those who are able to provide it, I believe the present crisis can ultimately demonstrate how justice delivered collectively can set the foundations for the reduction of suffering and the beginning of work towards peace.”


Palestinians in Gaza pay high price to get hold of scarce cash

Palestinians in Gaza pay high price to get hold of scarce cash
Updated 11 July 2025
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Palestinians in Gaza pay high price to get hold of scarce cash

Palestinians in Gaza pay high price to get hold of scarce cash
  • People reliant on an unrestrained network of powerful cash brokers to get money for daily expenses
  • To curtail Hamas’ ability to purchase weapons and pay its fighters, Israel stopped allowing cash to enter Gaza

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Cash is the lifeblood of the Gaza Strip’s shattered economy, and like all other necessities in this war-torn territory – food, fuel, medicine – it is in extremely short supply.

With nearly every bank branch and ATM inoperable, people have become reliant on an unrestrained network of powerful cash brokers to get money for daily expenses – and commissions on those transactions have soared to about 40 percent.

“The people are crying blood because of this,” said Ayman Al-Dahdouh, a school director living in Gaza City. “It’s suffocating us, starving us.”

At a time of surging inflation, high unemployment and dwindling savings, the scarcity of cash has magnified the financial squeeze on families – some of whom have begun to sell their possessions to buy essential goods.

The cash that is available has even lost some of its luster. Palestinians use the Israeli currency, the shekel, for most transactions. Yet with Israel no longer resupplying the territory with newly printed bank notes, merchants are increasingly reluctant to accept frayed bills.

Gaza’s punishing cash crunch has several root causes, experts say.

To curtail Hamas’ ability to purchase weapons and pay its fighters, Israel stopped allowing cash to enter Gaza at the start of the war. Around the same time, many wealthy families in Gaza withdrew their money from banks and then fled the territory. And rising fears about Gaza’s financial system prompted foreign businesses selling goods into the territory to demand cash payments.

As Gaza’s money supply dwindled and civilians’ desperation mounted, cash brokers’ commissions – around 5 percent at the start of the war – skyrocketed.

Someone needing cash transfers money electronically to a broker and moments later is handed a fraction of that amount in bills. Many brokers openly advertise their services, while others are more secretive. Some grocers and retailers have also begun exchanging cash for their customers.

“If I need $60, I need to transfer $100,” said Mohammed Basheer Al-Farra, who lives in southern Gaza after being displaced from Khan Younis. “This is the only way we can buy essentials, like flour and sugar. We lose nearly half of our money just to be able to spend it.”

In 2024, inflation in Gaza surged by 230 percent, according to the World Bank. It dropped slightly during the ceasefire that began in January, only to shoot up again after Israel backed out of the truce in March.

Cash touches every aspect of life in Gaza

About 80 percent of people in Gaza were unemployed at the end of 2024, according to the World Bank, and the figure is likely higher now. Those with jobs are mostly paid by direct deposits into their bank accounts.

But “when you want to buy vegetables, food, water, medication – if you want to take transportation, or you need a blanket, or anything – you must use cash,” Al-Dahdouh said.

Shahid Ajjour’s family has been living off of savings for two years after the pharmacy and another business they owned were ruined by the war.

“We had to sell everything just to get cash,” said Ajjour, who sold her gold to buy flour and canned beans. The family of eight spends the equivalent of $12 every two days on flour; before the war, that cost less than $4.

Sugar is very expensive, costing the equivalent of $80-$100 per kilogram (2.2 pounds), multiple people said; before the war, that cost less than $2.

Gasoline is about $25 a liter, or roughly $95 a gallon, when paying the lower, cash price.

Bills are worn and unusable

The bills in Gaza are tattered after 21 months of war.

Money is so fragile, it feels as if it is going to melt in your hands, said Mohammed Al-Awini, who lives in a tent camp in southern Gaza.

Small business owners said they were under pressure to ask customers for undamaged cash because their suppliers demand pristine bills from them.

Thaeir Suhwayl, a flour merchant in Deir Al-Balah, said his suppliers recently demanded he pay them only with brand new 200-shekel ($60) bank notes, which he said are rare. Most civilians pay him with 20-shekel ($6) notes that are often in poor condition.

On a recent visit to the market, Ajjour transferred the shekel equivalent of around $100 to a cash broker and received around $50 in return. But when she tried to buy some household supplies from a merchant, she was turned away because the bills weren’t in good condition.

“So the worth of your $50 is zero in the end,” she said.

This problem has given rise to a new business in Gaza: money repair. It costs between 3 and 10 shekels ($1-$3) to mend old bank notes. But even cash repaired with tape or other means is sometimes rejected.

People are at the mercy of cash brokers

After most of the banks closed in the early days of the war, those with large reserves of cash suddenly had immense power.

“People are at their mercy,” said Mahmoud Aqel, who has been displaced from his home in southern Gaza. “No one can stop them.”

The war makes it impossible to regulate market prices and exchange rates, said Dalia Alazzeh, an expert in finance and accounting at the University of the West of Scotland. “Nobody can physically monitor what’s happening,” Alazzeh said.

A year ago, the Palestine Monetary Authority, the equivalent of a central bank for Gaza and the West Bank, sought to ease the crisis by introducing a digital payment system known as Iburaq. It attracted half a million users, or a quarter of the population, according to the World Bank, but was ultimately undermined by merchants insisting on cash.

Israel sought to ramp up financial pressure on Hamas earlier this year by tightening the distribution of humanitarian aid, which it said was routinely siphoned off by militants and then resold.

Experts said it is unclear if the cash brokers’ activities benefit Hamas, as some Israeli analysts claim.

The war has made it more difficult to determine who is behind all sorts of economic activity in the territory, said Omar Shabaan, director of Palthink for Strategic Studies, a Gaza-based think tank.

“It’s a dark place now. You don’t know who is bringing cigarettes into Gaza,” he said, giving just one example. “It’s like a mafia.”

These same deep-pocketed traders are likely the ones running cash brokerages, and selling basic foodstuffs, he said. “They benefit by imposing these commissions,” he said.

Once families run out of cash, they are forced to turn to humanitarian aid.

Al-Farra said that is what prompted him to begin seeking food at an aid distribution center, where it is common for Palestinians to jostle over one other for sacks of flour and boxes of pasta.

“This is the only way I can feed my family,” he said.


Netanyahu sets out red lines for lasting end to war in Gaza

Netanyahu sets out red lines for lasting end to war in Gaza
Updated 11 July 2025
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Netanyahu sets out red lines for lasting end to war in Gaza

Netanyahu sets out red lines for lasting end to war in Gaza
  • Says Hamas fighters must first give up their weapons and their hold on the Palestinian territory
  • Failure to reach a deal on Israel’s terms would lead to further conflict, he said

JERUSALEM: Israel is ready to negotiate a lasting deal with Hamas to end the Gaza war when a temporary halt to hostilities begins, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

But Netanyahu said the militants must first give up their weapons and their hold on the Palestinian territory, warning that failure to reach a deal on Israel’s terms would lead to further conflict.

His comments as Gaza’s civil defense agency said eight children — killed as they queued for nutritional supplements outside a health clinic — were among 66 people who died in Israeli strikes across the territory Thursday.

The UN children’s agency said one victim was a one-year-old boy who according to his mother had uttered his first words only hours earlier.

Efforts to secure a 60-day halt in the 21-month war have dominated Netanyahu’s talks with US President Donald Trump in Washington.

Indirect negotiations have been taking place between the two sides in Qatar, and the militants have agreed to free 10 of the 20 hostages still alive in captivity since the October 7, 2023 attack which sparked the war.

Sticking points include Hamas’s demand for the free flow of aid into Gaza and Israel’s military withdrawal from the territory. It also wants “real guarantees” on a lasting peace, the group said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said “progress has been made” but admitted in an interview with Austrian newspaper Die Presse that ironing out “all complex issues” would likely take “a few more days.”

There was no agreement on the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange for hostages, he told the newspaper.

He said that “initially, eight hostages are to be released, followed by two more on the 50th day” of the 60-day ceasefire. “Additionally, 18 bodies of hostages are to be handed over,” he was quoted as saying.

Saar said a lasting ceasefire would be discussed but added: “There are still major differences, especially regarding the question of how Hamas will be prevented from controlling Gaza after the war.”

He said Israel was ready to grant Hamas leaders safe passage into exile.

‘Fundamental conditions’

Netanyahu, who is under domestic pressure to end the war as military casualties mount, said disarming and neutralizing Hamas were “fundamental conditions” for Israel.

“If this can be achieved through negotiations, great,” he said. “If it cannot be achieved through negotiations within 60 days, we will have to achieve it through other means, by using... the force of our heroic army.”

Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim told AFP that it would not accept “the perpetuation of the occupation of our land” or Palestinians being herded into “isolated enclaves” in the densely populated territory.

The group was particularly opposed to Israeli control over Rafah, on the border with Egypt, and the so-called Morag Corridor between the southern city and Khan Yunis, he added.

Israel announced this year that the army was seizing large areas of Gaza to be incorporated into buffer zones cleared of their inhabitants.

Naim said the group also wanted to end the delivery of aid by a US and Israel-backed group, a system which has seen scores of people killed while seeking food rations.

The Palestinian territory’s civil defense agency said eight children were among 17 people killed in an Israeli strike outside a medical clinic in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

“The ground shook beneath our feet and everything around us turned into blood and deafening screams,” said Yousef Al-Aydi, who was in the queue for nutritional supplements when he heard a drone approaching then a blast.

Rabih Torbay, the head of US medical charity Project Hope which runs the facility, called it “a blatant violation of humanitarian law.”

Israel’s military said it had struck a Hamas militant in the city who had infiltrated Israel during the 2023 attack and that it “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals.”

Overall, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 57,762 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the start of the conflict.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack led to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

A total of 251 hostages were seized in the attack. Forty-nine are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

 


British MPs demand full details of US consulting firm’s role in Gaza

British MPs demand full details of US consulting firm’s role in Gaza
Updated 10 July 2025
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British MPs demand full details of US consulting firm’s role in Gaza

British MPs demand full details of US consulting firm’s role in Gaza
  • Boston Consulting Group created models to estimate the costs of relocating Palestinians from the territory, and helped set up controversial Israeli-led aid operation
  • Head of the UK’s Business and Trade Committee writes to company’s CEO demanding information about all work related to the conflict in Gaza

LONDON: A parliamentary committee in the UK has demanded that a major US consulting firm provides full details of its activities related to Gaza, after it emerged the company helped set up a controversial Israeli-led aid operation.

Boston Consulting Group was also asked to provide details of the work it carried out on models to estimate the costs of a widely-condemned Israeli and US plan to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to other countries.

Liam Byrne, chairperson of the Business and Trade Committee, sent a letter requesting the information to BCG’s CEO, Christoph Schweizer, as part of the “scrutiny of the UK’s commercial, political and humanitarian links to the conflict.”

The Financial Times reported on July 4 that the consultancy had built a financial model for the reconstruction of Gaza, which included an estimate of the likely cost of the voluntary relocation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

It also said BCG had helped establish the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US and Israeli-backed aid-distribution program in the territory. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed trying to access humanitarian supplies at the foundation’s distribution sites since they started operating in May.

In a statement published on Wednesday, Schweizer said the lead partner involved in the work carried out by BCG had been “explicitly told not to do any work related to Gaza reconstruction.”

He added: “The project fell well outside our standards for work that we accept. But the ban was ignored, and the work was secretively conducted anyway.”

He said an internal investigation began in May, two of the partners involved were subsequently “exited” from the company and BCG did not receive any fees for the work.

Byrne, an MP from the UK’s ruling Labour Party, sent a number of questions for BCG to answer about its work on Gaza “in light of the high level of public and parliamentary concern.”

He wrote: “We are aware of recent reports regarding BCG’s engagement with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and associated modeling of the costs of relocating Palestinians from Gaza.”

He asked for a “detailed timeline” of BCG’s involvement with the foundation, the scope of its engagement, and the identities of the clients and partners involved. He requested details of other organizations, companies or individuals engaged by BCG in relation to the aid-distribution program, and more details about the type of the “unauthorized” work the company said was carried out.

Byrne also asked for more information about the work related to the development of models for the relocation of Palestinians from Gaza, including the identities of those who commissioned the work and whether any UK-based organizations were involved.

He gave BCG until July 22 to respond, “given the seriousness of these issues and the high level of public interest.”

Nearly 58,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023 during Israel’s war on Gaza, including more than 500 in recent weeks as they attempted to obtain food aid from Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution sites. The organization, which was set up to replace UN aid-distribution mechanisms, has been condemned by humanitarian chiefs for politicizing aid.

US and Israeli-backed proposals to relocate the Palestinian population of Gaza to other countries, which emerged at the start of the year, were widely condemned by governments in the region and beyond.