Deir al-Balah, Jul 23: More than 100 charity and human rights groups said Wednesday that Israel’s blockade and ongoing military offensive are pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip toward starvation, as Israeli strikes killed another 29 people overnight, according to local health officials.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, was set to meet with a senior Israeli official about ceasefire talks, a sign that lower-level negotiations that have dragged on for weeks could be approaching a breakthrough.

Experts say Gaza is at risk of famine because of Israel’s blockade and the offensive launched in response to Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack. The head of the World Health Organization said Gaza is “witnessing a deadly surge” in malnutrition and related diseases, and that a “large proportion” of its roughly 2 million people are starving.

Israel says it allows enough aid into the territory and faults delivery efforts by U.N. agencies, which say they are hindered by Israeli restrictions and the breakdown of security.

Hamas has said it will only release the remaining 50 hostages it holds, around 20 of them believed to be alive, in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. Israel has vowed to recover all the captives and continue the war until Hamas has been defeated or disarmed.

Chaos, starvation and death

In an open letter, 115 organizations, including major international aid groups such as Doctors Without Borders, Mercy Corps and Save the Children, said they were watching their own colleagues, as well as the Palestinians they serve, “waste away.”

The letter blamed Israeli restrictions and “massacres” at aid-distribution points. Witnesses, health officials and the U.N. human rights office say Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on crowds seeking aid, killing more than 1,000 people. Israel says its forces have only fired warning shots and that the death toll is exaggerated.

The Israeli government’s “restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death,” the letter said.

WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed that criticism, telling reporters that acute malnutrition centers in Gaza are full of patients and lack adequate supplies. He said rates of acute malnutrition exceed 10% and that among pregnant and breastfeeding women, more than 20% are malnourished, often severely.

The U.N. health agency’s representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, said there were more than 30,000 children under 5 with acute malnutrition in Gaza and that the WHO had reports that at least 21 children under 5 have died so far this year.

Israel says critics are ‘echoing Hamas’ propaganda

The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism in the open letter and accused the groups of “echoing Hamas’ propaganda.” It said it has allowed around 4,500 aid trucks into Gaza since lifting a complete blockade in May, and that more than 700 trucks are waiting to be picked up and distributed by the U.N.

That’s an average of around 70 trucks a day, the lowest rate of the war and far below the 500 to 600 trucks a day the U.N. says are needed, and which entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year.

The U.N. says it has struggled to deliver aid inside Gaza because of Israeli military restrictions, ongoing fighting and a breakdown of law and order. An alternative system established by Israel and an American contractor has been marred by violence and controversy.

Top adviser to Netanyahu will meet US envoy in Rome

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Witkoff was headed to Europe to meet with key leaders from the Middle East to discuss the latest ceasefire proposal and release of hostages.

“We want this ceasefire to happen as soon as possible, and we want these hostages to be released,” Leavitt said.

An official familiar with the negotiations said Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was traveling to Rome to meet Witkoff on Thursday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

The evolving deal is expected to include a 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up, and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting truce.

Overnight strikes kill at least 29

Israel has continued to carry out waves of daily airstrikes against what it says are militant targets but which often kill women and children. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas.

One of the overnight strikes hit a house in Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties. The dead included six children and two women, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Israeli military said it struck an Islamic Jihad militant, and that the incident was under review because of reports of civilian casualties.

Shifa said another strike late Tuesday in Gaza City killed three children.

A strike on an apartment in northern Gaza killed at least six people. Among the dead were three children and two women, including one who was pregnant, the ministry said. The military said it struck a Hamas operative.

In central Gaza, a strike in a densely populated part of the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp killed eight people and wounded 57, according to Awda Hospital, which received the casualties.

Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people in the October 7 attack and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

More than 59,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says that more than half of the dead are women and children. The U.N. and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.

Washington, July 23: US automakers are concerned about President Donald Trump’s agreement to tariff Japanese vehicles at 15%, saying they will face steeper import taxes on steel, aluminum and parts than their competitors.

“We need to review all the details of the agreement, but this is a deal that will charge lower tariffs on Japanese autos with no US content,” said Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council, which represents the Big 3 American automakers, General Motors, Ford and Jeep-maker Stellantis.

Blunt said in an interview the US companies and workers “definitely are at a disadvantage” because they face a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum and a 25% tariff on parts and finished vehicles, with some exceptions for products covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that went into effect in 2020.

The domestic automaker reaction reveals the challenge of enforcing policies across the world economy, showing that for all of Trump’s promises there can be genuine tradeoffs from policy choices that risk serious blowback in politically important states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, where automaking is both a source of income and of identity.

Trump portrayed the trade framework as a major win after announcing it on Tuesday, saying it would add hundreds of thousands of jobs to the US economy and open the Japanese economy in ways that could close a persistent trade imbalance.

The agreement includes a 15% tariff that replaces the 25% import tax the Republican president had threatened to charge starting on Aug 1. Japan would also put together $550 billion to invest in US projects, the White House said.

The framework with Japan will remove regulations that prevent American vehicles from being sold in that country, the White House has said, adding that it would be possible for vehicles built in Detroit to be shipped directly to Japan and ready to be sold.

But Blunt said that foreign auto producers, including the US, Europe and South Korea, have just a 6% share in Japan, raising scepticism that simply having the open market that the Trump administration says will exist in that country will be sufficient.

“Tough nut to crack, and I’d be very surprised if we see any meaningful market penetration in Japan,” Blunt said.

Major Japanese automakers Toyota, Honda and Nissan did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the trade framework, nor did Autos Drive America or the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, organisations that also represent the industry.

There is the possibility that the Japanese framework would give automakers and other countries grounds for pushing for changes in the Trump administration’s tariffs regime.

The president has previously said that flexibility in import tax negotiations is something he values. The USMCA is up for review next year.

Ford, GM and Stellantis do “have every right to be upset,” said Sam Fiorani, vice president at consultancy AutoForecast Solutions.

But “Honda, Toyota, and Nissan still import vehicles from Mexico and Canada, where the current levels of tariffs can be higher than those applied to Japanese imports. Most of the high-volume models from Japanese brands are already produced in North America.”

Fiorani noted that among the few exceptions are the Toyota 4Runner, the Mazda CX-5 and the Subaru Forester, but most of the other imports fill niches that are too small to warrant production in the US.

“There will be negotiations between the US and Canada and Mexico, and it will probably result in tariffs no higher than 15%,” Fiorani added, “but nobody seems to be in a hurry to negotiate around the last Trump administration’s free trade agreement.”