Wednesday briefing: Facing the reality of Gaza’s ‘unfolding’ famine

<p>In today’s newsletter: As Keir Starmer announces caveated plans to recognise the Palestinian state, and UN-backed experts say the ‘worst-case scenario’ is under way, is opening the borders to allow aid in the only hope?</p><p></p><p>Good morning. Humanitarians are running out of words to describe the horrors taking place in Gaza. The small strip of land has been brutalised, with all institutions that sustain life – from hospitals to schools – either completely destroyed or barely functioning. Now, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warns that “the worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding in the Gaza Strip.”</p><p>Thousands of children are malnourished and hunger-related deaths on the rise, particularly among the youngest. It is worth noting this is not a formal designation of famine in Gaza, and formal designations are incredibly rare and have only taken place a handful of times in the 21st century: in Somalia in 2011, in South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and in Sudan in 2024.</p><p><em><strong>Asia-Pacific</strong></em><strong> </strong>| A powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake has triggered a series of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/30/tsunami-warning-watch-alert-japan-guam-pacific-russia-earthquake">tsunami warnings and evacuation</a> orders across Japan, the US and parts of the Pacific, after the shallow quake hit near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.</p><p><em><strong>Israel-Gaza war</strong></em> | A group of high-profile Israeli public figures, including academics, artists and public intellectuals, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/29/letter-sanctions-israel-gaza-starvation">called for “crippling sanctions”</a> to be imposed by the international community on Israel, amid mounting horror over its starvation of Gaza.</p><p><em><strong>Labour</strong></em> | Jeremy Corbyn <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/29/labour-appeasing-reform-not-beating-them-jeremy-corbyn">has accused the Labour government</a> of “appeasing” Reform UK by “scapegoating” migrants and minorities for its own domestic policy failures, saying his new leftwing political party would take on Nigel Farage instead.</p><p><em><strong>Economy</strong></em> | Global growth will be stronger than previously expected this year after Donald Trump scaled back his most extreme tariff threats, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/29/imf-global-growth-forecast-trump-tariffs-eu-trade-us">the International Monetary Fund said</a> as it upgraded the economic outlook for 2025.</p><p><em><strong>UK news</strong></em> | Five women who were abused as children by Rotherham grooming gangs were also raped by police officers when they were as young as 12 years old, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/29/five-survivors-rotherham-grooming-gangs-claim-rape-police">they have claimed</a>.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/30/wednesday-briefing-facing-the-reality-of-gazas-unfolding-famine">Continue reading...</a>