Attention on Gaza

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The suffering of Palestinians in Gaza has reached a turning point, around the world and even within Israel.

In the past week, public outrage has soared over scenes of children starving and people scuffling for bags of flour — and finally tipped over into the political mainstream.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking next to US President Donald Trump yesterday, said Britons were "revolted by what they're seeing." Chancellor Friedrich Merz of germany, where governments see a responsibility to Israel's security borne of the Holocaust, called the situation "catastrophic."

One anchor on Channel 12, the main TV station, suggested that Israel had experienced a "moral failure" and wasn't simply suffering from bad PR.

Palestinians carry aid supplies in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on Sunday. Photographer: Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg

Trump, asked whether he agreed with Benjamin Netanyahu's assertion that there's "no starvation" in Gaza, flatly contradicted the Israeli premier. "That's real starvation," he said.

There's a shift among Israelis, too, away from a robust embrace of the war against Hamas since it triggered the conflict with its savage attack in October 2023, and from a general reluctance to accept their country bears any responsibility for the plight of Palestinian civilians.

France and Saudi Arabia are hosting a summit this week aimed at getting more countries to recognize Palestinian statehood.

Netanyahu's government has responded by pausing military operations in some populated areas during the day and opening more routes into Gaza for aid trucks. Governments won't be satisfied until there's substantive progress.

Most significantly, there's little sign the war, almost two years old, will end anytime soon. Ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas broke down again last week, with Trump and Israel blaming Hamas' intransigence. The group is still holding 50 hostages, around 20 of them thought by Israel to be alive.

For all the moral outrage summoned by politicians, until Hamas releases them and agrees to disarm — another condition of the Netanyahu government to end the war — there will probably be no lasting respite for Palestinian civilians. — Paul Wallace

Children wave Palestinian flags on a wrecked car in Jabalia, Gaza. Photographer: Ferial Abdu/Getty Images

Global Must Reads

US and Chinese officials are expected to resume a second day of talks today aimed at extending their tariff truce beyond a mid-August deadline and hashing out ways to maintain trade ties while safeguarding economic security. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said a 90-day extension was a likely outcome of the negotiations in Sweden, while Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te appeared to call off a trip planned for next week after the Trump administration failed to greenlight his stopover in the US on concerns it could derail the discussions with China.

The European Union dodged an imminent trade war with the US this week, but markets and a growing chorus of critics have dispelled early hopes that the deal will bring a sense of stability back to transatlantic relations. Capitals in the bloc defended the pact that will see the EU accept a 15% tariff on most of its exports to the US while reducing levies on some American products to zero.

The Kremlin said it "took note" of Trump's decision to sharply curtail a deadline for Vladimir Putin to halt his war in Ukraine, though offered no sign the Russian president is likely to change course. While maintaining relations with Trump is important for the Russian president, Putin "has no desire to stop, and even more so under pressure," Moscow-based political analyst Andrei Kolesnikov said.

WATCH: Adam Blenford reports on the new deadline on Bloomberg TV.

Japan's ruling party will likely debate the fate of beleaguered Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at a gathering in the next few days amid rising calls for a leadership change. Some Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers yesterday stepped up their push for him to resign to take responsibility for the LDP's election setback on July 20.

Cambodia contradicted a claim by Thailand's army that its troops violated an unconditional ceasefire that had halted five days of border clashes. They reached a truce during talks yesterday hosted by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim following a threat from Trump that Washington would not make trade deals with either as long as the fighting continued.

A bomb shelter in Surin province, Thailand, on July 25. Photographer: Valeria Mongelli/Anadolu/Getty Images

At least three people were reported killed and more than 100 arrested in unrest during a taxi strike in Angola to protest a surge in fuel costs, with banks and shops closing their doors as the shutdown entered a second day.

Former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez became the first Colombian ex-head of state to be convicted of a crime, a landmark decision expected to reverberate through the South American country's political system less than a year before presidential elections.

Trump asked a judge to order Rupert Murdoch to sit for a deposition within 15 days in the president's $10 billion libel lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over a story saying he'd once sent a suggestive birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein.

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Chart of the Day

India has overtaken China to become the top source of smartphones sold in the US after Apple shifted to assemble more of its iPhones in the South Asian country. The volume of made-in-India devices more than tripled in the past quarter from a year earlier, while China fell from having more than 60% of all estimated shipments a year ago.

And Finally

The world's largest commercial passenger jet enjoyed an unexpected resurgence when global travel rebounded after the Covid-19 pandemic. But keeping the aging Airbus A380 safely airborne is becoming an increasingly expensive headache for carriers, with regulatory bulletins that order repairs, inspections or replacement parts for the massive four-engine superjumbo piling up. While some are procedural, such as a demand for timely equipment checks, others are more serious.