Israel-Gaza war: ‘Highly likely’ hostages held by Hamas include Britons, says Defence Secretary Grant Shapps
Britons are “highly likely” to be among those held by Hamas in Gaza, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has told Sky News.
The cabinet minister revealed the UK had also sent additional intelligence personnel to the region as part of efforts to release those captured or assist citizens trapped in the besieged enclave.
His comments came just before Hamas claimed Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip had killed 13 hostages, including foreigners, held by the group.
The UK is sending RAF aircraft and Royal Navy ships to the eastern Mediterranean to support Israel and “send a signal” to the wider region in the wake of the surprise attack by militants on Saturday, which has unleashed a conflict that has already claimed at least 2,700 lives.
Pressed over whether UK citizens were among those kidnapped by insurgents and held in Gaza, Mr Shapps said: “It seems very likely that there are. We don’t have exact data on that for obvious reasons.
“But within Gaza, there will also be Brits, or possibly people with dual nationalities as well.
“The prime minister has spoken to the Egyptian president about using that border to get people out.
“The situation is far from clear.
“It’s one of the reasons, as I mentioned before, we’ve sent additional personnel, intelligence personnel, in order to assist with exactly those types of operations.”
Mr Shapps added: “It is highly likely – no one will know for sure – that there are… either British nationals or people with a joint nationality involved in the hostage situation that has been reported previously.”
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Gaza hospitals ‘risk turning into morgues’
Shapps defends ‘substantial’ UK support
To date, at least 1,300 Israelis have died while 1,417 Palestinians, including 447 children, have been killed in retaliatory strikes in Gaza – where electricity, water and fuel have been cut off.
The Foreign Office said flights have been organised to get British nationals out of Israel, with the first plane for “vulnerable” people expected to depart today.
The military force being deployed by the UK to the region includes P8 surveillance aircraft, two Royal Navy ships – Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) vessels Lyme Bay and Argus – three Merlin helicopters and a company of Royal Marines.
Critics have highlighted the UK force will be a token gesture compared to the support provided by the US.
But Mr Shapps said: “We do in fact have warships in the region if we needed to, but we don’t want to escalate the situation.
“What we want to do is assist and by working with our friends and allies.
“That is exactly what this is intended to do.
“We are also… thickening or bolstering our intelligence gathering with people on the ground throughout the region as well.
“So our input is actually quite substantial and working in hand-in-glove with our allies and particularly the Americans in this case.”
He went on: “It’s intelligence, surveillance and really a signal to the wider region and perhaps those actors who might now try to exploit this terrorist, Hamas situation.”
Read more on this story:
Why Israel is braced for Hezbollah attack
How negotiators will be working to free Hamas hostages
Gaza ground offensive will be ‘high-risk’ for Israel
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Sky News visits site of music festival massacre
‘Israel is doing all it can to warn people’
Mr Shapps also insisted Israel had the right to defend itself when questioned over the evacuation order for more than a million Palestinians to move to the south of Gaza in the next 24 hours, in the face of a possible ground offensive.
He said: “Israel, unlike Hamas – who again, and I saw this at NATO where we had a full briefing on what happened, including seeing some very distressing video of Hamas beheading people, murdering people, showing off the bodies and dragging them through the street, raping people – unlike that terrorist organisation, Israel is doing all it can to provide advance notice and warning in order that they can go after those terrorists who carried out those actions, and by the way have taken hostages as well.
“Hamas can bring all of this to an end, they can release the hostages, they can recognise not just Israel, [but also] remove from their founding charter the principle of eradicating all Jews from the Earth.”
He added: “Israel on the other hand has the perfect right to defend itself. It is doing that in a manner which is giving people warning in advance when they are going to go after areas.”
At home, the government also announced it would provide an extra £3m in funding to bolster security at Jewish schools following reports some had been forced to close over fears of the safety of pupils.
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25% of young children and pregnant women malnourished in Gaza, charity says, as PM vows to fly critical medical cases to UK
A charity has warned 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are now malnourished, with Sir Keir Starmer vowing to evacuate children who need “critical medical assistance” to the UK.
MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said Israel’s “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon” has reached unprecedented levels – with patients and healthcare workers both fighting to survive.
It claimed that, at one of its clinics in Gaza City, rates of severe malnutrition in children under five have trebled over the past two weeks – and described the lack of food and water on the ground as “unconscionable”.
Pic: Reuters
The charity also criticised the high number of fatalities seen at aid distribution sites, with one British surgeon accusing IDF soldiers of shooting civilians “almost like a game of target practice”.
MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Gaza, Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, said: “Those who go to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distributions know that they have the same chance of receiving a sack of flour as they do of leaving with a bullet in their head.”
The UN also estimates that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food – the majority near the militarised distribution sites of the US-backed aid distribution scheme run by the GHF.
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‘Many more deaths unless Israelis allow food in’
In a statement on Friday, the IDF had said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians”, and reports of incidents at aid distribution sites were “under examination”.
The GHF has also previously disputed that these deaths were connected with its organisation’s operations, with director Johnnie Moore telling Sky News: “We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”
Israel says it has let enough food into Gaza and has accused the UN of failing to distribute it, in what the foreign ministry has labelled as “a deliberate ploy” to defame the country.
‘Humanitarian catastrophe must end’
In a video message posted on X late last night, Sir Keir Starmer condemned the scenes in Gaza as “appalling” and “unrelenting” – and said “the images of starvation and desperation are utterly horrifying”.
The prime minister added: “The denial of aid to children and babies is completely unjustifiable, just as the continued captivity of hostages is completely unjustifiable.
“Hundreds of civilians have been killed while seeking aid – children, killed, whilst collecting water. It is a humanitarian catastrophe, and it must end.”
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Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
Sir Keir confirmed that the British government is now “accelerating efforts” to evacuate children from Gaza who need critical medical assistance, so they can be brought to the UK for specialist treatment.
Israel has now said that foreign countries will be able to airdrop aid into Gaza. While the PM says the UK will now “do everything we can” to get supplies in via this route, he said this decision has come “far too late”.
Read more:
WHO: Gaza faces ‘manmade’ starvation
UN: People in Gaza ‘walking corpses’
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Last year, the RAF dropped aid into Gaza, but humanitarian organisations warned it wasn’t enough and was potentially dangerous. In March 2024, five people were killed when an aid parachute failed and supplies fell on them.
For now, Sir Keir has rejected calls to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and recognise a Palestinian state – despite more than 220 MPs signing a cross-party letter to demand he takes this step.
The prime minister is instead demanding a ceasefire and “lasting peace” – and says he will only consider an independent state as part of a negotiated peace deal.
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‘Almost like a game of target practice’: British surgeon says IDF shooting Gazans at aid points
A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told Sky News that there is “profound malnutrition” among the population – and claims IDF soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “like a game of target practice”.
Dr Nick Maynard spent four weeks working inside Nasser Hospital, where a lack of food has left medics struggling to treat children and toddlers.
The conditions inside the hospital, in the south of the Strip, have been documented in a Sky News report.
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Malnourished girl: ‘The war changed me’
Dr Maynard told The World with Yalda Hakim: “I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage – and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed.
“There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital – and there will be many, many more deaths until the Israelis allow proper food to get in there.”
Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
In other developments:
• Israel and the US have recalled their teams from Gaza ceasefire talks
• US envoy Steve Witkoff has accused Hamas “of failing to act in good faith”
• France has announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine
• An influential group of MPs is calling on the UK to “immediately” do the same
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‘Starvation used as a weapon’
‘They were shells’
Dr Nick Maynard has been going to Gaza for the past 15 years – and this is his third visit to the territory since the war began.
The British surgeon added that virtually all of the kids in the paediatric unit of Nasser Hospital are being fed with sugar water.
“They’ve got a small amount of formula feed for very small babies, but not enough,” he warned.
Dr Maynard said the lack of aid has also had a huge impact on his colleagues.
“I saw people I’d known for years and I didn’t recognise some of them,” he added. “Two colleagues had lost 20kg and 30kg respectively. They were shells, they’re all hungry.
“They’re going to work every day, then going home to their tents where they have no food.”
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Ex-Gaza aid worker claims personnel shot at Palestinians
IDF ‘shooting Gazans at aid points’
Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Maynard claimed Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “almost like a game of target practice”.
He has operated on boys as young as 11 who had been “shot at food distribution points” run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“They had gone to get food for their starving families and they were shot,” he said.
“I operated on one 12-year-old boy who died on the operating table because his injuries were so severe.”
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Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
Dr Maynard continued: “What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.
“One day they’d be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the abdomen.
“Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so.
“The clustering was far too obvious to be accidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.
“I would never have believed this possible unless I’d witnessed this with my own eyes.”
Palestinians brought to Nasser Hospital after being shot by Israeli forces, according to hospital officials and eyewitnesses. Pic: AP
Sky News has contacted the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
An IDF spokesperson previously told Sky News it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.
“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.
Read more:
Medics at Nasser hospital struggle to feed children
Gaza food situation ‘worst its ever been’
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Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been managing the supply of aid to Gaza since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade in May.
It has four aid distribution sites, all of which are located in Israeli military zones, with journalists prohibited from entering.
More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the GHF took over, according to the UN.
UNRWA, its relief agency for Gaza, has heavily criticised the scheme.
Commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”
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Just a fraction of the aid trucks needed are making it into the enclave, the UN has said, while multiple aid groups and the World Health Organisation have warned Gazans are facing “mass starvation”.
Mr Lazzarini quoted a colleague on Thursday and said malnourished Palestinians in the Gaza “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”.
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