‘Drone followed Gaza colleague home and wiped out his family’, says British doctor
A British doctor who has just returned from Gaza says a drone followed her colleague home where it wiped out his family.
Nada Al Hadithy also told Sky News presenter Matt Barbet. how one of her patients, a 21-year-old woman who was six months pregnant, lost her baby after she was “blown up in her tent”.
“Her husband was killed, she lost her eye, she had an open fracture, and both her legs were completely destroyed from the bomb blast,”
“This woman is completely emaciated, with no vitamins, no food. And one day her baby stopped moving.”
It comes after Donald Trump‘s Middle East envoy visited a food distribution site in Gaza.
Steve Witkoff and the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, toured a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution site in the southern city of Rafah on Friday.
The Israeli-backed American contractor’s efforts to deliver food to the region have been mired in violence and controversy, with hundreds killed by Israeli fire while walking to such aid sites since May, according to eyewitnesses, health officials and the UN human rights office.
Israel‘s military says it has only fired warning shots at people who approached its forces, while GHF said its armed contractors have only fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding.
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Trump envoy Witkoff visits Gaza
Ms Hadithy said the situation in Gaza is “absolutely desperate” and a school classroom’s worth of children “are dying every single day”.
She said there was “a tangible difference in the amount of starvation and the emaciation of our patients” during the three weeks she was in Gaza, adding: “Even the severity of and relentlessness of the bombings was worse.
“It was mass casualty after mass casualty, with people being blown up in their tents, which were meant to be in green zones. The situation was catastrophic.”
She said one colleague – who she described as “patient, joyful and hardworking” – was followed home one day by a quadcopter drone, according to eyewitness testimony from fellow medical workers.
The drone “didn’t kill him on the route where he was on his own, it waited until he was in his tent and greeted his three children and killed all of them”, she added.
During her time in Gaza, Ms Hadithy said she saw “emaciated children”, adding: “So now you’ve got two million starving people in [an area] the same size as Exeter, which in our country and in our census in 2021 had 130,000 people in it.
“That’s two million people with no water, no sanitation, no food, no medical supplies.”
Ms Hadithy also said Gazan health workers themselves are starving. “Never before have I seen such dignified, committed people,” she added.
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In a post on X, Mr Witkoff said he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza to gain “a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza”.
He did not request any meetings with UN officials in Gaza during the visit, UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said.
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Aid dropped into Gaza
The war began when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and abducted 251 others. Of those, they still hold around 50, with 20 believed to be alive, after most of the others were released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between militants and civilians in its count.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has been approached for a comment.
The fast-moving developments on Trump’s Ukraine peace deal are dominating the G20 summit in South Africa, as European leaders scramble to put together a counter-proposal to the US-Russia 28-point plan and reinsert Ukraine into these discussions.
European countries are now working up proposals to put to President Trump ahead of his deadline of Thursday to agree a deal.
Ukraine is in a tight spot. It cannot reject Washington outright – it relies on US military support to continue this war – but neither can it accept the terms of a deal that is acutely favourable to Russia, requiring Ukraine to give up territory not even occupied by Moscow and reducing its army.
Overnight, the UK government has reiterated its position that any deal must deliver a “just and lasting peace”.
Ukraine war latest: Kyiv to discuss ending war in talks in Switzerland
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Keir Starmer calls for growth plan at G20
The prime minister, who spoke with E3 allies President Macron of France, Chancellor Merz of Germany and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine on the phone on Friday, is having more conversations today with key partners as they work out how to handle Trump and improve this deal for Ukraine.
One diplomatic source told me allies are being very careful not to criticise Trump or his approach for fear of exacerbating an already delicate situation.
Instead, the prime minister is directing his attacks at Russia.
Read more:
Trump’s 28-point Ukraine peace plan in full
Analysis: We could all pay if Europe doesn’t guarantee Ukraine’s security
Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends a plenary session on the first day of the G20 Leaders’ Summit. Pic: Reuters
“There is only one country around the G20 table that is not calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine and one country that is deploying a barrage of drones and missiles to destroy livelihoods and murder innocent civilians,” he said on Friday evening.
“Time and again, Russia pretends to be serious about peace, but its actions never live up to its words.”
Pic: AP
On the Trump plan, the prime minister said allies are meetin on Saturday “to discuss the current proposal on the table, and in support of Trump’s push for peace, look at how we can strengthen this plan for the next phase of negotiations”.
Strengthening the plan really means that they want to rebalance it towards Ukraine’s position and make it tougher on Russia.
“Ukraine has been ready to negotiate for months, while Russia has stalled and continued its murderous rampage. That is why we must all work together with both the US and Ukraine, to secure a just and lasting peace once and for all,” said the prime minister.
“We will continue to coordinate closely with Washington and Kyiv to achieve that. However, we cannot simply wait for peace.
“We must strain every sinew to secure it. We must cut off Putin’s finance flows by ending our reliance on Russian gas. It won’t be easy, but it’s the right thing to do.”
Pic: AP
Europeans hadn’t even seen this deal earlier in the week, in a sign that the US is cutting other allies out of negotiations – for now at least.
Starmer and other European leaders want to get to a position where Ukraine and Europe are at least at the table.
There is some discussion about whether European leaders such as Macron and Meloni might travel to Washington to speak to Trump early next week in order to persuade him of the European and Ukrainian perspective, as leaders did last August following the US-Russian summit in Alaska.
But Sky News understands there are no discussions about the PM travelling to Washington next week ahead of the budget.
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