We're continuing to bring you lines from a news conference UK PM Keir Starmer just gave following an emergency meeting of his ministers.

Starmer says the UK's goal remains a "safe and secure" Israel alongside a "viable and sovereign" Palestinian state.

That goal however is under pressure "like never before", he says.

He adds he has always said the UK will recognise a Palestinian state as a contribution to a proper peace process at the moment of maximum impact.

The UK will recognise Palestinian statehood in September ahead of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Keir Starmer now says - before listing some conditions for this to happen.

According to a written handout of the cabinet meeting he held earlier, Starmer said this would happen "unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, reaches a ceasefire, makes clear there will be no annexation in the West Bank, and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a two-state solution".

He also reiterated that there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas and that the UK's demands on Hamas remain - that they must release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, accept that they will play no role in the government of Gaza, and disarm.

Starmer committed to make an assessment ahead of UNGA on how far the parties have met these steps before making a final decision, ensuring that no one side will have a veto, the statement says.

Starmer, the UK prime minister, says UK aid has been airdropped into Gaza today.

There needs to be 500 trucks entering Gaza every day, he adds.

Ultimately, the only way this humanitarian crisis will end is through a "long-term settlement", he says - adding that he's supporting efforts for a ceasefire.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has just spoken to reporters following his emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the situation in Gaza.

He starts by saying that on October 7 2023 Hamas perpetrated the worst massacre in Israel's history - adding that the horror has continued "every day since then".

Turning to the current situation, he refers to starving babies and children too weak to stand - images that will stay with us "for a lifetime".

Harry Farley
Political correspondent, at Downing Street

Image source, EPA

As a cabinet meeting took place inside Downing Street earlier, outside there was a loud protest on Whitehall.

Pots were being banged and Palestinian flags waved. It was a visual demonstration of the strength of feeling among many for the situation in Gaza.

One Labour MP I spoke to has said it's the biggest issue in their inbox. "This has been my biggest post bag yet. Images of starvation and civilians being shot at has dwarfed everything else," they said.

The unusual cabinet meeting - one wasn't expected until Parliament returns in September - is an attempt to show the government is taking the issue seriously.

But many Labour MPs will now be watching for any shift in Keir Starmer's position as a result of this meeting, or any details of the European peace plan the PM hopes will bring a change in the ground in Gaza.

Image source, PA Media

Earlier today, Rachel Reeves told the BBC "everyone is horrified" by the situation in Gaza - but refused to be drawn on when the UK would recognise a Palestinian state.

The chancellor made the comments during a visit to a mine in Cornwall, before joining cabinet ministers for a meeting with the PM - which began a short while ago.

"It is vital that humanitarian aid can get into Gaza and it is also essential that the hostages - who've been held since the 7 October 2023 - are released," Reeves said, adding that these topics will all be discussed at today's emergency cabinet meeting.

Reeves didn't want to "pre-empt" those discussions, but added: "This government is committed to a two-state solution in the Middle East, with a safe and secure Israel sitting alongside a viable, and peaceful, Palestinian state."

Harry Farley
Political correspondent, at Downing Street

In London, Sarah Champion, the Labour MP who organised the letter signed by more than half of the party's backbenchers calling for the government to recognise a Palestinian state, tells me she thinks this is a "now or never moment":

Here's what she says in full:

"I really hope the cabinet realises there will never be a perfect moment to recognise the state of Palestine.

"What we do have, however, is the perfect storm to prevent a two-state solution ever happening - with the Knesset passing a motion for annexation and a likely ruling the 6 August allowing settlements to encircle East Jerusalem which will divide the West Bank for ever.

"It is now or never if we believe in Palestinians's right to recognition."

• For context: The BBC's Jeremy Bowen says UK PM Keir Starmer appears to be moving towards the idea of the UK recognising Palestinian statehood. In his analysis, shared in our page a little earlier, he also questions whether today's emergency cabinet meeting could move the dial.

Aid dropped in dangerous military zones two days in a rowpublished at 15:37 British Summer Time 29 July

15:37 BST 29 July

By Benedict Garman

BBC video filmed from inside a plane during an aid airdrop shows packages being dropped around 1km (0.6 miles) into the Israeli military’s declared “dangerous combat zone”.

We geolocated the view out of the window as Jeremy Bowen's team filmed packages falling from a plane over Gaza yesterday.

The direction they are travelling is not towards an area where there is a humanitarian pause in military operations in effect. They are descending over the unsafe militarised zone.

Around the time Bowen was in a plane filming that clip, video emerged on social media, filmed by a Palestinian on the ground, of an aid drop falling into Gaza City.

By geolocating the point of view of that street level video to Omar Ben Alkhatab - First St in the Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza City, we can see that the aid packages are indeed landing into an area which the Israeli military’s map declares a “dangerous combat zone”.

It’s unclear exactly how far into this zone they fell.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. We identified two separate aid drops, which previously landed around 1km (0.6 miles) into territory Gazans have been prohibited to enter by the Israel Defense Forces.

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Image source, Reuters

According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, at least 112 people were killed in Gaza in the past 24 hours, pushing the total number past a grim milestone of more than 60,000 since the start of the war.

Local hospitals say people were killed in Israeli air strikes and gunfire - many while seeking aid.

In the central Nuseirat area, al-Awda hospital said at least 30 were killed, including 14 women and 12 children, in attacks on homes overnight and this morning.

At least 14 were then killed near an aid distribution point, it says, with more than 100 injured.

We’ve also been told that four people were killed in a tent overnight in the coastal zone of al-Mawasi - where Israel says it is pausing fighting for 10 hours during the day to help aid distribution.

Nine others were killed in Khan Younis, local hospital sources and witnesses say. Al-Shifa Hospital said this morning that two people were killed in a missile strike on an apartment in Gaza City.

A later strike killed five members of one family. Rescuers have been struggling to reach casualties from another strike.

We have been asking the Israeli military for a response to these figures.

Harry Farley
Political correspondent, at Downing Street

I’m stood in Downing Street as a special cabinet meeting is under way inside No 10 to discuss the situation in Gaza.

We haven’t seen any cabinet ministers walking up the street so the assumption is most are joining remotely.

Not having some of those ministers sitting at the table in person might be a relief for the prime minister, considering some of them have been lobbying for him to change his position and follow France in recognising a Palestinian state.

That would be a largely symbolic gesture but an important one morally, they argue.

The government's position is that they will do so as part of a peace process at a time when it would have the most impact.

It will be interesting to see if there is any shift in that stance coming out of this meeting.

Will the UK follow in France's footsteps and recognise a Palestinian state?published at 14:02 British Summer Time 29 July

14:02 BST 29 July

Jeremy Bowen
International editor

The destruction Israel has wreaked on Gaza will take years for the Palestinians to get over - but it will also take years for Israel to get over the damage it has caused to its moral standing.

The perceptions and the way that people look at Israel - about its moral standing - have changed, and there's increasing realisation of that within Israel itself.

Two Israeli human rights organisations came out and said that Israel was committing genocide yesterday and today there's a Cabinet meeting in the UK where they will be talking about Britain potentially recognising a Palestinian state.

Keir Starmer appears to be moving towards that idea as he’s facing a great deal of pressure within the Labour Party.

Of course, there is no Palestinian state; it is an aspiration.

But it is also something that has been the policy of the UK and many other countries - including the US - for many years.

The realities on the ground mean the two-state solution has effectively become meaningless - because of the expansion of Jewish settlements, the opposition of the Israeli government, and the way that the territory where a Palestinian state would physically exist has been eroded and taken by the Israelis for themselves.

Even this morning, there’s been talk in the Israeli papers of Israel annexing - in tandem with pressure from the extreme right - the West Bank, which is also territory the Palestinians want for their state.

However, there is now the question of how you take a concrete step to try to make the two-state solution real.

France's President Emmanuel Macron has decided that the way to do that is through recognition. The French and British have been discussing this for months at the diplomatic level.

So the question is whether Britain - perhaps at the UN General Assembly in September - will join with the French to do it.

Image source, EPA

We reported earlier that UK government ministers had been called back from Parliament's summer recess for a meeting this afternoon with the prime minister.

Well, that's due to kick off in about 10 minutes at 14:00 BST, with some ministers joining in-person and others remotely.

The focus of the gathering will be the situation in Gaza, as senior MPs prepare to discuss wider peace plans and aid deliveries to the territory.

It also comes a day after Keir Starmer travelled to Scotland to meet US President Donald Trump - while there Starmer handed over a European-led peace plan for Gaza for Trump to review.

As soon as we get an update on what's been discussed today, we'll let you know.

Jordanian and Emirati planes have airdropped parcels of food and aid into Gaza in recent days.

We're now seeing pictures of Palestinians opening some of those food parcels, revealing the contents to be food items like tinned chickpeas, bags of flour and packages of dry pasta.

Israel began allowing international airdrops of food in recent days, but aid agencies have warned that this measure falls short of what is needed.

At the weekend, both the International Rescue Committee and the head of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa described airdrops as "expensive" and incapable of delivering "the volume or the quality" needed.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

As we reported earlier, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has criticised the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) which is supported by the US and Israel.

The report says most of the packages are not ready-to-eat and claims its distribution plan "would lead to mass starvation, even if it was able to function without the appalling levels of violence".

"The fact that people continue to risk being shot or caught in stampedes at distribution sites indicates the extremely desperate level of hunger that the population is experiencing," the IPC's Famine Review Committee concludes.

There have been regular reports of Palestinians being killed while seeking aid at GHF sites - the total number killed exceeds 1,000 according to the latest update from the Hamas-run health ministry.

Image source, Reuters

• A UN-backed monitor issued an alert this morning saying that "the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip"
• "Famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City," the alert from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warns
• It comes as Palestinians in the besieged Strip tell the BBC's Gaza correspondent, "we keep hearing about aid coming in, but we never see any of it" - some have accused armed gangs of looting aid trucks and selling the contents on the black market at high prices
• Israel's foreign minister has rejected accusations that it's withholding aid, saying it's a "lie" - here's a look at what aid measures Israel has introduced
• In Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry says the death toll since 7 October 2023 has now surpassed 60,000
• Meanwhile, in Scotland, Donald Trump has been asked how he plans to address Israel's prime minister on the situation - the US president said: "we're working together to try and get things straightened out"

As a reminder, the IPC does not itself say whether a famine is happening - but the global authority does provide a criteria, which aid agencies and governments can use to make a declaration about famine.

Image source, PA Media

Over in Scotland, US President Trump says he's "working to get things straightened out" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump made the comments to reporters while on a visit to the UK to open a golf course. Yesterday, he sat down with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and said that children in Gaza "look very hungry".

You can follow Trump's visit to Scotland in our separate live page.

Safe spaces in Gaza are "becoming virtually non-existent," this morning's IPC report says, as the population is increasingly confined to ever-shrinking areas not designated as military zones or subject to displacement orders".

It cites findings by the UN's humanitarian coordination body (OCHA), which says that people in Gaza are "confined to ever-shrinking spaces" and as of 20 July about 88% of the Gaza Strip is within Israeli-militarised zones or under evacuation orders.

Image source, EPA

Earlier, we brought you the details from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, which is a UN-backed assessment.

We also provided details about what the criteria is for declaring a famine - as the IPC does not itself do this.

That report from the IPC does, however, say that two out of the three famine thresholds have been breached in parts of Gaza, external.

Here's the latest data from the global initiative on the current situation in parts of the Strip:

• Food consumption – Data shows that more than one in three people - 39% - are now going days at a time without eating - the IPC threshold for this element is at least 20% of households have an extreme lack of food
• Acute malnutrition – In Gaza City, the IPC update says malnutrition levels among children under five have quadrupled in two months, reaching 16.5% - the IPC says if this rate reaches 30%, it meets one of the criterions for famine
• Acute malnutrition and reports of starvation-related deaths – The report says these are increasingly common, but notes that collecting data in Gaza is "very difficult" under the current circumstances

The death toll in Gaza since 7 October 2023 has reached 60,034, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

The number of those injured now stands at 145,870, it says in its regular update.

It follows 112 deaths and 637 injures reported in the past 24 hours, according to the health ministry, which also says further victims are thought to be under rubble and on the streets unable to be reached.

Rushdi Abualouf
Gaza correspondent, reporting from Istanbul

Residents across the Gaza Strip say they are rapidly losing hope of escaping devastating starvation gripping the territory, despite Israel’s announcement of a temporary humanitarian pause aimed at facilitating the entry of large scale international aid.

Two days after the humanitarian pause was declared, many Gazans say they have seen little to no improvement in their access to food.

Despite Israel’s declared humanitarian window, only a limited number of trucks - fewer than 150, according reports from local journalists in Gaza - have entered the Strip in the past two days, far short of the hundreds needed daily.

The ongoing chaos and absence of a unified authority to co-ordinate safe distribution inside Gaza has made it nearly impossible for aid to reach those most in need.

The temporary pause, in three areas declared by the Israeli military, was intended to facilitate the safe passage of humanitarian aid through designated corridors in northern and central Gaza.

Airdrops by Jordanian and Emirati planes also resumed.

However, many Gazans warn that unless land access improves significantly and security for convoys is restored, acute malnutrition and hunger will continue to deepen across the Strip.