GIVEN war crimes of deliberate starvation of the population of northern Gaza, combined with the usual IDF plan to declare open season on any civilians who refuse to leave after a combat zone is declared, on the dubious theory that anyone who doesn’t must be a terrorist, US and UK government actions are currently token gestures.

These token actions produced token responses from the Israeli government, allowing 80 trucks of aid into northern Gaza over two days. Forty trucks a day wouldn’t provide enough food and water for 400,000 people for even one day. And there were none except one shipment of fuel in the previous two weeks.

Giving the Israeli government 30 days to increase aid, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin did this week, ensures many of the 400,000 civilians there will be dead before the US government even considers stopping sending some arms and ammunition to the IDF killing and starving them.

The Israeli government knows many won’t leave. Those who are too ill, elderly or disabled.Their loved ones who don’t want to leave them behind. Those who fear losing their homes. And since the IDF has repeatedly bombed “safe zones” it ordered civilians to move to, and even shot some as they try to comply with orders to move, many Gazans believe nowhere in Gaza is safe anyway.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, insults everyone’s intelligence when he claims food shortages are caused by Hamas stealing aid. Hamas was in power in Gaza from mid 2007 until early October 2023 and there were no food or water shortages a tenth as bad as today, when the IDF has re-occupied it. When there were shortages it was due to Israeli blockades and import/export controls. The first deaths from starvation and dehydration were in the north, which the IDF has re-occupied for longest.

There should be an embargo on all arms and ammunition sales to Israel, and sanctions until it ends the pointless Gaza and Lebanon bloodbaths and negotiates with all Palestinians’ elected representatives, Hamas and Fatah, on a Palestinian state. The public should boycott Israeli exports if governments won’t.

Duncan McFarlane, Carluke.

Read more letters

A history of oppression

I DO not support those who seek to eliminate the state of Israel, but there is a serious flaw in Norman A Ogston’s assertion (Letters, October 16) that Israel has a right to the land within its 1967 border and the West Bank where successive governments have established settlements placed in a such a way as to make a genuine Palestinian state impossible.

He says read the Bible and see that God gave the land to the Israelis. But that argument falls if there is no God, something which many of us doubt, and for which I would argue there is no conclusive proof, the Bible having been written by men. He is correct in claiming there never was a nation called Palestine, but then there never was a nation called Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, or Kuwait until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, when new forces came into play, two of which were Britain and France, along with the League of Nations which recognised Palestine as a territory, with the mandate for its governance given to Britain. At that time there were around 84,000 Jews and 589,000 Arab Muslims.

His claim that Gaza and the West Bank were well governed by Israel is false. Like every other unwanted occupier, to maintain control Israel has resorted time and again to brutal oppression.

Jim Sillars, Edinburgh.

Making your gas usage cheaper

I READ your recent article “UK critically vulnerable to future energy crisis and price rises” (The Herald, October 15) with interest. On the demand side, poorly-insulated housing and poorly-targeted support for poorer households was considered to be the main problem.

Heat pumps are characterised as “good” and gas boilers as “bad”. I remain puzzled that the most obvious cost-effective measures to reduce gas consumption are ignored. Several of these measures can make a conventional gas boiler perform much better and are useful or essential for a shift to heating powered by a heat pump or other low carbon device. Our governments in Scotland and Westminster offer subsidies to already-wealthy people to insulate and install heat pumps while ignoring the needs of those in fuel poverty.

I used websites such as “The heating hub” and Mark Ballard’s YouTube channel to understand how adjustments and modification to a heating system could reduce gas consumption. Over six years my gas consumption has halved due to heating system modifications. Now that much of this can be automated, it would surely help to offer subsidies to homes that want to install self-adjusting lockshield valves; variable speed central heating pumps; greater capacity radiators and modern room thermostats. A full upgrade of millions of older homes is unaffordable in the short term, but cheaper options do exist and can act as the first step towards fitting a heat pump or other low-carbon option at a later date.

Andrew Muirhead, Ayr.

 

There are several ways to reduce home gas consumptionThere are several ways to reduce home gas consumption (Image: Getty)

A political tipping point

REGARDING the correspondence on appropriate levels of tips (Letters, October 14 & 16), there will always be jobs with the minimal wage and hopefully the new employment legislation will eliminate zero hours contracts and some part-time ambiguities. However catering allows us to pay a gratuity for satisfaction, the norm being up to 10 per cent in this country.

One " job " with almost zero hours but guaranteed income should be eliminated. I refer to attendance at the House of Lords.

JB Drummond, Kilmarnock.

Hear it, hate it, sort it

I SYMPATHISE with Gordon Casely’s irritation at ScotRail’s "mind the gap" announcements (Letters, October 16).

My current pet hate, and there are very, very many to choose from, is the "ScotRail are happy to announce resumption of their full timetable". ScotRail’s happiness or otherwise is of no interest to me, time to press "delete" on that one.

However for teeth-grinding irritation you really can’t beat the endlessly repeated "see it, say it, sorted".

Stuart Neville, Clydebank.