T he announcement was an admission of failure. On July 26th the Israel Defence Forces ( IDF) said that it would parachute food into Gaza and implement daily “humanitarian pauses” in parts of the still depopulated areas of the devastated strip, allowing international aid organisations to bring in convoys.

But whatever goodwill was generated by these gestures quickly dissipated, and was not enough to overcome deeper sources of conflict between the two men: starvation in the Gaza Strip, air strikes in Syria,

The U.N.-developed panel, known as IPC, said conditions “worsened dramatically” in recent months, with food consumption at its lowest level since the conflict began.