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Leaders of the BRICS bloc have sharply rebuked the United States and Israeli bombardments of Iran in June, calling them a “blatant breach of international law” while voicing strong support for the creation of a Palestinian state.

But their joint declaration on Sunday, issued at a summit in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, was largely silent about another major war that is now in its fourth year and in which a founding BRICS member – Russia – is the aggressor: the conflict in Ukraine. Instead, it criticised Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil.

The carefully worded declaration, released amid escalating trade tensions with the US, condemned aggressive economic policies without directly naming US President Donald Trump. Almost all 10 members of BRICS, a bloc of emerging world economies, are currently engaged in sensitive trade talks with the US and are trying to assert their positions without provoking further tensions.

However, the BRICS statement did take aim at “unilateral tariff and non-tariff barriers” that “skew global trade and flout WTO]World Trade Organization] regulations”, a clear, though indirect critique of Trump’s protectionist agenda, before a deadline on Wednesday for new US tariffs to potentially kick in.

Trump responded to the BRICS declaration within hours, warning on his social media platform, Truth Social, that countries siding with what he termed “anti-American policies” would face added tariffs.

“Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy”, he wrote.

Which countries are part of BRICS, and who attended the summit?

The first BRICS summit was held in 2009 with the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China coming together. &nbsp, South Africa joined in 2010, and the bloc has since become a major voice for the Global South.

Last year, Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates joined the group, expanding its influence further and turning the bloc into a 10-nation entity.

There is growing interest from emerging economies to join the bloc with more than 30 nations queueing up for membership. Argentina was expected to join but withdrew its application after ultra-conservative President Javier Milei, an ally of Trump, took office in December 2023.

The Rio summit was led by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Most other member countries were represented by their leaders with three exceptions: Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian were absent.

Xi had attended all previous BRICS summits since taking office in 2013 while Putin has avoided most international trips since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him over his role in the war on Ukraine in March 2023. Brazil is a member of the ICC and would have been required under the Rome Statute, which established the court, to arrest Putin if he visited.

Russia and Iran were represented by their foreign ministers and China by Premier Li Qiang.

This was the first summit attended by Indonesia after its induction into the bloc this year.

The BRICS statement also welcomed Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Nigeria, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Uganda and Uzbekistan as new BRICS partner countries – a status that places them on a perch below full membership and allows the bloc to increase cooperation with them.

Condemnation of US-Israel strikes on Iran

In their declaration, member states described the recent Israeli and American attacks on Iran as a “violation of international law”, expressing “grave concern” about the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East.

The conflict began on June 13 when Israel launched air strikes on Iranian military, nuclear and civilian sites, killing at least 935 people, including top military and scientific leaders. Iran’s Ministry of Health reported 5, 332 people were injured.

Tehran retaliated with missile and drone strikes on Israel, killing at least 29 people and injuring hundreds more, according to figures from Israeli authorities.

A US-brokered ceasefire came into effect on June 24 although the US had supported Israeli strikes just days earlier by dropping bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities on June 21.

The BRICS statement underscored the importance of upholding “nuclear safeguards, safety, and security. … including in armed conflicts, to protect people and the environment from harm”.

Gaza war and Palestinian statehood

As Israel’s 21-month-long war on Gaza continues, BRICS denounced the use of starvation as a weapon of war and rejected the politicisation or militarisation of humanitarian aid.

The bloc threw its support behind UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, which has been banned by Israel.

In late May during its blockade on aid for Gaza, Israel allowed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private US organisation, to provide food to the people in the enclave. The move has been widely criticised by global rights bodies, especially since hundreds of Palestinians seeking aid have been shot and killed while approaching the GHF’s aid distribution sites.

BRICS also reaffirmed its position, one that is widely held globally, that Gaza and the occupied West Bank are both integral parts of a future Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

On October 7, 2023, nearly 1, 200 people were killed in Israel in Hamas attacks, during which Palestinian fighters also took more than 240 people captive. Since then, Israel has waged a war on Gaza, killing more than 57, 000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, and destroying more than 70 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure. In that same period, Israel has also killed more than 1, 000 people in the West Bank.

Opposition to unilateral sanctions

The BRICS declaration strongly condemned the imposition of “unilateral coercive measures”, such as economic sanctions, arguing that they violate international law and harm human rights.

BRICS members Iran and Russia have been targets of longstanding US sanctions.

After the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the attack on the US embassy in Tehran, Washington imposed a wide range of sanctions. Those were ramped up in the 2010s as the US under then-President Barack Obama tried to pressure Iran to negotiate a nuclear deal in exchange for sanctions relief. But two years after that deal came into effect, Trump, who succeeded Obama as president, pulled out of the agreement and slapped tough sanctions back on Iran. Since then, the US has imposed more sanctions on Iran, including a set of measures last week.

Russia, formerly the US’s Cold War rival, has also faced repeated waves of sanctions, particularly after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Trump tariffs called a ‘ threat ‘

With the global economy in turmoil over Trump’s trade policies, BRICS voiced concern over his tariffs regime.

Trump has set Wednesday as a deadline to finalise new trade agreements, after which countries failing to strike deals with Washington will face increased tariffs.

The BRICS bloc, a major force in the global economy, is projected to outpace global average gross domestic product growth in 2025.

According to April data from the International Monetary Fund, the economies of BRICS countries will collectively grow at 3.4 percent compared with a 2.8 percent global average.

The world’s top 10 economies by size include the wealthy Group of Seven nations – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and US – and three BRICS nations – Brazil, China and India.

The group warned that protectionist trade policies risk reducing global trade, disrupting supply chains and heightening economic uncertainty, undermining the world’s development goals.

Pahalgam attack condemned

Two months after the Pahalgam attack in India-administered Kashmir, in which gunmen killed 26 civilians, BRICS condemned the incident “in the strongest terms”.

But even with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi present, the statement did not mention Pakistan, which New Delhi has accused of supporting the attackers in April.

The two countries fought a four-day war in May after Indian strikes inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistan has denied involvement in the Pahalgam attack and called for a “credible, transparent, independent” investigation.

The BRICS statement urged “zero tolerance” for “terrorism” and rejected any “double standards” in counterterrorism efforts.

Silence on Ukraine war

The lengthy statement made no direct mention of Russia’s war in Ukraine except to call for a “sustainable peace settlement”.

Gaza City – I only recently witnessed what it’s like for the crowds waiting desperately for aid in Gaza.

I don’t see them in Deir el-Balah, but we travel north to Gaza to visit my family, and on the coastal al-Rashid Street, I saw something that made my heart uneasy about the much-discussed ceasefire in Gaza – what if it doesn’t address the aid crisis?

This crisis prompted Hamas to request amendments to the proposed ceasefire, on the entry of aid and ending the United States- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), at whose gates Israel kills dozens waiting for aid every day.

On al-Rashid Street

Since Israel broke the last ceasefire in March, our visits to the north have become highly calculated, less about planning and more about reading the escalation levels of Israeli air strikes.

The intention to go north, formed before sleeping, is cancelled when we hear bombs.

Conversely, waking up to relative quiet could spur a snap decision. We quickly dress and pack clothes, supplies, and documents, always under one lingering fear: that tanks will cut the road off again and trap us in the north.

By the first day of Eid al-Adha, June 6, we had been avoiding visiting my family for three weeks.

Israel’s ground assault, “Operation Gideon’s Chariots”, was at its peak, and my husband and I decided to stay put in hopes of avoiding the violence.

But eventually, the longing to see family outweighed fear and our daughter Banias really wanted to see her grandfather for Eid, so we made the trip.

The journeys reveal the dysfunction of Gaza’s current transport system.

A trip that used to take just over 20 minutes in a private car – door to door from Deir el-Balah to my family’s home in Gaza City – now requires multiple stops, long walks, and long waits for unreliable transport.

To reach Gaza City, we take three “internal rides” within central Gaza, short trips between neighbourhoods or towns like az-Zawayda, Deir el-Balah, and Nuseirat, often on shared donkey carts or old cars dragging open carts behind them.

Waiting for these rides can take an hour or more, the donkey carts holding up to 12 people, and car-cart combinations carrying six in the car, plus 10 to 12 in the cart.

Then comes the “external ride”, longer, riskier travel between governorates usually involving a crowded tuk-tuk carrying 10 passengers or more along bombed-out roads.

Since the January truce – broken by Israel in March – Israel has allowed only pedestrian and cart movement, with vehicles prohibited.

The entire trip can take up to two hours, depending on road conditions. Exhausting journeys have become my new normal, especially when travelling with children.

The ‘aid seekers’

My last two trips north brought me face-to-face with the “aid seekers”.

That harsh label has dominated news headlines recently, but witnessing their journey up close defies all imagination. It belongs to another world entirely.

On June 6, to fulfil Banias’s Eid wish to see her grandfather, we boarded a tuk-tuk as evening fell.

Near the western edge of what people in Gaza call al-Shari al-Jadeed (“the new road”), the 7km Netzarim Corridor that the Israeli army built to bisect the enclave, I saw hundreds of people on sand dunes on both sides of the street. Some had lit fires and gathered around them.

It’s a barren, ghostly stretch of sand and rubble, filled with the living shadows of Gaza’s most desperate.

I started filming with my phone as the other passengers explained that these “aid seekers” were waiting to intercept aid trucks and grab whatever they could.

Some of them are also waiting for an “American GHF” distribution point on the parallel Salah al-Din Street, which is supposed to open at dawn.

A bitter discussion ensued about the US-run aid point that had “caused so many deaths”. The aid system, they said, had turned survival into a lottery and dignity into a casualty.

I sank into thought, seeing this was entirely different from reading about it or watching the news.

Banias snapped me out of my thoughts: “Mama, what are these people doing here? Camping?”

Oh God! This child lives in her own, rosy world.

My mind reeled from her cheerful interpretation of one of the bleakest scenes I’d ever witnessed: black smoke, emaciated bodies, hunger, dust-filled roads.

I was silent, unable to answer.

Men and boys passed by, some with backpacks, others with empty white bags like flour sacks, for whatever they might find. Cardboard boxes are too hard to carry.

The aid seekers walk from all over Gaza, gathering in the thousands to wait all night until 4, 5, or 6am, fearing that Israeli soldiers will kill them before they can get into the “American GHF”.

According to reports, they rush in to grab whatever they can, a chaotic stampede where the strong devour the weak.

These men were death projects in waiting; they know, but they go anyway.

Why? Because hunger persists and there’s no other solution. It’s either die of hunger or die trying to survive it.

We reached Gaza City. Dust, darkness, and congestion surrounded us as the tuk-tuk drove through completely destroyed roads.

As each jolt shot through our backs, a passenger remarked: “We’ll all have back pain and disc issues from this tuk-tuk.”

A silence fell, broken by Banias, our little reporter from the pink world: “Mama, Baba, look at the moon behind you! It’s completely full.

“I think I see Aunt Mayar in the sky next to the moon,” Banias said, about my sister who travelled during the war to Egypt, then Qatar.

When we asked how, she explained: “She said her name means the star that lives beside the moon. Look!”

We smiled despite the misery, too drained to respond. The other passengers listened in to her dreamlike observations.

“Baba, when will we study astronomy in school?” she asked. “I want to learn about the moon and stars.”

We didn’t have time to answer. We had arrived, and the curtain fell on another exhausting day.

The return

I told my family what I saw on al-Rashid, and they listened, shocked and intrigued, to their “field correspondent”.

They, too, were preoccupied with food shortages, discussing mixing their last kilo of flour with pasta to stretch it further – conversations ruled by fear of hunger and the unknown.

We didn’t stay long, just two days before heading back along a road filled with fear of bombing and aid seekers.

Only this time it was daylight, and I could see women sitting by the road, ready to spend the night waiting for aid.

About two weeks later, on June 26, we made the trip again.

I travelled with my two children, my sister – who had come back with us on the last trip – and my brother’s wife and her two young children: four-year-old Salam and two-year-old Teeb. My husband came the next day.

We were seven in a small, worn-out minibus, and we had nine others crammed in with us: three men beside the driver, a young man with his wife and sister, and a woman with her husband and child.

Sixteen people in a van, clearly not built for that!

Although vehicles are banned from al-Rashid, some do manage to pass. Tired and worried about the young children with us, we took the risk and, that day, we made it.

I don’t know whether it was fate or misfortune, but as our van neared the area around the Netzarim Corridor, World Food Programme trucks arrived.

Two trucks stopped on the road, waiting to be “looted”.

People in Gaza will tell you this is a new policy under Israeli terms: no organised distribution, no lists. Just let the trucks in, let whoever can take aid, take it, and let the rest die.

On a nearby street, three others also stopped. People began climbing the trucks, grabbing what they could.

Within moments, all vehicles, tuk-tuks, and carts, including our van, stopped. Everyone around us – men, women, and children – started running towards the trucks.

A commotion erupted in our car. The young man travelling with his wife and sister insisted on going despite their pleas not to. He jumped out and two other men followed.

I was most shocked when a woman behind us shoved past, telling her husband and son: “I’m going. You stay.”

She ran like the wind. Other women and girls left nearby vehicles and sprinted to the trucks.

I wondered: Would she be able to climb up the side of a truck and wrestle men for food?

Human waves surged around us, seemingly from nowhere, and I begged our driver to move on. The scene felt like a battle for survival, well past thoughts of dignity, justice, and humanity.

The driver moved slowly; he had to keep stopping to avoid the crowds of people running in the opposite direction. My anxiety spiked. The kids sensed it too.

None of us could comprehend what we were seeing, not even me, a journalist who claims to be informed. The truth: reality is entirely different.

As we drove, I saw young men clutching bags, standing by the roadside. One had a knife, fearing he’d be attacked.

Other men carried blades or tools because being attacked by fellow hungry people is not unlikely.

“We’ve become thieves just to eat and feed our children,” is the new phase Israel is imposing through its “humanitarian” US-run foundation and its “distribution policy”.

And here we are, in this collapsing social order, where only the cries of empty stomachs are heard.

How can we blame people for their misery? Did they choose this war?

The car wound its way through until the flood of aid seekers finally dissipated. It felt like emerging from another world.

We reached an intersection downtown, completely drained. I silently unpacked the car, wondering: How many sorrowful worlds are buried within you, Gaza?

That day, I saw the world of the aid seekers after spending 20 months immersed in the worlds of the displaced, the wounded, the dead, the hungry, and the thirsty.