Gaza

Palestinian mothers in the Gaza Strip are desperately trying to feed their newborns as Israel’s punishing blockade on the besieged enclave has led to dire shortages of infant formula, with some resorting to filling bottles with water and whatever food they can find.

Dr Kahlil Daqran told Al Jazeera on Thursday that as supplies of formula run out, many mothers are often too malnourished to breastfeed their infants.

“In the Gaza Strip, we have thousands of children being starved because there is no milk for children under the age of two,” Daqran said.

“These children, their mothers also have malnutrition because there is no food, so the mothers cannot produce milk. Now, our children are being fed either water or ground hard legumes, and this is harmful for children in Gaza.”

Azhar Imad, 31, said she has mixed tahini with water in hopes of feeding four-month-old Joury. But she said she fears the mixture will make her baby sick.

“I am using this paste instead of milk, but she won’t drink it. All these can cause illnesses,” Imad said. “Sometimes, I give her water in the bottle; there’s nothing available. I make her caraway and herbs, any kind of herbs.”

Israel’s blockade on Gaza, which has been under Israeli military bombardment since October 2023, has led to critical shortages of food, water, medicine and other humanitarian supplies.

Local hospitals said on Thursday that at least two more deaths from Israel’s forced starvation were reported in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of hunger-related fatalities since Israel’s war began to 159, including 90 children.

The United Nations has warned that Palestinian children are especially vulnerable as hunger grips the coastal territory, and UN officials have repeatedly called on Israel to allow an uninterrupted flow of aid supplies.

Israel has blamed the UN for the starvation crisis unfolding in the Gaza Strip, saying the global body had failed to pick up supplies.

UN officials, and several nations, have rejected that claim as false and stressed that Israel has refused to offer safe routes for humanitarian agencies to transport aid into Gaza.

Airdrops of humanitarian supplies, carried out in recent days, have also done little to address the widespread hunger crisis. Experts denounced the effort as dangerous, costly and ineffective.

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, told reporters on Thursday that the UN and its partners “continue to seize every opportunity to collect supplies from the Israeli-controlled crossings and replenish those platforms with new supplies”.

“Our colleagues say that, despite Israeli announcements regarding the designation of convoy routes as secure, trucks continue to face long delays that expose drivers, aid workers, and crowds to danger,” Haq said.

“The long waits are because a single route has been made available for our teams exiting Kerem Shalom [Karem Abu Salem crossing] inside Gaza, and Israeli ground forces have set up an ad hoc checkpoint on that route.”

As starvation continues to grip Gaza, more Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while seeking aid at distribution sites operated by the controversial Israeli- and United States-backed GHF.

A source at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital told Al Jazeera that at least 23 people were killed after Israeli forces opened fire at them on Thursday morning as they waited for aid near Netzarim junction in central Gaza.

The deadly incident came just hours before the White House announced that US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee are expected to enter Gaza on Friday to inspect the aid distribution sites.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the US officials also would meet with Palestinians to “hear firsthand about this dire situation on the ground”.

Reporting from the Jordan capital, Amman, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh explained that the trip comes amid growing concern in Washington that US contractors may be found liable for the deaths of more than 1,000 Palestinians killed while trying to reach GHF sites since May.

“There is a lot of pressure and insistence in Israel that those sites must continue to operate even if Israel allows more aid into Gaza,” Odeh said.

“This organisation was set up to bypass the United Nations, and Israel is not ready to let it go despite the resistance from the international community to engage with it in any way because it is accused of violating humanitarian principles.”

Hamas said in a statement released via its Telegram channel late on Thursday that it is ready to “immediately” engage in negotiations to end the war in Gaza “once aid reaches those who deserve it and the humanitarian crisis and famine in Gaza are ended”.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, countless families continue to face a desperate search for food.

Nehma Hamouda said she has struggled to keep her three-month-old granddaughter, Muntaha, alive amid the shortage of infant formula.

Muntaha’s mother was shot by Israeli soldiers when she was pregnant. She gave birth to her daughter prematurely but died weeks later.

“I resort to tea for the girl,” said Hamouda, explaining that her granddaughter cannot process solid foods yet.

“She’s not eating, and there’s no sugar. Where can I get her sugar? I give her a bit [of anise], and she drinks a bit,” she said. “At times, when we get lentil soup from the soup kitchen, I strain the water, and I try to feed her. What can I do?”

Washington, DC – Palestinian rights advocates are hailing the growing number of lawmakers in the United States showing willingness to restrict weapons to Israel over the atrocities in Gaza after a Senate vote on the issue.

The majority of Democrats in the Senate voted late on Wednesday in favour of a resolution to block a weapons sale to Israel in what rights advocates have hailed as a major blow to the bipartisan support that Israel has traditionally enjoyed in Congress.

The measure, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders, ultimately failed in a 27-70 vote, but a record number of lawmakers backed it compared to similar bills in the past.

“It was incredibly significant. We’re seeing a fundamental shift in the Democratic Party on Israel,” said Yasmine Taeb, legislative and political director for the advocacy group MPower Change Action Fund.

All Republican Senators voted against the measure. But within the Democratic caucus, the tally was 27-17. The bill aimed to block the transfer of assault rifles to Israel.

Another bill that targeted bomb shipments also failed, in a 24-73 vote, with three senators who backed the first bill defecting.

The vote came amid domestic and international anger at Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, where leading rights groups have accused the Israeli military of carrying out a genocide against Palestinians.

‘We just need to continue to fight’

Taeb said Palestinian rights advocates are making progress on the issue, noting that only 15 Senators backed Sanders’ measure to block weapons to Israel in April.

“It’s frustrating, but we just need to continue to fight,” she told Al Jazeera.

“We need to continue to do everything we possibly can to pressure our leaders in the House and Senate to stop funding these atrocities. We’re absolutely seeing a shift, and these bills show that. So, it shows that the pressure is working.”

Israel, which receives billions of dollars in US military aid annually, largely relies on US weaponry to carry out its wars on Palestinians and neighbouring countries.

For decades, support for Israel on Capitol Hill seemed unshakable. But restricting the flow of US weapons is steadily becoming a mainstream proposal, especially among Democrats.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) expressed gratitude for the senators who backed the bills, calling the vote a “historic sign of progress”.

“Although last night’s Senate vote should have been 100–0 in favor of these resolutions, the fact that a majority of Senate Democrats voted yes is a historic moment and a sign that sentiments in Congress are gradually catching up to the American people,” CAIR government affairs director Robert McCaw said in a statement.

Some key Democrats supported Sanders’s bill – well beyond the small group of progressive lawmakers who have been vocally supportive of Palestinian rights for years.

They included Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee; Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee; and Amy Klobuchar, a prominent centrist.

‘Enough is enough’

Senator Tammy Duckworth, who has been a strong Israel supporter throughout most of her career, also voted in favour of the measure.

“Enough is enough,” Duckworth said in a statement.

She highlighted the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where Israeli-imposed starvation has killed more than 150 people.

“Israel’s unacceptable choice to restrict humanitarian and food aid from entering Gaza – for months – is now causing innocent civilians, including young children, to starve to death,” Duckworth said.

“Ending this famine is not only a moral imperative, it is also in the best interests of both Israel’s and our own country’s long-term national security.”

Four out of the six new Democratic senators, elected last year, voted in favour of blocking arms to Israel, highlighting the generational shift on the issue. The other two freshman senators were not present for the vote.

Public opinion polls show that young Americans, especially Democrats, are increasingly opposing Israel’s abuses against Palestinians.

Only 9 percent of respondents under the age of 35 in a recent Gallup survey said they approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza and 6 percent said they had a favourable opinion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sanders said after Wednesday’s vote that the increased support from Democratic lawmakers for restricting arms to Israel shows that the “tide is turning”.

“The American people do not want to spend billions to starve children in Gaza,” the senator said in a statement.

“The Democrats are moving forward on this issue, and I look forward to Republican support in the near future.”

AIPAC responds

IfNotNow, a youth-led progressive Jewish group, also lauded the vote as a “historic moment”.

“As Israel’s blockade forces virtually all Palestinians in Gaza to the brink of starvation, we must use every tool at our disposal to end the blockade and push for a ceasefire and hostage exchange,” the group’s executive director, Morriah Kaplan, said in a statement.

“It is shameful that a shrinking minority of the Democratic caucus, 17 senators, sided with Republicans to continue the flow of deadly weapons to the Israeli military.”

Some senior Democrats, including the party’s top senator, Chuck Schumer, voted against the resolutions.

Taeb said Schumer’s vote shows that he is “simply out of touch with the vast majority of Democratic voters and, incredibly, his own caucus”.

She added that Republicans will soon start to pay an electoral price for their unflinching support for Israel as Americans’ opinions continue to turn against the US ally.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has spent millions of dollars to help defeat Israel’s critics in Congress, welcomed the defeat of Sanders’ bills, but it said that the vote “highlights the growing attempts to advance anti-Israel policies in Congress”.

“We know our detractors are working to take the battle from the floor of the Senate and the House to the ballot box next year, seeking to elect more candidates who want to undermine the US-Israel alliance,” the group said in an email to supporters.

“With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, we must ensure we have the political strength and resources to help our friends win and help defeat our detractors.”

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US nonprofit backed by the US and Israel, was set up earlier this year to provide humanitarian aid in Gaza. Its aid distribution got under way in May, following a prolonged halt in supply deliveries to the enclave. But according to the UN, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed trying to access food at the GHF aid hubs.

Starving and beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza have no choice but to walk several miles to collect much-needed food packages from the four heavily militarised hubs. Palestinian medics and civilians told Al Jazeera that GHF and Israeli troops have routinely opened fire on the aid seekers, killing dozens at a time.

Harrowing accounts have been corroborated by video evidence, whistleblowers and Israeli soldiers, and the killings have fuelled international outcry – including condemnations from heads of state, UN agencies and human rights groups.

Who is responsible for the killings?

Mainly Israeli troops, but mercenaries working for the GHF are also implicated, according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which documents atrocities against Palestinians.

Euro-Med also alleges that Israeli forces have enabled Palestinian gangs to loot aid convoys and terrorise civilians.

A retired United States special forces officer, Anthony Aguilar, who was formerly employed by the GHF, recently disclosed some of the brutal treatment Palestinians face at aid sites.

“Without question, I witnessed war crimes by the [Israeli military],” Aguilar told the BBC in an exclusive interview.

How are the Palestinians being killed?

Doctors and survivors in Gaza say that Israel often uses snipers to aim directly at Palestinian aid seekers.

Dr Fadel Naeem said he frequently treats survivors in the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City and that most of the gunshot wounds he sees are to the “head, chest and abdomen”.

He noted that Israel also appears to fire indiscriminately at starving Palestinians, sometimes firing tear gas, explosives or artillery shells at large crowds. These attacks often cause serious burns, as well as flesh and shrapnel wounds.

“There is often severe tissue tearing … and many [of the injured] end up with amputated limbs,” said Dr Naeem.

Other Palestinians sustain fractures and broken bones, typically by being trampled in the mad rush to flee Israeli gunfire or obtain a bag of food aid.

Dr Hassan al-Shaer, who works in al-Shifa Hospital, also says many of the injuries are serious.

“Many of the [injured] victims that come to us also have life-threatening wounds, and they are taken to the operating room immediately,” he told Al Jazeera.

What excuse does Israel give for these killings?

Israel officially denies firing at Palestinians and frequently claims that its troops only fire “warning shots” outside GHF distribution hubs to prevent overcrowding.

The Israeli army also says “chaos” at the sites poses an “immediate threat” to army soldiers.

Yet, according to a news report published by the Israeli daily Haaretz on June 27, Israeli troops pose the real threat.

Many soldiers who served in Gaza admitted that they were “ordered to shoot” directly at Palestinian aid seekers by their superiors.

“Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They’re treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars,” one soldier told Haaretz.

“It’s a killing field,” he added.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Katz both deny the allegations and claim that they amount to “blood libel” against Israel, meaning they equate it to a false and anti-Semitic accusation that Jewish people murder Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals.

Does medical evidence on the ground support Israel’s official narrative?

No, accounts from doctors in Gaza hospitals and clinics do not support Israel’s claim.

Dr Shaer, from al-Shifa, noted that many of the injured people started coming into the hospital when the GHF began aid distribution in late May.

Injuries are often compounded with illnesses and weak immune systems, effects brought on by starvation in Gaza.

Hakeem Yahiya Mansour, a 30-year-old Palestinian emergency medic in Gaza, added “death always happens” at GHF sites.

“Most of the calls we get are from the surroundings [of the distribution zones],” he told Al Jazeera.

What do the GHF sites look like?

Footage of the sites shows thousands of starving Palestinians crowded onto a strip of land roughly the size of a football field, according to Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF.

Aid seekers are surrounded by guard towers and are often forced to fight for food parcels that are tossed to hungry crowds at poorly arranged and chaotic distribution points.

Tanks are often stationed nearby, and aid seekers can hear the terrifying buzzing of drones above them.

According to satellite imagery obtained by Al Jazeera’s verification unit, Sanad, Palestinians have little space to manoeuvre or receive aid.

Despite the dangers, Palestinians face an impossible choice: die from gunfire or starvation. Many chose to accept the risk and go for aid in the hope of obtaining food for their families and small children.

Mohanad Shaaban said he did not eat for three days, pushing him to head to the GHF site on July 30. He remembers seeing two tanks at the site – one on the right and a second on the left.

“The [Israelis] then opened fire on us,” he recalled solemnly.

“Please tell the world to end this famine,” Shaaban said.

How is the world responding?

Harrowing scenes and images of Palestinians dying of hunger and being killed at GHF aid sites have compelled some of Israel’s allies to issue stern condemnations and ultimatums.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom recently issued a statement urging Israel to scale up life-saving aid.

What’s more, France has taken the symbolic step of recognising a Palestinian state, which the UK also threatened to do, unless Israel ends the “appalling situation” in Gaza and commits to the “two-state” solution. Canada has also said it will recognise a Palestinian state in September.

Gaza City, Gaza Strip – Hani Abu Rizq walks through Gaza City’s wrecked streets with two bricks tied against his stomach as the rope cuts into his clothes, which hang loose from the weight he has lost.

The 31-year-old searches desperately for food to feed his mother and seven siblings with the bricks pressed against his belly – an ancient technique he never imagined he would need.

“We’re starved,” he says, his voice hollow with exhaustion.

“Even starvation as a word falls short of what we’re all feeling,” he adds, his eyes following people walking past.

He adjusts the rope around his waist, a gesture that has become as routine as breathing.

“I went back to what people did in ancient times, tying stones around my belly to try to quiet my hunger. This isn’t just war. It’s an intentional famine.”

The fading of Gaza’s heartbeat

Before October 7, 2023, and the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, food was the heartbeat of daily life in Gaza.

The days in Gaza were built around communal meals – breakfasts of zaatar and glistening olive oil, lunches of layered maqlooba and musakhan that filled homes with warmth, and evenings spent around trays of rice, tender meat and seasonal salads sparkling with herbs from gardens.

Abu Rizq remembers those days with the ache of someone mourning the dead.

The unmarried man used to love dining and gathering with family and friends. He speaks of comfortable dining rooms where home-cooked feasts were displayed like art and evenings were filled with desserts and spiced drinks that lingered on tongues and in memory.

“Now, we buy sugar and salt by the gram,” he says, his hands gesturing towards empty market stalls that once overflowed with produce.

“A tomato or cucumber is a luxury – a dream. Gaza has become more expensive than world capitals, and we have nothing.”

Over nearly 22 months of the war, the amount of food in Gaza has been drastically reduced. The besieged enclave has been under the complete mercy of Israel, which has curtailed access to everything from flour to cooking gas.

But since March 2, the humanitarian and essential items allowed in have plummeted to a frightening low. Israel completely blocked all food from March to May and has since permitted only minimal aid deliveries, prompting widespread international condemnation.

Watching children suffer

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 159 Palestinians – 90 of whom are children and infants – have died of malnutrition and dehydration during the war as of Thursday.

The World Food Programme warns of a “full-blown famine” spreading across the enclave while UNICEF reports that one in three children under five in northern Gaza suffers acute malnutrition.

Fidaa Hassan, a former nurse and mother of three from Jabalia refugee camp, knows the signs of malnutrition.

“I studied them,” she tells Al Jazeera from her displaced family’s shelter in western Gaza. “Now I see them in my own kids.”

Her youngest child, two-year-old Hassan, wakes up every morning crying for food, asking for bread that doesn’t exist.

“We celebrated each of my children’s birthdays with nice parties [before the war] – except for … Hassan. He turned two several months ago, and I couldn’t even give him a proper meal,” she says.

Her 10-year-old, Firas, she adds, shows visible signs of severe malnutrition that she recognises with painful clarity.

Before the war, her home buzzed with life around mealtimes. “We used to eat three or four times a day,” she recalls.

“Lunch was a time to gather. Winter evenings were filled with the aroma of lentil soup. We spent spring afternoons preparing stuffed vine leaves with such care.

“Now we … sleep hungry.”

“There’s no flour, no bread, nothing to fill our stomachs,” she says, holding Hassan as his small body trembles.

“We haven’t had a bite of bread in over two weeks. A kilo of flour costs 150 shekels [$40], and we can’t afford that.”

Hassan was six months old when the bombing began. Now, at two years old, he bears little resemblance to a healthy child his age.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned that Israel’s siege and restrictions on humanitarian aid are creating man-made famine conditions.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, only a fraction of the 600 truckloads of food and supplies required in Gaza daily, under normal circumstances, are coming through. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system has placed northern Gaza in Phase 5: catastrophe/famine.

Amid a lack of security, the trickle of humanitarian aid allowed to enter Gaza is subject to gangs and looting, preventing people in need from accessing scarce supplies.

Furthermore, hundreds of desperate aid seekers have been shot dead by Israeli soldiers while trying to get humanitarian aid provided by the United States- and Israeli-backed GHF since May.

Abundance as a distant memory

Hala Mohammed, 32, cradles three-year-old Qusai in a relative’s overcrowded shelter in Remal, a neighbourhood of Gaza City, as she describes how she has to watch him cry in hunger every morning, his little voice breaking.

“There’s no flour, no sugar, no milk,” she says, her arms wrapped protectively around the child, who has known only war for most of his life.

“We bake lentils like dough and cook plain pasta just to fill our stomachs. But hunger is stronger.”

This is devastating for someone who grew up in Gaza’s rich culture of hospitality and generosity and had a comfortable life in the Tuffah neighbourhood.

Before displacement forced her and her husband to flee west with Qusai, every milestone called for nice meals – New Year’s feasts, Mother’s Day gatherings, birthday parties for her husband, her mother-in-law and Qusai.

“Many of our memories were created around shared meals. Now meals [have become the] memory,” she says.

“My son asks for food and I just hold him,” she continues, her voice cracking. “The famine spreads like cancer – slowly, silently and mercilessly. Children are wasting away before our eyes. And we can do nothing.”

This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.

July 31 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate has approved weapons sales to Israel, despite the fact that a majority of Senate Democrats voted against the measure.

Twenty-seven of the 47 Democrats voted Wednesday in favor of two resolutions to block U.S. military sales to Israel, a change from the historically typical bipartisan support such resolutions are expected to receive.

The resolutions were sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who said in a press release Wednesday that “the members of the Senate Democratic caucus voted to stop sending arms shipments to a Netanyahu government which has waged a horrific, immoral, and illegal war against the Palestinian people.”

“The tide is turning,” he added. “The American people do not want to spend billions to starve children in Gaza.”

Sanders’ resolutions may have failed, but the 27 senators in support is the most he has received in the three times he sponsored them. His first attempt in November of last year received 18 Democratic votes, and a second attempt in April scored 15.

However, 70 senators voted against Sanders’ first resolution that sought to block over $675 million in weapons sales to Israel.

His second resolution, which would have prohibited the sale of thousands of assault rifles, lost more support as it was defeated by a 73-24 margin.

Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., voted in support of Sanders’ resolutions for the first time.

“Tonight I voted YES to block the sale of certain weapons to Israel to send a message to Netanyahu’s government,” she posted to X Wednesday. “This legislative tool is not perfect, but frankly it is time to say ENOUGH to the suffering of innocent young children and families.”

“Tonight, I voted in favor of blocking the Trump Administration from sending more weapons to Israel,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., in an X post Wednesday, after voting yes for the first time.

“My votes tonight reflect my deep frustration with the Netanyahu government’s abject failure to address humanitarian needs in Gaza and send a message to the Trump administration that it must change course if it wants to help end this devastating war,” she concluded.

“The Democrats are moving forward on this issue, and I look forward to Republican support in the near future,” Sanders further noted in his release.

July 31 (UPI) — The United States on Wednesday sanctioned dozens of individuals, entities and vessels accused of being an Iranian oil and petroleum shipping network, as the Trump administration continues with its so-called maximum pressure campaign targeting Tehran.

The 50 people and entities and 50 vessels blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury, along with 20 entities and 10 vessels sanctioned by the State Department on Wednesday, represent the largest punitive package against Iran since 2018, when President Donald Trump first imposed mass sanctions against Iran during his first term.

In 2018, Trump pulled the United States from a landmark multinational Obama-era accord aimed at preventing Tehran from securing a nuclear weapon, and slapped sanctions on the country as part of his maximum pressure campaign that failed to bring Iran to the negotiating table on a new deal.

Instead, Iran escalated its nuclear program to the point that the State Department remarked in 2022 that it would need as little as a week to produce enough weapons-grade highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.

Trump reinstated his maximum pressure campaign on Iran in February and has been targeting its ability to generate revenue since. He also attacked three Iranian nuclear sites last month, amid Israel’s war against Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza.

The sanctions unveiled Wednesday target the vast shipping network of 49-year-old Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani that the United States accuses of laundering billions in profit from the sales of Iranian and Russian crude oil and other petroleum products to buyers mostly in China.

Hossein is the son of Ali Shamkhani, a top political advisor to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and who was sanctioned by the United States in 2020.

“The Shamkhani family’s shipping empire highlights how the Iranian regime elites leverage their positions to accrue massive wealth and fund the regime’s dangerous behavior,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

“These actions put America first by targeting regime elites that profit while Tehran threatens the safety of the United States.”

Bessent added on X that with Wednesday’s sanctions, the United States has sanctioned more than 500 Iranian and Iran-linked targets this year.

The announcement of sanctions comes a day after Iran’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, threatened to retaliate against any new threats to its nuclear program.

“If aggression is repeated, we will not hesitate to react in a more decisive manner and in a way that will be IMPOSSIBLE to cover up,” he said on X on Monday.

Trump claimed his strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, while others have questioned the severity of the damage.

United States President Donald Trump has suggested that Israel will run food distribution centres in Gaza, a move that critics say would further entrench the Israeli occupation and endanger the safety of aid seekers.

Speaking to reporters onboard his presidential jet on Tuesday, Trump stressed the Israeli talking point that Hamas steals food assistance distributed in Gaza — a claim that has been denied by aid groups and United Nations officials.

Even Israeli officials have anonymously told news outlets like The New York Times that there is no evidence food is being diverted to Hamas. Still, Trump suggested otherwise.

“A lot of things have been stolen. They send money. They send food. And Hamas steals it,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “So it’s a tricky little game.”

He added that he trusted Israel to handle the distribution of US aid, in spite of chaotic operations that have resulted in Israeli troops firing on hungry Palestinians.

“We’re going to be dealing with Israel. And we think they can do a good job of it,” Trump said. “They want to preside over the food centres to make sure the distribution is proper.”

It is not clear where and when the sites would be set up, and whether Israel would run them directly or through the GHF, a controversial US-backed aid foundation accused of unsafe practices.

Concerns about aid distribution

Trump’s comments suggest that the US is not ready to support the resumption of aid distribution in Gaza through the UN and its partners on the ground.

Israel has tightened its blockade in Gaza since May, allowing food into the territory almost exclusively through GHF, which has four sites set up in the south of the enclave.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire while attempting to reach or leave GHF centres.

The siege has sparked an Israeli-imposed hunger crisis in the territory, and dozens of people have died of malnutrition.

Whistleblowers from the Israeli military and GHF have shared testimonies detailing the abuses committed at the foundation’s sites in recent weeks.

Anthony Aguilar, a US army veteran who worked with GHF, said that the group has failed to adequately deliver food in Gaza.

Nevertheless, he said, it has served as a vehicle for displacement, forcing Palestinians to the south of the territory.

“What I saw on numerous occasions are the Israeli [military] firing into the crowds of the Palestinians, firing over their head, firing at their feet … not just with rifles or machine guns, but tanks, tank rounds, artillery, mortars, missiles,” Aguilar told Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen in an interview posted on social media.

He stressed that the aid seekers were targeted “not because they were combatants or because they were hostile or because they were Hamas but simply as a means to control the crowd”.

As starvation worsens by the day in Gaza, the Netanyahu govt has been using food as a weapon of war — with complicity from Trump & U.S. taxpayer dollars.

This is painful to listen to but here’s what a U.S. Army veteran & Green Beret who witnessed it first-hand recounted to me: pic.twitter.com/K6LNxN5P4Q

— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) July 29, 2025

Trump denounces ‘real starvation’

Critics say that putting Israeli troops in charge of food distribution sites risks further atrocities against aid seekers.

Israel has maintained that there is no actual hunger in Gaza, dismissing the well-documented spread of starvation in the territory as Hamas propaganda.

On Monday, Trump acknowledged that there is “real starvation” in the territory, but he stopped short of criticising Israel.

Instead, on Tuesday, he stressed that Israel should be the side delivering the aid.

“I think Israel wants to do it, and they’ll be good at doing it,” Trump told reporters.

“If they do it — and if they really want to do it, and I think they do — they’ll do a good job. The food will be properly distributed.”

He also likened any pressure on Israel to a “reward” for Hamas.

“If you do that, you really are rewarding Hamas, and I’m not about to do that,” he told a reporter who asked about the possibility of the US pushing Israel towards a long-term solution to end the conflict.

Last year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on the basis of alleged war crimes, including using starvation as a weapon of war.

UN-backed food security experts announced on Tuesday that the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in Gaza”.

Washington, DC – A new poll from the research firm Gallup suggests that only 32 percent of Americans approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza, a 10-point drop from September 2024, as anger over atrocities against Palestinians continues to rise.

The survey, released on Tuesday, also showed an enormous partisan divide over the issue. Seventy-one percent of respondents who identified as members of the Republican Party said they approve of Israel’s conduct, compared with 8 percent of Democrats.

Overall, 60 percent of respondents said they disapprove of Israel’s military action in Gaza.

Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland and the director of the Critical Issues Poll, said the latest survey shows a trend of growing discontent with Israel that goes beyond the war on Gaza.

“What we’re seeing here is an entrenchment of a generational paradigm among particularly young Americans – mostly Democrats and independents, but even some young Republicans – who now perceive the horror in Gaza in a way of describing the character of Israel itself,” Telhami told Al Jazeera.

In Tuesday’s survey, only 9 percent of respondents under the age of 35 said they approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza, and 6 percent said they have a favourable opinion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The study follows an April poll from the Pew Research Center, which found a majority of respondents – including 50 percent of Republicans under 50 years old – said they had unfavourable views of Israel.

But even as public opinion in the US continues to shift, Washington’s policy of unconditional support for Israel has been unwavering. Since the start of the war on Gaza, the US has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, as well as diplomatic backing at the United Nations.

Both President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have been uncompromising backers of the Israeli assault on Gaza, which human rights groups have described as a genocide.

Israel has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, imposed a suffocating siege and flattened most of the enclave, reducing its buildings to rubble. The siege is credited with prompting deadly hunger: The UN on Tuesday said there was “mounting evidence of famine and widespread starvation”.

Nevertheless, the US Congress also remains staunchly pro-Israel on a bipartisan basis. Earlier this month, a legislative push to block $500m in missile defence support for Israel failed in a 422-to-six vote in the House of Representatives.

So, what explains the schism between the views of average Americans and the policies of their elected representatives?

Telhami cited voter “priorities”. He explained that foreign policy traditionally has not been a driving factor in elections. For example, domestic issues like abortion, the economy and gun control usually dominate the electoral agenda for Democrats.

He also noted the influence of pro-Israel groups, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which have spent millions of dollars to defeat critics of the Israeli government, particularly progressives in Democratic primaries.

But things are changing, according to the professor.

Palestine is rising in public importance, he said, with US voters looking at the issue through the lens of “soul-searching”, as a way of questioning what they stand for.

“It’s not just Gaza. It’s that we are enabling the horror in Gaza as a country – in terms of our aid or support or, even in some cases, direct collaboration,” Telhami said.

“That it is actually creating a paradigmatic shift about who we are, not just about: ‘Do we support Israel? Do we support the Palestinians?’”

He said the victory of Palestinian rights advocate Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary last month underscores that movement.

“The rise of Zohran Mamdani in New York is giving people pause because he’s been able to generate excitement, not, as some people thought, despite his views on Israel-Palestine, but actually because of his views on Israel-Palestine.”

Greek riot police clashed with demonstrators in Rhodes who were protesting the docking of an Israeli cruise ship. The Crown Iris had previously bypassed Syros after Gaza-related protests. The incidents mark a growing pattern of anti-Israel demonstrations at Greek ports.

July 29 (UPI) — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday said the United Kingdom will recognize a Palestinian state if Israel does not agree to a cease-fire in Gaza by September.

Starmer said the Israeli government must take “substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza” by agreeing to a cease-fire and committing to a lasting peace, the BBC reported.

The United Kingdom will announce its recognition of a Palestinian state before the U.N. General Assembly, which is scheduled to start on Sept. 9, Starmer said in his ultimatum.

“Ultimately, the only way to bring this humanitarian crisis to an end is through a long-term settlement,” Starmer told media.

“Our goal remains a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state,” he added, “but, right now, that goal is under pressure like never before.”

Starmer told reporters he always has supported recognizing a Palestinian state as a way to contribute to a lasting peace.

“We demand an immediate cease-fire to stop the slaughter, that the U.N. be allowed to send humanitarian assistance into Gaza on a continuing basis to prevent starvation and the immediate release of the hostages,” Starmer said in a prepared statement on Tuesday.

Starmer did not say where the Palestinian state would be located or what incentive Hamas would have to agree to a cease-fire if continued hostilities would cause the United Kingdom to recognize such a state.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday announced that France will announce its recognition of a Palestinian state during September’s U.N. conference.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected Starmer’s statement, which it said endangers a viable cease-fire in Gaza.

“The shift in the British government’s position at this time, following the French move and internal political pressures, constitutes a reward for Hamas and harms efforts to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza and a framework for the release of hostages,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health ministry has reported more than 60,000 deaths of Gazans following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israeli civilians that killed about 1,200 and kidnapped about 250 others.

Hamas continues holding 50 hostages, including 28 that Israel and others say likely are dead.

U.N. reports indicate Gaza is undergoing a “worst-case scenario of famine” after Israel temporarily halted aid shipments to Gaza from March to mid-May.

Starmer did not respond to a UPI request for comment on the matter.

BALMEDIE, Scotland — Golf and Scotland are close to President Trump’s heart, and both were in play Tuesday as he opened a new eponymous course in the land of his mother’s birth, capping a five-day trip that was largely about promoting his family’s luxury properties.

Dressed for golf and sporting a white cap that said “USA,” Trump appeared to be in such a jolly mood that he even lavished rare praise — instead of the usual insults — on the contingent of journalists who had gathered to cover the event.

“Today they’re not fake news,” Trump said. “Today they’re wonderful news.”

The golf-focused trip gave him a chance to escape Washington’s summer heat, but he could not avoid questions about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the deepening food crisis in Gaza or other issues that trailed him across the Atlantic. The trip itself teed up another example of how the Republican president has used the White House to promote his brand.

Trump addresses Gaza and Epstein

Trump on Monday expressed concern over the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza and urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more to get food aid to hungry Palestinians.

Asked if he agreed with Netanyahu’s assertion Sunday that “there is no policy of starvation in Gaza and there is no starvation in Gaza,” Trump said he didn’t know but added, “I mean, based on television, I would say not particularly because those children look very hungry.”

The president also offered a reason why he banished Epstein from his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., years ago, saying it was because the disgraced financier “stole people that worked for me.” A top White House aide said last week that Epstein was kicked out for being a “creep.”

Trump tees off on newly opened golf course

Flanked by sons Eric and Donald Jr., Trump counted “1-2-3” and wielded a pair of golden scissors to cut a red ribbon marking the ceremonial opening of the new Trump course in the village of Balmedie on Scotland’s northern coast.

“This has been an unbelievable development,” Trump said before the ribbon cutting. He thanked Eric, who designed the course, saying his work on the project was “truly a labor of love for him.”

Eric Trump said the course was his father’s “passion project.”

Immediately afterward, Trump, Eric Trump and two professional golfers teed off on the first hole with plans to play a full 18 before the president returns to Washington on Tuesday night. Trump rarely allows the news media to watch his golf game, though video journalists and photographers often find him along the course whenever he plays.

Trump’s shot had a solid sound and soared straight, high and relatively far. Clearly pleased, he turned to the cameras and did an almost half-bow.

“He likes the course, ladies and gentlemen,” Eric Trump said.

Billed as the “Greatest 36 Holes in Golf,” the Trump International Golf Links, Scotland, is hosting back-to-back weekend tournaments before it begins offering rounds to the public on Aug. 13.

Trump fits White House business into golf trip

Trump worked some official business into the trip by holding talks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and reaching a trade framework for tariffs between the U.S. and the European Union’s 27 member countries — though scores of key details remain to be settled.

But the trip itself was centered around golf, and the presidential visit served to raise the new course’s profile.

Trump’s assets are in a trust and his sons are running the family business while he’s in the White House. Any business generated at the course will ultimately enrich the president when he leaves office, though.

The new golf course will be the third owned by the Trump Organization in Scotland. Trump bought Turnberry in 2014 and owns another course near Aberdeen that opened in 2012.

Trump golfed at Turnberry on Saturday, as protesters took to the streets, and on Sunday before meeting there in the afternoon with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

New course blends things dear to Trump

The occasion blended two things dear to Trump: golf and Scotland.

His mother, the late Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Isle of Lewis on the north coast.

“We love Scotland here. My mother was born here, and she loved it,” Trump said Tuesday. She visited “religiously once a year” during the summer with his sisters, he said.

Perhaps the only mood-buster for Trump are the wind turbines that are part of a nearby wind farm and can be seen from around the new course.

Trump, who often speaks about his hatred of windmills, sued in 2013 to block construction of the wind farm but lost the case and was eventually ordered to pay legal costs for filing the lawsuit — a matter that still enrages him more than a decade later.

Trump said on a new episode of the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast that the “ugly windmills” are a “shame” and are “really hurting” Scotland. The interview was conducted over the weekend and released Tuesday.

“It kills the birds, ruins the look. They’re noisy,” he said, asserting that the value of real estate around them also plummets. “I think it’s a very bad thing. Environmentally, it’s horrible.”

Weissert and Superville write for the Associated Press. Superville reported from Washington.

Israeli TV personalities are making fun of children dying of starvation in Gaza, with one even claiming a mother ate her baby. It is part of a right-wing media campaign that is promoting the famine as a hoax.

‘All the kids are hungry. We are hungry.’

This is a day in the life of a Palestinian family in Gaza, living through Israel’s policy of starvation. Video shows the challenges they face as they try to find a meal from a charity kitchen during a widespread famine.

At least 60,034 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the war on Gaza erupted in October 2023, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health.

The grim milestone was reached on Tuesday, with medical sources telling Al Jazeera that at least 62 Palestinians, including 19 aid seekers, have been killed since dawn, despite “pauses” in fighting to deliver essential humanitarian aid.

Local accounts indicate that Israel used booby-trapped robots, as well as tanks and drones, in what residents describe as one of the bloodiest nights in recent weeks, said Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

“This is a sign of a possible imminent Israeli ground manoeuvre, although Israel has not yet confirmed the objectives of the attack,” he said.

The latest attacks come as the “worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in Gaza, according to a new report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global hunger monitoring system.

“Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City,” it said in the report.

“Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point,” the IPC document added.

Food consumption has sharply deteriorated, with one in three individuals going without food for days at a time, it said.

Malnutrition rose rapidly in the first half of July, with more than 20,000 children being admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July. More than 3,000 of them are severely malnourished.

The IPC alert comes against the backdrop of its latest analysis released in May, which projected that by September, the entire population of Gaza would face high levels of acute food shortages, with more than 500,000 people expected to be in a state of extreme food deprivation, starvation, and destitution, unless Israel lifts its blockade and stops its military campaign.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and humanitarian blockade, which it lifted partially in March, continues to plunge the Palestinian territory into an increasingly dire malnutrition crisis as at least 147 people, including 88 children, have died from malnutrition since the start of the war, the Health Ministry said on Monday.

Starvation is affecting all sectors of the population, with Sima Bahous, the executive director of UN Women, saying one million women and girls in Gaza face the “unthinkable choice” of starving or risking their lives while searching for food.

“This horror must end,” Bahous said in a social media post, calling for unhindered access of humanitarian aid into the Strip, the release of captives and a permanent ceasefire.

Babies particularly affected

Medical staff at Gaza’s hospitals are seeing babies severely malnourished “without muscles and fat tissue, just the skin over the bone”, the director of paediatrics and maternity at Nasser Hospital, Ahmed al-Farra, told Al Jazeera.

The long-term consequences of malnutrition for babies, infants and children are severe as they are still developing their central nervous system during the first three years of their lives, said al-Farra.

Babies who have been malnourished will not have the required folic acid, B1 complex and polyunsaturated fatty acids that are essential for the composition of the central nervous system.

Al-Farrah said malnutrition can affect cognitive development in the future, make it hard for a child to read and write, and lead to depression and anxiety.

Tanya Haj Hassan, a doctor with the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF), explains that serious health risks remain even after food becomes available again.

“The reality is the problem doesn’t end when the food arrives … malnutrition impacts all aspects of the body’s function,” Hassan told Al Jazeera.

“All of the cells in your body are altered by this. In the intestines, the cells die. That results in issues with absorption, with bacteria. Your pancreas struggles; absorbing fats is difficult.

“Your heart cells become weak and thinned. The connections are impacted, the heart rate slows. These children often die of heart failure, even when they’re being refed,” she added.

“They also have life-threatening shifts in salts; these can also lead to fatal heart rhythms. They’re more prone to sepsis and shock,” the doctor said, in reference to oral rehydration salt solutions, which are usually administered to people suffering from malnutrition.

“[Patients can face] low blood pressure, skin lesions, hypothermia, fluid overload, infection, vitamin deficiencies that can affect vision and bone.”

US President Donald Trump appeared to obliquely reject Israeli claims that no starvation is taking place in Gaza, saying images of hungry children show “real starvation” that one can’t “fake”. He also said the US would assist in setting up new food centres.