Gaza

The Norwegian Refugee Council says the ‘deliberate denial of energy access’ undermines human needs in Gaza.

The lack of reliable energy sources is a key threat to survival in war-torn Gaza, an NGO has warned.

The “deliberate denial of energy access”, like electricity and fuel, “undermines fundamental human needs” in the war-torn enclave, a report published on Monday by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) cautioned. The alert is just the latest regarding the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which is driven by Israel’s blockade amid its war against Hamas.

Israel halted the entry of food, water and fuel in March, putting the Palestinian territory’s population at risk of famine.

Electricity supply has also been limited. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that 2.1 million people in Gaza have no access to power.

“In Gaza, energy is not about convenience – it’s about survival,” Benedicte Giaever, executive director of NORCAP, which is part of NRC, said.

“When families can’t cook, when hospitals go dark and when water pumps stop running, the consequences are immediate and devastating. The international community must prioritise energy in all humanitarian efforts,” she added.

NRC’s report noted that without power, healthcare facilities in Gaza have been adversely impacted, with emergency surgeries having to be delayed, and ventilators, incubators and dialysis machines unable to function.

Lack of electricity has also impacted Gaza’s desalination facilities, leaving 70 percent of households without access to clean water and forcing households to burn plastic or debris to cook, NRC said.

The humanitarian organisation also highlighted how the lack of power has increased the risks of gender-based violence after dark.

“For too long, the people of Gaza have endured cycles of conflict, blockade, and deprivation. But the current crisis represents a new depth of despair, threatening their immediate survival and their long-term prospects for recovery and development,” NRC’s Secretary General Jan Egeland said, urging the international community to ensure the people in Gaza gain access to energy.

Amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, hundreds of people have been killed by the Israeli military as they have sought food and other vital supplies from aid stations set up by the controversial Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

In its latest daily update released on Monday, the Health Ministry in Gaza said the bodies of at least 39 people had been brought to hospitals over the previous 24 hours. At least 317 people were wounded, it added.

Since Israel eased its total blockade last month, more than 400 people are reported to have died trying to reach food distribution points.

The UN’s top humanitarian official in the occupied Palestinian territory issued a stark warning on Sunday over the deepening crisis.

“We see a chilling pattern of Israeli forces opening fire on crowds gathering to get food,” said Jonathan Whittall, who heads OCHA in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“The attempt to survive is being met with a death sentence.”

Israeli forces say they have recovered the bodies of three captives held in the Gaza Strip since Hamas’s 2023 attack, the military said, as its bombardment and attacks in the besieged enclave have killed more than 30 Palestinians, according to hospital officials.

The military on Sunday said the bodies of Ofra Keidar, Yonatan Samerano, and soldier Shay Levinson were recovered from Gaza “in a special operation”.

Samerano’s father had announced earlier on Sunday that his 21-year-old son’s body, which was taken into Gaza after he was murdered on October 7, 2023, had been recovered by the Israeli army.

Keidar, a 71-year-old mother of three, was also killed on the day, while 19-year-old tank commander Levinson “engaged and fought terrorists on the morning of October 7 and fell in combat”, a statement from the military said.

More than 1,100 people were killed and about 250 taken captive during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities. At least 50 of those captives remain in Gaza, with 20 reportedly still alive, Israeli media say.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the country’s ongoing conflict with Iran would help it win its war in Gaza and return the captives.

“We are getting closer, step by step, to our objectives: defeating Hamas and bringing our hostages home… I am convinced that the operation in Iran is helping us achieve our objective in Gaza,” said Netanyahu.

Hamas has repeatedly said it is ready to release all Israeli captives in exchange for a permanent end to the war on Gaza, the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave, and the release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

But Netanyahu has rejected the terms and continued his war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed about 56,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children – a brutal offensive that the United Nations, most governments, and rights groups call a genocide.

More recently, starving Palestinians desperate for food and other essential items are being shot, with more than 400 people killed and nearly 2,000 wounded since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial group backed by the United States and Israel, began distributing aid last month.

Israeli forces killed at least 33 Palestinians since dawn on Sunday, six of them while seeking aid, hospital sources in Gaza told Al Jazeera. Gaza’s Ministry of Health said at least 51 Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours.

Since March 18, when Israel broke a fragile two-month ceasefire and launched a massive assault on Gaza, at least 5,647 Palestinians have been killed and 19,201 wounded, according to the ministry.

‘The situation is collapsing and deteriorating’

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said Israeli forces continue to target different residential areas across the enclave and aid distribution points.

“Israeli forces continue to attack aid seekers who have been very close to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution points, where at least seven Palestinians have been killed since this morning,” Khoudary said.

“In hospitals here across the Gaza Strip, the situation is collapsing and deteriorating as Gaza’s hospitals are running out of fuel and also medical supplies.”

Medical services in Gaza say ambulances have completely stopped operating in Gaza City due to Israel’s ban on fuel entering the enclave.

The Israeli blockade of food and medicines has pushed its entire population of more than two million to the brink of starvation.

Another Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza on Sunday said at least six people were killed overnight during an Israel-imposed internet blackout that lasted five hours and was accompanied by heavy Israeli artillery firing targeting areas in eastern and central Gaza.

Three of them were killed after a rocket hit a tent housing displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi to the west of Khan Younis city. A man and his wife were killed in another strike targeting an apartment to the north of Nuseirat.

On Sunday, the Catholic Church’s Pope Leo XIV called on the world not to forget the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as the conflict in the Middle East broadened with overnight US strikes on Iran.

“In this context that includes Israel and Palestine, there is a risk that the daily suffering of peoples is forgotten, in particular in Gaza and other territories, where there is an ever greater urgency for adequate humanitarian aid,” he said.

June 22 (UPI) — The State Department on Sunday night issued a global travel advisory warning Americans abroad to exercise increased caution after the United States attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities the night prior.

The statement from the State Department does not mention the Saturday night attack but acknowledged that “there is the potential for demonstrations against U.S. citizens and interests abroad.

“The conflict between Israel and Iran has resulted in disruptions to travel and periodic closure of airspace across the Middle East,” the statement said. “The Department of State advises U.S. citizens worldwide to exercise increased caution.”

The United States entered the Israel-Iran war on Saturday when President Donald Trump ordered U.S. warplanes to attack three of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran has vowed revenge while deciding how, when and where it will retaliate.

Israel and Iran have been in a proxy war for years, but it exploded to the forefront following the Tehran-backed militia Hamas‘ bloody Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on Israel.

Earlier this month, the war between the two countries intensified when Israel attacked some of Iran’s nuclear facilities and killed some of its top military officers.

Iran has responded by targeting Tel Aviv and other regions of Israel.

The announcement from the State Department comes after it warned Americans last week against traveling to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

On June 14, it authorized the voluntary departure from Israel of family members and non-emergency U.S. government employees “due to volatile and unpredictable security situation in the region.”

Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, but fears that it might be working to achieve one has been at the forefront of both U.S. and Israeli foreign policy concerning Tehran.

After nearly two years of stark divisions over the war in Gaza and support for Israel, Democrats remain at odds over policy toward Iran after the U.S. strikes early Sunday.

Progressives demanded unified opposition before President Trump announced U.S. strikes against Tehran’s nuclear program, but party leaders were treading more cautiously.

U.S. leaders of all stripes have found common ground for two decades on the position that Iran could not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. The longtime U.S. foe has supported groups that have killed Americans across the Mideast and threatened to destroy Israel. But Trump’s announcement Saturday that the U.S. had struck three nuclear sites could become the Democratic Party’s latest schism, just as it was sharply dividing Trump’s isolationist “Make America Great Again” base from more hawkish conservatives.

Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, noted that in January, Trump suggested the U.S. could “measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

“Today, against his own words, the president sent bombers into Iran,” Martin said in a statement. “Americans overwhelmingly do not want to go to war. Americans do not want to risk the safety of our troops abroad.”

Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, said the U.S. entering the war in Iran “does not make America more secure.”

“This bombing was an act of war that risks retaliation by the Iranian regime,” Welch said in a statement.

While progressives in the lead-up to the military action had staked out clear opposition to Trump’s potential intervention, the party leadership played the safer ground of insisting on a role for Congress before any use of force.

Martin’s statement took a similar tack, saying, “Americans do not want a president who bypasses our constitution and pulls us towards war without Congressional approval. Donald Trump needs to bring his case to Congress immediately.”

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine called Trump’s actions “horrible judgment” and said he’d “push for all senators to vote on whether they are for this third idiotic Middle East war.”

Many prominent Democrats with 2028 presidential aspirations had been silent on the Israel-Iran war, even before Trump’s announcement — underscoring how politically tricky the issue can be for the party.

“They are sort of hedging their bets,” said Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of State who served under President Obama and is now a strategist on foreign policy. “The beasts of the Democratic Party’s constituencies right now are so hostile to Israel’s war in Gaza that it’s really difficult to come out looking like one would corroborate an unauthorized war that supports Israel without blowback.”

Progressives

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) had called Trump’s consideration of an attack “a defining moment for our party.” Khanna had introduced legislation with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) that called on the Republican president to “terminate” the use of U.S. armed forces against Iran unless “explicitly authorized” by a declaration of war from Congress.

Khanna used Trump’s campaign arguments of putting American interests first when the congressman spoke to Theo Von, a comedian who has been supportive of the president and is popular among Trump supporters, particularly young men.

“That’s going to cost this country a lot of money that should be being spent here at home,” said Khanna, who is said to be among the many Democrats considering seeking the presidential nomination in 2028.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who twice sought the Democratic presidential nomination, had pointed to Trump’s stated goal during his inaugural speech of being known as “a peacemaker and a unifier.”

“Supporting Netanyahu’s war against Iran would be a catastrophic mistake,” Sanders said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sanders reintroduced legislation prohibiting the use of federal money for force against Iran, insisted that U.S. military intervention would be unwise and illegal and accused Israel of striking unprovoked. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York signed on to a similar bill from Sanders in 2020, but so far was holding off this time.

Some believed the party should stake out a clear antiwar stance.

“The leaders of the Democratic Party need to step up and loudly oppose war with Iran and demand a vote in Congress,” said Tommy Vietor, a former Obama aide, on X.

Mainstream Democrats

The staunch support from the Democratic administration of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for Israel’s war against Hamas loomed over the party’s White House ticket in 2024, even with the criticism of Israel’s handling of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Trump exploited the divisions to make inroads with Arab American voters and Orthodox Jews on his way back to the White House.

Today, the Israel-Iran war is the latest test for a party struggling to repair its coalition before next year’s midterm elections and the quick-to-follow kickoff to the 2028 presidential race. The party will look to bridge the divide between an activist base that is skeptical of foreign interventions and already critical of U.S. support for Israel and more traditional Democrats and independents who make up a sizable, if not always vocal, voting bloc.

In a statement after Israel’s first strikes on Iran, Schumer said Israel has a right to defend itself and “the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security and defense must be ironclad as they prepare for Iran’s response.”

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) said that “the U.S. must continue to stand with Israel, as it has for decades, at this dangerous moment.”

Other Democrats have condemned Israel’s strikes and accused Netanyahu of sabotaging nuclear talks with Iran. They are reminding the public that Trump withdrew in 2018 from a multinational nuclear agreement that limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions negotiated during the Obama administration.

“Trump created the problem,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) posted on X.

What voters think

A Pearson Institute/Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from September 2024 found that about half of Democrats said the U.S. was being “too supportive” of Israel and about 4 in 10 said its level of support was “about right.” Democrats were more likely than independents and Republicans to say the Israeli government had “a lot” of responsibility for the continuation of the war between Israel and Hamas.

About 6 in 10 Democrats and half of Republicans said they felt Iran was an adversary with whom the U.S. was in conflict.

Gomez Licon and Beaumont write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Linley Sanders, Will Weissert and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report

See the moment former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, who was held for 100 days in a US detention centre, was greeted by supporters after his release from custody. Khalil vowed to continue protesting US complicity in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

CONCORD, N.H. — A Palestinian activist who was detained for more than three months pushed his infant son’s stroller with one hand and pumped his fist in the air with the other as supporters welcomed him home Saturday.

Mahmoud Khalil greeted friends and spoke briefly to reporters Saturday at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey a day after a judge ordered his release from a federal immigration facility in Louisiana. The former Columbia University graduate student, a symbol of President Trump’s clampdown on campus protests, vowed to continue protesting Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.

“The U.S. government is funding this genocide, and Columbia University is investing in this genocide,” he said. “This is why I will continue to protest with every one of you. Not only if they threaten me with detention. Even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Palestine.”

Khalil, a legal U.S. resident whose wife gave birth during his 104 days of detention, said he also will speak up for the immigrants he left behind in the detention center.

“Whether you are a citizen, an immigrant, anyone in this land, you’re not illegal. That doesn’t make you less of a human,” he said.

The 30-year-old international affairs student wasn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. However, the Trump administration has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the U.S. for expressing views it deems to be antisemitic or “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence. The government filed notice Friday evening that it is appealing Khalil’s release.

Joining Khalil at the airport, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said his detention violated the 1st Amendment and was “an affront to every American.”

“He has been accused, baselessly, of horrific allegations simply because the Trump administration and our overall establishment disagrees with his political speech,” she said.

“The Trump administration knows that they are waging a losing legal battle,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “They are violating the law, and they know that they are violating the law.”

Ramer writes for the Associated Press.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says that in the last 48 hours, 202 people have been killed in Israeli attacks.

At least 26 people, including more aid seekers, have been killed in the latest Israeli attacks on Gaza.

The attacks come as desperate Palestinians under Israeli blockade continue to wait at food distribution points amid an ongoing hunger crisis.

Among those killed during Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave on Saturday, 11 were aid recipients at distribution centres run by the United States-and-Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which the United Nations has condemned for its “weaponisation” of aid.

Meanwhile, Wafa news agency reported that at least three people were killed and several others wounded by an Israeli drone strike that targeted displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza.

The report said that the attack targeted a tent sheltering displaced members of the Shurrab family. The tent was located in an area the Israeli military had previously designated as a “safe zone”.

In the last 48 hours, at least 202 people have been killed, including four recovered bodies after Israeli attacks, and 1,037 wounded by Israeli attacks across Gaza, the Health Ministry reported.

Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, at least 55,908 people have been killed, and 131,138 have been wounded in Israeli attacks.

Attacks on aid sites

In recent days, Israeli attacks on aid distribution sites in Gaza have ramped up as thousands of Palestinians gather daily in the hope of receiving food rations following a two-month Israeli blockade of aid deliveries.

On Saturday, three people were killed at a GHF site in Khan Younis after Israeli forces opened fire. Several people were also wounded and taken to medical facilities.

Omar al-Hobi, a displaced Palestinian in Khan Younis, told Al Jazeera from a hospital that walking to those sites means you “enter the point of death”.

“I call it the point of death. The tank is in front of us, the machinegun is in front of us, and the quadcopter is above us, and there are soldiers on the ground with snipers. Anyone who moves before the time is shot, and the moment the tank retreats, we start running,” al-Hobi said.

Israel claims its attacks at the aid sites have been to control crowds, but witnesses and humanitarian groups have said that many of the shootings took place unprovoked, resulting in hundreds of casualties.

The Red Cross said on Thursday, the “vast majority” of patients who arrived at its field hospital in the enclave since the GHF aid system began at the end of last month had reported that they were wounded while trying to access aid or around distribution points.

Meanwhile, Wafa, citing the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority in the Gaza Strip, reports that there has been a disruption in internet and landline services affecting the governorates of Gaza, which include Gaza City, and north Gaza.

There is currently an ongoing outage in the southern and central areas of the Gaza Strip that has lasted for more than three days.

A young boy in Gaza was filmed wailing over the boy of his father, who was killed in an Israeli air attack on Jabalia. Israel’s bombing of Gaza has not subsided despite it’s escalating military campaign on Iran.

US diplomat Dorothy Shea corrected herself after saying Israel’s government had “spread chaos, terror and suffering” across the Middle East during her statement at the UN Security Council. Shea went on to blame Iran for the conflict with Israel, saying they should have agreed to a deal.

An EU diplomatic service audit report, seen by Reuters and AFP, looked at Israel’s actions in Gaza and occupied West Bank.

There are indications Israel may have breached its human rights obligations under the terms of a pact governing its ties with the European Union, a review of the agreement shows.

According to an EU document seen by the Reuters and AFP news agencies on Friday, the European External Action Service said that Israel’s actions in Gaza were likely not in line with rules laid out in the EU-Israel Association.

“On the basis of the assessments made by the independent international institutions … there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations,” the audit drafted by the EU’s diplomatic service read.

The report comes after months of deepening concern in European capitals about Israel’s operations in Gaza and the humanitarian situation in the enclave.

“Israel’s continued restrictions to the provision of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other vital supplies affect the entire population of Gaza present on the affected territory,” it said.

The document includes a section dedicated to the situation in Gaza – covering issues related to denial of humanitarian aid, attacks with a significant number of casualties, attacks on medical facilities, displacement and lack of accountability – as well as the situation in the occupied West Bank, including settler violence, Reuters reported.

The document said it relies on “facts verified by and assessments made by independent international institutions, and with a focus on most recent events in Gaza and the West Bank”.

The audit was launched last month in response to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, in a push backed by 17 states and spearheaded by the Netherlands.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, is expected to present the findings of the report to the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.

EU-Israel agreement

Under the EU-Israel agreement, which came into effect in 2000, the two parties agreed that their relationship would be based on “respect for human rights and democratic principles”.

Suspending the agreement would require a unanimous decision from the bloc’s 27 members, something diplomats have said from the beginning was virtually impossible.

According to AFP, diplomats have said that they expect Kallas to propose options on a response to the report during the next foreign ministers’ meeting in July.

“The question is … how many member states would still be willing not to do anything and still keep on saying that it’s business as usual,” an unnamed diplomat told the news agency ahead of the review’s findings.

“It’s really important to not fall into the trap of Israel to look somewhere else,” they said.

The EU is Israel’s largest commercial partner, with 42.6 billion euros ($48.2bn) in goods traded in 2024. Trade in services reached 25.6 billion euros ($29.5bn) in 2023.

Israel’s mission to the EU did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment about the contents of the document.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Noor Abdalla, the Columbia University graduate student’s wife, says the family ‘can finally breathe a sigh of relief’.

A federal judge in the United States has ordered the release of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained since March by immigration authorities over his involvement in Palestinian rights protests at Columbia University.

The decision on Friday to grant Khalil bail came from a federal court in New Jersey, where Khalil’s lawyers are challenging his detention. It is separate from the legal push against his deportation that will continue to take place in immigration courts.

It is unclear whether Khalil – who is a legal permanent resident – will be immediately freed. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has been advocating on his behalf, said he will be returning to New York to be with his family.

“This is a joyous day for Mahmoud, for his family, and for everyone’s First Amendment rights,” ACLU lawyer Noor Zafar said in a statement, referring to the US constitutional provision that protects free speech.

“Since he was arrested in early March, the government has acted at every turn to punish Mahmoud for expressing his political beliefs about Palestine. But today’s ruling underscores a vital First Amendment principle: The government cannot abuse immigration law to punish speech it disfavors.”

He was the first known activist to be detained and have his legal immigration status revoked by the administration of President Donald Trump over involvement in student protests.

His case gained national attention, especially after the authorities denied him the chance to witness the birth of his first born son in April.

“After more than three months we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” said Noor Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, said in a statement.

Khalil was not charged of any crime. Instead, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has used a rarely used provision of an immigration law that allows him to order the removal of noncitizens if they are deemed to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the US.

Advocates have argued that the crackdown violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects freedom of speech.

The Trump administration has also been criticised for sending immigration authorities – sometimes masked and in plainclothes – to detain the students instead of allowing them to remain free while they challenge their deportation.

Several other students that the Trump administration is looking to deport have been ordered released by federal courts, including Turkish Tufts University scholar Rumeysa Ozturk and Columbia’s Mohsen Mahdawi.

Ozturk was detained over co-authoring an op-ed calling on her school to abide by the student government’s call for divesting from companies involved in Israeli abuses against Palestinians.

Khalil, who lived with his wife, a US citizen, in New York, has been detained in rural Louisiana – an effort that his supporters say aims to keep him away from his family and lawyers and transfer him to a more conservative rural jurisdiction.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said Khalil’s release is a blow to the Trump administration, which has insisted that he must remain in detention while making his immigration case.

“The bottom line in all of this is that he has really become sort of a poster child for those who are advocating for free speech in the United States,” Halkett said.

Violence against children in conflict zones reached ‘unprecedented levels’ in 2024, with most violations committed in Gaza, occupied West Bank, UN says.

The United Nations has kept Israel on its “blacklist” of countries committing abuses against children in armed conflict for a second straight year, as its war on Gaza continues for nearly 20 months.

The listing on Thursday came as the UN said in a new report that violence against children in conflict zones reached “unprecedented levels” in 2024, with the highest number of violations committed in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank by the Israeli army.

The annual report on Children in Armed Conflict detailed “a staggering” 25 percent surge globally in grave violations against children below the age of 18 last year from 2023. It said it had verified 41,370 grave violations against children, including killing and maiming, sexual violence, and attacks on schools and hospitals.

Among them were 8,554 grave violations against 2,959 children – 2,944 Palestinian, 15 Israeli – in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel.

The figure includes confirmation of 1,259 Palestinian children killed and 941 wounded in Gaza, which has come under relentless Israeli bombardment following an attack led by the Palestinian group Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported much higher figures, and the UN said it is currently verifying information on an additional 4,470 children killed in 2024 in the besieged territory.

The UN said it has also verified the killing of 97 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, where a total of 3,688 violations were recorded.

The report also called out Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, where more than 500 children were killed or injured last year.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was “appalled by the intensity of grave violations against children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel”, citing the widespread use of explosive weapons in populated areas.

Guterres also reiterated his calls on Israel to abide by international law requiring special protections for children, protection for schools and hospitals, and compliance with the requirement that attacks distinguish between fighters and civilians and avoid excessive harm to innocent people.

There was no immediate comment by Israel’s UN mission.

The armed wing of the Palestinian group Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, and the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, were also included in the blacklist for a second time.

Following the Palestinian territory, the countries where the UN registered the most violence against children in 2024 were the Democratic Republic of the Congo (more than 4,000 grave violations); Somalia (more than 2,500); Nigeria (nearly 2,500); and Haiti (more than 2,200).

The sharpest percentage increase in the number of violations was recorded in Lebanon (545 percent), followed by Mozambique (525 percent), Haiti (490 percent), Ethiopia (235 percent), and Ukraine (105 percent), it added.

Israel’s attacks on Gaza have not let up since it also began attacking Iran. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in recent days, including dozens seeking aid and families who were bombed in displacement tents.

Video shows distressing scenes as a badly wounded Palestinian girl in Gaza embraces the body of her father, who was killed in an Israeli attack on Khan Younis. Luna Rasras was sheltering in a tent with her family when the attack happened. Her siblings were also killed.

Footage shows Pakistani citizens evacuated from Iran fleeing the country as the Israel-Iran conflict deepens. Pakistan shut all crossings with Iran indefinitely on Monday, raising concerns the conflict could destabilise the nuclear-armed nation.

UN chief Antonio Guterres, in a statement read by spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, warned against escalating the Iran-Israel conflict. He urged restraint and diplomacy, and warned against any ‘additional military interventions.”

As Israel attacks Iran, its genocide in Gaza has shown no signs of easing.

At least 70 Palestinians were killed in a single day this week at a food distribution site run by a controversial group in Khan Younis that is backed by Israel and the United States.

All other aid channels are blocked – including medical supplies.

So, what’s the impact of this latest Israeli strategy?

Presenter: Nick Clark

Guests: 

Amjad Shawa – Director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network in Gaza

Christopher Lockyear – Secretary-general at Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF)

Mads Gilbert – Medical doctor with extensive experience in Gaza

British sympathy for the Palestinian cause – and criticism of Israel – is surging, according to a new survey.

London, United Kingdom – Most Britons who oppose Israel’s war on Gaza believe the onslaught, which has to date killed more than 55,000 people, amounts to genocide, according to a new poll.

The survey, carried out by YouGov and commissioned by the Action for Humanity charity and the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) advocacy group, found that 55 percent of Britons are against Israel’s aggression. A significant number of those opponents – 82 percent – said Israel’s actions amount to genocide.

“This translates to 45 percent of adults in the UK who view Israel’s actions as genocidal,” said Action for Humanity and ICJP.

Details of the poll, which 2,010 people responded to in early June, were released on Wednesday.

Sixty-five percent said the UK should enforce the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he were to visit Britain.

“It is clear that a majority of the public here are disgusted with Israel’s conduct, and a growing number agree that this is clearly a genocide,” said Othman Moqbel, head of Action for Humanity.

He added that all but a few believe the UK should do “everything in its power to stop Israel and seek justice against those responsible”.

“The government’s failure to recognise the scale of the crimes being inflicted upon Gaza is not just putting them on the wrong side of history, it’s putting them on the wrong side of the present day.”

Tens of thousands of Britons have taken to the streets over the past 20 months to protest against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has in recent weeks adopted harsher tones on Israel and sanctioned top officials. In 2024, the UK suspended 30 arms export licences to Israel for use in Gaza amid concerns Israel was violating international humanitarian laws.

But critics have lamented the pace and power of the UK’s response, calling for tougher sanctions and measures that would prevent Israel from receiving F-35 components made in Britain.

The survey also highlighted the positions of Britons who voted for the Labour Party in the 2024 general election.

Of the 68 percent of Labour voters who are against Israel’s actions in Gaza, 87 percent believe they amount to genocide. Seventy-eight percent of Labour voters said the UK should enforce the ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

The UK has suggested it would comply with the ICC warrant.

“The UK government is totally out of touch with the British public they are supposed to represent, and the Labour Party are even more out of touch with their own voters,” said Jonathan Purcell of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians.

“UK policymaking should be based on complying with international law obligations, regardless, but this poll just goes to show the level of popular support for such policies too. There is absolutely no appetite to drag our national reputation through the mud by continuing to stand with a rogue, pariah state.”