Israel-Palestine conflict

Since October 7, 2023, the war of images has eclipsed the war of weapons. From Gaza’s pulverised hospitals and starving infants to mass graves and desperate fathers digging through rubble, every pixel captured on a smartphone strikes deeper than a missile.

These raw, unfiltered, and undeniable images have a far greater impact than any press conference or official speech. And for the first time in its history, Israel cannot delete them or drown them in propaganda.

The horrifying images of the Israeli army massacring people at aid distribution locations prompted newspaper Haaretz’s Gideon Levy to write on June 29: “Is Israel perpetrating genocide in Gaza? […] The testimonies and images emerging from Gaza don’t leave room for many questions.”

Even staunchly pro-Israel commentator and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman no longer buys into the Israeli narrative. In a May 9 op-ed, addressed to US President Donald Trump, he declared: “This Israeli government is not our ally,” clarifying that it is “behaving in ways that threaten hard-core US interests in the region”.

Once, Israel’s narrative was protected by the gates of editorial rooms and the gravity of Western guilt. But the smartphone shattered those gates. What we see now is no longer what Israel tells us — it’s what Gaza shows us.

The platforms carrying these images — TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, X — don’t prioritise context; they prioritise virality. While older generations might look away, younger ones are glued to the stream of suffering, absorbed by every pixel, every siren, every moment of destruction. The global public is agitated, and this works against the Israeli interest. Israel is no longer just at war with its neighbours; it is at war with the lens itself.

The psychological toll of this visual war is reverberating deep inside Israeli society. For decades, Israelis were conditioned to see themselves as global narrators of trauma, not subjects of international scrutiny. But now, with videos of Israeli bombardment, flattened Gaza neighbourhoods, and emaciated children flooding every platform, many Israelis are grappling with a growing ethical predicament.

There is unease, even among centrists, that these visceral images are eroding Israel’s moral high ground. For the first time, public discourse in Israeli society includes fear of the mirror: what the world now sees and what Israelis are forced to confront.

Internationally, the effect has been even more destabilising for Israel’s diplomatic standing. Longstanding allies, once unconditionally supportive, now face growing domestic pressure from citizens who are not consuming official statements but TikTok’s live streams and Instagram’s image feed.

Lawmakers in Europe and North America are openly questioning arms shipments, trade deals, and diplomatic cover, not because of the briefings they have on Israeli war crimes but because their inboxes are flooded with screenshots of scattered body parts and starving children.

The battlefield has expanded into parliaments, campuses, city councils, and editorial rooms. This is the backlash of a war Israel cannot win with brute force. To regain control of the narrative, Israeli officials have pressured social media platforms to curb content they dislike. Yet even Israel’s most sophisticated public diplomacy efforts are struggling to keep pace with the virality of raw documentation.

Behind closed doors, the Israeli military is no longer merely worried about public relations; it is concerned about prosecution. The Israeli army has admonished soldiers for taking selfies and filming themselves demolishing Palestinian homes, warning that such material is now being harvested as evidence by international human rights organisations.

Footage and images from social media have already been used by activists to target Israeli servicemen abroad. In a number of cases, Israeli citizens have had to flee countries they were visiting due to war crimes complaints filed against them.

In the age of smartphones, the occupation is no longer just visible — it’s indictable.

In the past, Israel fought wars that it could explain. Now, it fights a battle it can only react to — often too belatedly and too clumsily. The smartphone captures what the missile conceals. Social media disseminates information that official briefings attempt to suppress. The haunting images, digitally preserved, ensure that we never forget any devastating atrocity, or act of brutality.

Images of conflict do not just convey information; they can also redefine our perceptions and influence our political positions. The powerful “Napalm Girl” photo that captured the aftermath of an attack by the US-allied South Vietnamese army on civilians during the Vietnam War had a profound impact on American society. It helped create a significant shift in public opinion regarding the war, accelerating the decision of the US government to end it.

Today, in Gaza, the stream of powerful images does not stop. Despite Israel’s best efforts, the global opinion is overwhelmingly against its genocidal war.

Smartphones have completely changed the nature of conflict by putting a camera in the hands of every witness. In this new era, Israel struggles to defeat the relentless, unfiltered visual record of its crimes that calls for justice.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Naim Qassem says his group will not surrender or lay down weapons in response to Israeli threats, despite pressure on the group to disarm.

The Hezbollah chief says the Lebanese group remains open to peace, but it will not disarm or back down from confronting Israel until it ends its air raids and withdraws from southern Lebanon.

“We cannot be asked to soften our stance or lay down arms while [Israeli] aggression continues,” Naim Qassem told thousands of supporters gathered in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday for Ashura, an important day in the Shia Muslim calendar.

Ashura commemorates the 680 AD Battle of Karbala, in which Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein, was killed after he refused to pledge allegiance to the Umayyad caliphate. For Shia Muslims, the day symbolises resistance against tyranny and injustice.

The Beirut area, a Hezbollah stronghold, was draped in yellow banners and echoed with chants of resistance as Qassem delivered his speech, flanked by portraits of his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel in September last year.

Israel launched a wide-scale assault on Lebanon on October 8, 2023 – a day after Palestinian group Hamas, which counts Hezbollah as an ally, stormed the Israeli territory, killing some 1,100 people and taking about 250 others captive.

The Hamas attack was immediately followed by Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The Israeli genocidal campaign was accompanied by a brutal blockade on entry of food and medical aid, bringing the enclave’s 2.3 million residents to the brink of starvation.

Israel’s simultaneous attack on Lebanon escalated into a full-scale war by September 2024, killing more than 4,000 people, including much of Hezbollah’s top leadership, and displacing nearly 1.4 million, according to official data. A United States-brokered ceasefire nominally ended the war in November.

However, since the ceasefire, Israel has continued to occupy five strategic border points in southern Lebanon and has carried out near-daily air strikes that it says aim to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its capabilities. Those strikes have killed some 250 people and wounded 600 others since November, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.

“How can you expect us not to stand firm while the Israeli enemy continues its aggression, continues to occupy the five points, and continues to enter our territories and kill?” Qassem said in his video address.

“We will not be a part of legitimising the occupation in Lebanon and the region. We will not accept normalisation,” he added, in an apparent response to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar saying his government was “interested” in such a move.

Qassem said Hezbollah’s weapons would not be on the negotiating table unless Israel “withdraws from the occupied territories, stops its aggression, releases the prisoners, and reconstruction begins”.

“Only then,” he said, “will we be ready for the second stage, which is to discuss national security and defence strategy.”

On Saturday, Israeli drones carried out four strikes on southern Lebanese towns, killing one person and wounding several others. Most of the Israeli attacks have targeted areas near the border, but Israeli warplanes have also hit residential neighbourhoods in Beirut’s southern districts, causing panic and mass evacuations.

Qassem’s speech came as the US envoy to Turkiye and Syria, Tom Barrack, was expected in Beirut on Monday. Lebanese officials say the US has demanded that Hezbollah disarm by the end of the year. Israel has warned it will continue striking Lebanon until the group is disarmed.

But Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun has repeatedly called on the US and its allies to rein in Israel’s attacks, noting that disarming Hezbollah is a “sensitive, delicate issue”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting the United States on Monday, a visit analysts expect will focus on celebrating Israel and the US’s self-anointed victory against Iran and discussing a proposal for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza.

This is the third time this year Netanyahu will be meeting US President Donald Trump, who claims the US and Israel “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme during a 12-day war and that he would resume bombing Iran if it restarts nuclear activities.

Last week, Trump said Israel had agreed to conditions for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, which would allow all parties to work towards an end to Israel’s 21-month-long war on the besieged enclave.

On July 4, Hamas gave a “positive” response to Qatari and Egyptian mediators about the latest ceasefire proposal.

Is a ceasefire realistic?

On Friday, after Hamas’s response to the proposal, Trump said there could be a “deal next week” and promised to be “very firm” with Netanyahu to ensure a ceasefire.

Israel has since said that Hamas has requested changes to the proposal that it found “unacceptable”, but that Israeli negotiators would be going to Qatar on Sunday to discuss the proposal.

According to a leaked copy of the deal obtained by Al Jazeera, the ceasefire entails a 60-day pause in hostilities and a phased release of some of the 58 Israeli captives held in Gaza since a Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 57,000 people, mostly women and children, in what United Nations experts, legal scholars and human rights groups describe as a genocide against Palestinians.

Many experts told Al Jazeera that they are not optimistic a temporary ceasefire will lead to a permanent end to the war.

“The way [the ceasefire talks] are being framed leaves me sceptical,” said Omar Rahman, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the Middle East Council for Global Affairs.

Rahman added that he believes Trump was focused on getting the Israeli captives released, but not on ending the war and the suffering of the people of Gaza.

Trump previously promised an end to the war after pushing for a ceasefire just days before he became president in January.

However, two months later, Trump did nothing when Israel unilaterally resumed its attacks on Gaza, killing thousands more people.

Mairav Zonszein, an expert on Israel-Palestine for the International Crisis Group, said that could happen again.

“It all rests on Trump and the US to sustain real pressure [on Netanyahu], but that is highly doubtful,” she told Al Jazeera.

“I’m optimistic there could be some kind of ceasefire, but longevity and the terms are highly questionable,” Zonszein said.

“It’s also possible we could see a ceasefire that does not last because … Israel still every so often just bombs something without repercussions [in Gaza],” she added.

Yaser al-Banna, a Palestinian journalist in Gaza, said many in the Strip are divided over whether a ceasefire will end the war. While everyone prays it will, some people cannot imagine Netanyahu sticking to a deal.

Netanyahu insists that the war will not end without a “total victory” over Hamas, a concept he has not defined.

“About half the people in Gaza are very pessimistic… The other half believes this time could be different due to shared interests among Israel, the Palestinians, Arab states and the US to end this war,” he said.

Glory and pragmatism

Many analysts believe that Trump is driven by his desire to strike grandiose deals in order to boast about his achievements in global affairs.

On Monday, he is likely to take credit for ostensibly dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme – even though that may not be true – and express his desire to retrieve the rest of the Israeli captives in Gaza.

He also wants to get the “Gaza issue” out of the way to pursue more normalisation deals between Israel and neighbouring Arab states, said Khaled Elgindy, an expert on Israel-Palestine and a professor of Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

“Trump wants to be able to say that he got back the Israeli hostages… and got a Palestinian state… Then he can call himself master of the universe, but getting those things is much harder than he thinks,” Elgindy told Al Jazeera.

It’s unclear whether Netanyahu’s political calculations align with Trump’s ambitions.

Israel’s next parliamentary elections have to take place before October 2026, and Netanyahu could go to the polls sooner, riding on a likely wave of popularity if he succeeds in returning the remaining captives.

Like Trump, he would also tout what he terms a stunning victory against Iran to the Israeli public.

Those considerations are important because it is likely that Netanyahu’s frail far-right coalition, held together by pressure to prolong the war on Gaza, would collapse if a permanent ceasefire is reached, said Hugh Lovatt, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“At the end of [the possible] 60-day ceasefire, [Netanyahu] could go to elections by committing to a full end to the war and collapse his coalition; or he could go back to war to keep his [far-right] coalition together should he judge the time not right for elections,” he told Al Jazeera.

A possible, nearly unfathomable, outcome

Staying in office is particularly important for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who faces several domestic legal charges of fraud and bribery.

During his much-anticipated meeting with Trump, experts expect them to discuss Netanyahu’s trial, which many believe plays a large role in dictating his political calculations.

Netanyahu’s position as prime minister has enabled him to undermine the Israeli judicial system by appointing loyalists to high courts and delaying court hearings – an influence he would lose if his coalition unravels.

Trump is acutely aware of Netanyahu’s dilemma.

On June 25, he called on Israel to drop the charges against Netanyahu, referring to the trial as a “witch hunt”.Trump’s comments suggest that he is trying to pressure Netanyahu’s opponents to issue a pardon in exchange for ending the war on Gaza, said Georgetown’s Elgindy.

Elgindy referenced Trump’s recent social media post where he alluded to suspending military aid to Israel unless charges against Netanyahu were dropped.

“The United States of America spends Billions of Dollars a year, far more than any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this,” Trump wrote on June 28.

That would be a major – almost unfathomable – decision to emerge out of the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu, said Elgindy.

“I don’t see him following through, but this is a typical [threat] that Trump would make,”  he told Al Jazeera.  “His [modus operandi] is to blackmail and coerce. That is his version of diplomacy.”

Elgindy added that it was distressing that Trump would threaten to cut military aid to Israel to protect Netanyahu and not beleaguered, starving Palestinians in Gaza.

The decision to pardon Netanyahu lies with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, but such a move would be unprecedented, and the president has not indicated that he plans to do so.

Analysts believe Herzog may be willing to pardon Netanyahu if he agrees to exit political life, but not simply to secure a ceasefire.

Zonszein, from Crisis Group, adds that there are lawyers and justices in Israel who have warned “for years” that it is in the public’s interest to reach a plea bargain with Netanyahu due to the power he holds over the country.

Their only condition is for Netanyahu to agree to leave politics.

“I don’t think that is something Netanyahu is considering. If he was willing to leave political life, then he could have already negotiated a plea bargain,” she told Al Jazeera.

More than 25 protesters have been detained by police a day after the activist group was banned in the UK.

Police have arrested protesters in London for supporting activist group Palestine Action, which was banned at midnight in the United Kingdom.

“Officers have arrested more than 20 people on suspicion of offences under the Terrorism Act 2000. They have been taken into custody. Palestine Action is a proscribed group and officers will act where criminal offences are committed,” the Metropolitan Police wrote on X on Saturday.

Campaign group Defend Our Juries said in a press release that 27 people, including a priest and a number of health professionals, had been arrested for offences under the Terrorism Act.

They were holding cardboard signs, saying: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

Passersby reacted to the arrests as the police intervened in the demonstration at noon.

“Met Police, you are puppets of the Zionist state” and “leave them alone”, they were quoted as shouting by the Press Association, the British news agency.

Other supporters, not directly involved in the Palestine Action protest, shouted: “Who do you protect? Who do you serve?” and “British police off our streets.”

There were further chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” during the incident.

The ban

Police warned on Friday that expressing support for Palestine Action would be a criminal offence after the ban kicked in at midnight.

“This includes chanting, wearing clothing or displaying articles such as flags, signs or logos,” said the force.

A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said: “We commend the Counter Terrorism police for their decisive action in protecting the people of London from some cardboard signs opposing the genocide in Gaza and expressing support for those taking action to prevent it.”

The proscription cleared parliament on Thursday, with a court challenge to try to stop it becoming law failing on Friday.

The government announced last week it would ban Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000, days after activists from the group broke into an air force base in southern England.

Two aircraft at the base were sprayed with red paint, causing an estimated 7 million pounds ($9.55m) in damage.

Four Palestine Action activists were remanded in custody on Thursday after appearing in court over the incident.

Palestine Action has condemned the proscription as an attack on free speech.

The ban will make it a criminal offence to belong to or support the group, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

More than 700 Palestinians have been killed trying to get food in the Gaza Strip over the past few weeks, according to new figures from the Gaza Health Ministry, spurring renewed condemnation of a contentious United States and Israeli-backed aid scheme.

The Health Ministry said on Saturday that at least 743 Palestinians were killed and more than 4,891 others were injured while seeking assistance at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution sites.

The GHF, which began operating in the bombarded Palestinian enclave in late May, has drawn widespread criticism amid multiple reports that its contractors as well as Israeli forces have opened fire on aid seekers.

“The tragedy is that this is again a conservative reading of casualties who were at these distribution points, waiting for food parcels,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said of the ministry’s latest figures.

Reporting from Gaza City, Mahmoud said the attacks on aid seekers come as Palestinian families are desperate to feed their families amid dire shortages caused by Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

“People are going hungry. People are rationing supplies. A lot of families are not eating. Mothers here skip meals in order to provide for their children,” he said.

Earlier this week, a report by The Associated Press news agency quoted American contractors who said live ammunition and stun grenades have been fired at Palestinian civilians seeking aid at GHF distribution points.

Two unnamed US contractors told AP that heavily armed staff members appeared to be doing whatever they wanted.

The GHF denied the news agency’s reporting as “categorically false” and said it takes “the safety and security of [its] sites extremely seriously”.

The administration of US President Donald Trump also has stood by the GHF, with a State Department spokesperson telling reporters on Wednesday that the group is the “one entity that has gotten food and aid into the Gaza Strip”.

In late June, the Trump administration pledged $30m in direct funding for the organisation.

On Saturday, the GHF said two US workers at one of its sites in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis were injured when grenades were thrown at them at the end of food distribution. “The injured Americans are receiving medical treatment and are in stable condition,” the group said.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack.

Leading humanitarian and human rights groups have demanded the immediate closure of the GHF, which they accused of “forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarized zones where they face daily gunfire and mass casualties”.

Amnesty International has described the group’s operations as an “inhumane and deadly militarized scheme”.

“All the evidence gathered, including testimonies which Amnesty International is receiving from victims and witnesses, suggest that the GHF was designed so as to placate international concerns while constituting another tool of Israel’s genocide,” Amnesty said.

Still, faced with dire shortages of food, water and other humanitarian supplies under Israel’s blockade, many Palestinians in Gaza say they have no choice but to seek assistance from the group, despite the risks.

“I was forced to go to the aid distribution centre simply because my kids had not eaten for three days in a row,” Majid Abu Laban, a Palestinian man who was wounded in an attack at a GHF site, told Al Jazeera.

“We try to fool our children by all means, but they are starving,” Abu Laban said.

“So I decided to risk my life and head to [an aid distribution point] at Netzarim,” he said, referring to an Israeli military-established corridor south of Gaza City.

“I took the road at midnight hoping to get some food. As crowds rushed in, Israeli forces fired artillery shells at us. In the chaos, everyone was just trying to survive.”

At Glastonbury, Britain’s biggest music festival, two artists called out Israel’s genocide in Gaza and accused the British government of complicity. On-stage remarks by one of them – Bob Vylan – plunged the country’s public broadcaster, the BBC, which livestreamed the performance, into yet another Gaza-shaped row.

Contributors:
Des Freedman – Author, The Media Manifesto
Peter Oborne – Journalist and broadcaster
Karishma Patel – Former newsreader, BBC
Justin Schlosberg – Professor of Media and Communications, University Of Westminster

On our radar:

In the United States, Zohran Mamdani has secured the Democratic nomination for New York mayor, despite relentless media attacks that focus less on his policies and more on his outspoken stance against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Tariq Nafi reports.

Palestinians are seen as some sort of existential threat, just for being there

While debates rage in international media over phrases like “from the river to the sea” and “death to the IDF,” far less scrutiny falls on the anti-Palestinian abuse that has become normal inside Israel – from pop songs to viral chants.

Palestinian analyst Abdaljawad Omar joins us from Ramallah to unpack this everyday Israeli racism.

Featuring:
Abdaljawad Omar – Lecturer, Birzeit University

At least 50 Palestinian families from a Bedouin community in the occupied West Bank have fled their homes, following repeated assaults and harassment from Israeli settlers under the protection of Israeli forces, according to media reports and a local rights group.

Thirty Palestinian families were forcibly displaced on Friday morning from the Arab Mleihat Bedouin community, northwest of Jericho, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, while 20 others were displaced on Thursday.

Before the forced displacement, the community was home to 85 families, numbering about 500 people.

A Palestinian rights group, the Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, said the families were forced to leave after years trying to defend themselves “without any support”. Attacks by Israeli forces and Israelis from illegal settlements have surged across the occupied West Bank since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023.

Alia Mleihat told Wafa that her family was forced to flee to the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp, south of Jericho, after armed settlers threatened her and other families at gunpoint.

Separately, Mahmoud Mleihat, a 50-year-old father of seven from the community, told the Reuters news agency that they could not take it any more, so they decided to leave.

“The settlers are armed and attack us, and the [Israeli] military protects them. We can’t do anything to stop them,” he said.

Hassan Mleihat, director of the Al-Baidar Organization, said families in the community began dismantling their tents, following sustained provocation and attacks by Israeli settlers and the army.

Footage posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency showed trucks loaded with possessions driving away from the area at night.

Hassan told Wafa that the attacks also threatened to erase the community, and “open the way for illegal colonial expansion”.

‘We want to protect our children’

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented repeated acts of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in Mu’arrajat, near Jericho, where the Mleihat tribe lives.

In 2024, settlers armed with clubs stormed a Palestinian school, while in 2023, armed settlers blocked the path of vehicles carrying Palestinians, with some firing into the air and others hurling stones at the vehicles.

“We want to protect our children, and we’ve decided to leave,” Mahmoud said, describing it as a great injustice.

He had lived in the community since he was 10, Mahmoud said.

Alia Mleihat told Reuters the Bedouin community, which had lived there for 40 years, would now be scattered across different parts of the Jordan Valley, including nearby Jericho.

“People are demolishing their own homes with their own hands, leaving this village they’ve lived in for decades, the place where their dreams were built,” she said, describing the forced displacement of 30 families as a “new Nakba”.

The Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes during 1948 at the birth of the state of Israel.

Israel’s military has not yet commented on the settler harassment faced by the Bedouin families or about the families leaving their community.

Asked about violence in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters on Monday that any acts of violence by civilians were unacceptable and that individuals should not take the law into their own hands.

Activists say Israeli settlement expansion has accelerated in recent years, displacing Palestinians, who have remained on their land under military occupation since Israel captured the occupied West Bank in the 1967 war.

Most countries consider Israeli settlements illegal and a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which ban settling civilians on occupied land.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur says some of the world’s largest companies are complicit in and profiting from Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Francesca Albanese’s landmark report identified Microsoft, Amazon and Google as just some of the major United States tech firms helping Israel sustain its genocide in Gaza.

But UN reports like this have no legal power. And Israel has rejected Albanese’s findings as “groundless”, saying it would “join the dustbin of history”.

So, will big companies, despite their financial interests, start to question their ties with Israel?

And will consumers around the world bring commercial pressure on those implicated firms?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Omar Barghouti – Cofounder of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement

Vaniya Agrawal – Former software engineer at Microsoft, who resigned earlier this year

Michael Lynk – Human rights lawyer and a former UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory

Palestinian group Hamas says it has given a “positive” response to a United States-brokered proposal for a Gaza ceasefire, raising hopes of a possible breakthrough in halting Israel’s deadly offensive.

US President Donald Trump earlier announced a “final proposal” for a 60-day truce in the nearly 21-month-old war, stating he anticipated a reply from the parties in the coming hours.

Hamas said late on Friday that the group had submitted its reply to Qatar and Egypt, who are mediating the talks.

“The movement [Hamas] has delivered its response to the brotherly mediators, which was characterised by a positive spirit. Hamas is fully prepared, with all seriousness, to immediately enter a new round of negotiations on the mechanism for implementing this framework,” a statement by the group said.

Trump said earlier this week that Israel had accepted the main conditions of a proposed 60-day truce, during which time negotiations would aim to permanently end the war. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to publicly endorse the plan.

Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over alleged war crimes in Gaza, is expected to meet Trump in Washington on Monday.

According to Israeli media reports early on Saturday, Israeli government officials had received Hamas’s official response to the latest ceasefire proposal framework and were reviewing its contents.

Details from the proposed deal

According to a translated copy of the framework shared with Al Jazeera, the deal would include a 60-day truce, guaranteed by Trump, with a phased release of Israeli captives and increased humanitarian aid.

The proposed exchange includes the release of 10 living and 18 deceased Israeli captives from the “List of 58”. Releases would occur on days one, seven, 30, 50, and 60 – beginning with eight live captives on the first day.

Under the plan, aid would flow into Gaza immediately following Hamas’s approval, in quantities comparable to the January 2025 agreement. Distribution would be handled by agencies including the United Nations and the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

As part of the proposed Gaza ceasefire framework, all Israeli military operations would stop once the agreement takes effect, Al Jazeera has learned.

The deal includes a pause in military and surveillance flights over Gaza for 10 hours each day – or 12 hours on days when captives and prisoners are exchanged.

Negotiations for a permanent ceasefire would begin on day one under the supervision of mediators. Talks would cover a full exchange of captives for Palestinian prisoners, Israeli troop withdrawal, future security arrangements, and “day-after” plans for Gaza.

‘Much-awaited response’

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said the Hamas response was “much-awaited, much-anticipated”, with anxious besieged Palestinians asking when it would come.

“We don’t know whether this response … is going to bring an end to the ongoing killings … or the presence of the [Israeli] drones,” he said.

Heavy shelling and gunfire continue near food distribution points, and uncertainty remains over whether serious negotiations will lead to relief.

“None of this is clear right now,” Mahmoud added, “but at least it’s a first step.”

Trump, speaking early on Friday, said he expected clarity from Hamas “over the next 24 hours”.

He added, “We hope it’s going to happen. And we’re looking forward to it happening sometime next week. We want to get the hostages out.”

Israel pushing for side deal with Trump

Despite Hamas’s endorsement, the group has reportedly sought guarantees that the proposed truce would lead to a permanent end to Israel’s war and prevent Tel Aviv from resuming attacks at will.

According to two Israeli officials quoted by the Reuters news agency, details of the proposal are still under negotiation. Meanwhile, Israel is said to be pressing Trump for written assurances that it can resume operations if its key demands – Hamas disarmament and the exile of its leadership – are not met.

Israeli broadcaster Channel 14, citing a senior political source, reported earlier this week that the deal includes a side letter from Trump granting Israel the authority to “renew the fire” should Hamas fail to comply. The document would allow Israel to determine whether the terms had been fulfilled.

Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that any Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza must be dismantled as a precondition for peace – an issue that remains a major sticking point.

A previous two-month truce ended when Israeli strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18 and led to what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called “the cruellest phase of a cruel war”. More than 6,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel broke the truce.

Overall, Israeli forces have killed at least 57,268 Palestinians and wounded more than 130,000 since October 7, 2023.

The UK’s High Court upheld the government’s move to ban activist group Palestine Action as a ‘terrorist organisation’ after it said it damaged two military planes. Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego explains what this means, as hundreds of people gathered in London to protest the ruling.

British investigative journalist Asa Winstanley, known for his coverage of Palestine, had his home raided by police in October 2024. Although a court in May 2025 deemed the seizure of his devices unlawful, Winstanley says that current laws are being weaponised to intimidate some journalists.

It was a normal Teams meeting at the end of a busy week. Colleagues were discussing the hospital weekend plans. I was there too, nodding, half-present. My mind was elsewhere – on a message I’d sent earlier that morning to a friend in Gaza.

I glanced at my phone.

One tick.

WhatsApp users know the signs: one tick means the message was sent. Two ticks mean it was received. Two blue ticks, it was read.

For most people, it’s a minor delay. But when you’re texting a Palestinian friend in Gaza during a war, one tick carries a sense of dread.

Maybe his phone’s out of charge – normal in a place where power was cut off 20 months ago. Maybe there’s no service – Israel often cuts communication during attacks. But there’s a third possibility I don’t allow myself to think about, even though it’s the most likely outcome if you are living through a genocide.

Still one tick.

Back in the meeting. We wrap up. Plans are made and people start to think about their own weekend plans.

I glance again. Still one tick.

This is the curse of being Palestinian. Carrying the weight of your homeland, its pain, its people – while being expected to function normally, politely, professionally.

Then, I was told my Teams background was “potentially anti-Semitic.”

It was a still-life image: figs, olives, grapes, oranges, watermelon, and a few glass bottles. A quiet nod to my culture and roots. But in today’s climate, even fruit is political. Any symbol of Palestinian identity can now be interpreted as a threat.

Suddenly, I was being questioned, accused, and possibly facing disciplinary action. For a background. For being Palestinian.

Still one tick.

I felt silenced, humiliated, and exposed. How was my love for my culture, for art, for my people being twisted into something hateful? Why is my choice of virtual background more controversial than the devastating violence unfolding in real time?

This is not isolated. Many of us – Palestinians, or anyone else who cares about Palestine – are being challenged on our humanity across organisations, all driven by external pressure.

And then it happened. Two blue ticks.

My friend was alive. He messaged: they fled their home in the early hours of the morning. He carried his children, walked for hours, left everything behind. No food, no shelter. But alive.

How could I explain to him what had happened to me that day? That while he ran for his life, I was threatened with disciplinary action about a painting of fruit? That I was accused of racism for an image, while he was witnessing the destruction of entire families?

This is what it means to be Palestinian today. To constantly navigate a world that erases your humanity, silences your voice, distorts your identity. To be told your pain is political. Your joy is provocation. Your symbols are offensive.

I’ve worked in the NHS for 25 years. It’s more than a job – it’s part of who I am. And now, along with two colleagues, I’m taking legal action. Not for ourselves, but to protect the NHS from external political lobbying. To say, firmly and clearly, that our National Health Service should belong to its patients and its staff – not to those who seek to silence, intimidate or twist it into serving a toxic agenda.

What happened to me is not just unjust – it is unlawful. Speaking up against genocide is not only my moral responsibility as a human being, but also my right as a British citizen in a democratic society.

I don’t write this to compare my experience with my friend’s suffering. I write it to expose the absurdity, the cruelty, of how Palestinians are treated across the world. Whether under bombs or under suspicion, we are made to justify our existence.

It shouldn’t be this way.

Being Palestinian is not a crime. But too often, it feels like the world treats it as one.

The author is currently pursuing legal action, alongside two NHS colleagues, challenging, among other things, allegations of antisemitism.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

The United Nations human rights office has said it recorded at least 613 killings of Palestinians both at controversial aid points run by the Israeli- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and near humanitarian convoys.

“This is a figure as of June 27. Since then … there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), told reporters in Geneva on Friday.

The OHCHR said 509 of the 613 people were killed near GHF distribution points. The Gaza Health Ministry has put the number of deaths at more than 650 and those wounded as exceeding 4,000.

The GHF began distributing limited food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of deliveries which the UN says is neither impartial nor neutral, as killings continue around the organisation’s sites, which rights groups have slammed as “human slaughterhouses”.

Mahmoud Basal, a civil defence spokesperson in Gaza, said they “recorded evidence of civilians being deliberately killed by the Israeli military”.

“More than 600 Palestinian civilians were killed at these centres,” he said. “Some were shot by Israeli snipers, others were killed by drone attacks, air strikes or shootings targeting families seeking aid.”

‘I lost everything’

A mother, whose son was killed while trying to get food, told Al Jazeera that she “lost everything” after his death.

“My son was a provider, I depended totally on him,” she said, adding: “He was the pillar and foundation of our life.”

The woman called the GHF’s aid distribution centres “death traps”.

“We are forced to go there out of desperation for food; we go there out of hunger,” she said.

“Instead of coming back carrying a bag of flour, people themselves are being carried back as bodies,” she added.

The World Health Organization said on Friday that Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis is operating as “one massive trauma ward” due to an influx of patients injured around GHF sites.

Referring to medical staff at the hospital, Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, told reporters in Geneva: “They’ve seen already for weeks, daily injuries … (the) majority coming from the so-called safe non-UN food distribution sites.”

Peeperkorn said health workers at Nasser Hospital and testimonies from family members and friends of those wounded confirmed that the victims had been trying to access aid at sites run by the GHF.

He recounted the harrowing cases of a 13-year-old boy shot in the head, as well as a 21-year-old with a bullet lodged in his neck which rendered him paraplegic.

According to the UN, only 16 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially operational, their collective capacity merely above 1,800 beds – entirely insufficient for the overwhelming medical needs.

The Israeli army has targeted the health institutions and medical workers in the besieged enclave since the beginning of its war on Gaza in October 2023.

“The health sector is being systematically dismantled,” Peeperkorn said on Thursday in a separate statement, citing shortages of medical supplies, equipment, and personnel.

GHF condemned

The UN, humanitarian organisations and other NGOs have repeatedly slammed the GHF for its handling of aid distribution and the attacks around its distribution sites.

More than 130 humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty International, on Tuesday demanded the immediate closure of the GHF, accusing it of facilitating attacks on starving Palestinians.

The NGOs said Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” open fire on civilians attempting to access food.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which was carrying out aid distribution for decades before the GHF, has called for investigations into the killings and wounding of Palestinians trying to access food through GHF.

UNRWA noted that while it operated about 400 sites across the territory, GHF has set up only four “mega-sites”, three in the south and one in central Gaza – none in the north, where conditions are most severe.

The GHF has denied that incidents surrounding people killed or wounded at its sites have occurred involving its contractors, without providing any evidence, rejecting an Associated Press investigation that said some of its United States staff fired indiscriminately at Palestinians.

A recent report from Israeli outlet Haaretz detailed Israeli troops, in their words, confirming that Israeli soldiers have deliberately shot at unarmed Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza after being “ordered” to do so by their commanders.

Medical sources have told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces killed 27 Palestinians in Gaza since dawn on Friday.

In Khan Younis, the Israeli military killed at least 15 Palestinians following a series of deadly attacks on makeshift tents in the al-Mawasi coastal area, which was once classified as a so-called humanitarian safe zone by Israel. Attacks there have been relentless.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, while displacing most of the population of more than two million multiple times, triggering widespread hunger and leaving much of the territory in ruins.

The war began after Hamas-led fighters crossed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 captives back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

The catastrophe unfolding in Gaza cannot be understood solely through the lens of humanitarian crisis. What we are witnessing is not just a tragic consequence of war, but the deliberate use of starvation as a tool of political and demographic control. This strategy, designed to dismantle Palestinian society, amounts to a form of structural genocide.

The Israeli military and political leadership, in its pursuit of dominance and the erasure of Palestinian national aspirations, has moved beyond the tactics of bombardment and physical destruction. Today, its methods are more insidious: they target the core of Palestinian survival: food, water, and the means to endure.

Breaking the will of a people by denying them the ability to feed themselves is not collateral damage. It is policy. According to reports from independent international bodies, more than 95 percent of Gaza’s farmland has been destroyed or rendered unusable. That figure is not just an economic loss; it is the intentional dismantling of food sovereignty, and with it, any hope of future independence.

The destruction is systematic. Seed access has been blocked. Water infrastructure has been targeted. Fisherfolk and farmers – already operating under extreme siege conditions – have been repeatedly attacked. These are not random acts. They are part of a broader plan to re-engineer Gaza’s demographic and economic future in line with Israel’s long-term strategic goals: absolute control and political submission.

What makes this all the more alarming is the complicity of the international community. Whether through silence or vague diplomatic statements that describe the situation as a “humanitarian crisis”, global actors have helped normalise the use of starvation as a weapon of war. The refusal to name these actions for what they are – war crimes committed as part of a genocide – has given Israel the cover to continue them with impunity.

Even more disturbing is how food itself has become a bargaining chip. Access to essentials like flour, baby formula, and bottled water is now being tied to political and military negotiations. This reveals a grim logic of power. The goal is not stability or mutual security – it is to impose political conditions through the calculated manipulation of civilian suffering.

By making Gaza entirely dependent on outside aid while systematically dismantling local means of survival, Israel has created a trap in which Palestinians are stripped of all political and economic agency. They are being reduced to a population that can be managed, controlled, and bartered.

Every statistic coming out of Gaza must be read through this lens. That 100 percent of the population now suffers from food insecurity is not simply tragic; it is a marker of the strategy’s progress. This is not about feeding the hungry. It is about breaking the spirit of a people and forcing them to accept a new reality on the occupier’s terms.

And yet, Gaza’s resilience persists. That defiance, under siege and starvation, has exposed the moral collapse of an international order that prefers managed crises to political accountability. This is not a famine born of drought. This is not the chaos of a failed state. This is a crime in progress – carried out with eyes wide open, under the protective cover of global indifference.

Let me also add that international civil society organisations and global social movements – such as La Via Campesina – are not standing by in silence. In fact, this September, some of the world’s most prominent movements of farmers, fishers, and Indigenous Peoples – many of them from conflict-affected regions – will gather in Sri Lanka for the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum. There, we aim to build a unified global response to the widespread indifference that turns a blind eye to the dispossession of entire communities. From the ground up, we are working to develop concrete proposals to ensure that food is never weaponised and that starvation is never used as a tactic of war. At the same time, countless acts of solidarity are unfolding across the globe, led by people of conscience who are demanding that their governments take action.

History will remember what is happening in Gaza. It will also remember those who chose to remain silent. Justice may be delayed, but it will come, and it will ask who stood by as starvation was used to try to break a people.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

EXPLAINER

MPs in the UK have voted to proscribe the group as a terrorist organisation, but what has it actually done?

Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom voted overwhelmingly this week to proscribe the campaign group, Palestine Action, as a terrorist organisation under anti-terrorism laws, putting the group on a par with armed groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).

A draft order to amend the Terrorism Act 2000 to do this, brought by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, passed through the House of Commons on Wednesday by 385 votes to 26.

Cooper tabled the order in parliament just days after Palestine Action activists broke into RAF Brize Norton, the largest station of the Royal Air Force in Oxfordshire, and sprayed two military planes with red paint, resulting in millions of pounds of criminal damage, according to police.

On Friday, the High Court in London is hearing a challenge to the order. Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori has asked for a temporary block on the legislation.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the Airbus Voyager incident in an X post, saying: “The act of vandalism committed at RAF Brize Norton is disgraceful.”

Palestine Action describes itself as “a pro-Palestinian organisation which disrupts the arms industry in the United Kingdom with direct action”. It says it is “committed to ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime”.

The government claims it is a “terrorist” outfit.

But what has the group actually done?

What happened at Brize Norton?

In the highest-profile move made by the group so far, activists sprayed red paint into the turbine engines of two Airbus Voyager aircraft, used for air-to-air refuelling.

According to Manaal Siddiqui, a spokesperson for Palestine Action, “These [Royal Air Force] aircraft can be used to refuel and have been used to refuel Israeli fighter jets.” He added that planes from Brize Norton fly to the British air force base in Cyprus, from where they are “dispatched on spy missions and that intelligence is shared with the Israeli government and the Israeli air forces”.

What else has the group done?

Since its founding in July 2020, Palestine Action (PA) has carried out hundreds of protests across the UK aimed at disrupting the operations of companies they accuse of profiting from Israeli military operations, with a particular focus on the Israeli arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems.

Palestine Action members’ tactics typically involve breaking into facilities, chaining themselves to machinery, daubing buildings with red paint and destroying equipment.

They include the following incidents:

• The group launched a series of break-ins at Elbit’s Ferranti site in Oldham, near Manchester in northern England. Between 2020 and early 2022, the site was repeatedly occupied and vandalised, culminating in Elbit closing the facility in January 2022 – an outcome Palestine Action declared as a major victory.
• In 2021, the group occupied the Leicester drone factory operated by UAV Tactical Systems, a subsidiary of Elbit. Activists chained themselves to the roof for nearly a week. Ten people were arrested, but later acquitted.
• Throughout 2022, PA’s actions became more frequent. In April, they blockaded another Elbit site in Braunstone, Leicestershire. In June, they broke into the Thales UK factory in Glasgow and caused more than 1 million pounds ($1.37m) of damage with smoke bombs and property destruction. Five activists were jailed.
• Following the launch of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, Palestine Action intensified its efforts. They targeted the BBC’s headquarters in London with red paint to protest against the broadcaster’s perceived pro-Israel bias, and blockaded facilities of arms manufacturers including Lockheed Martin, the US aerospace and defence group which has a base in London, and Leonardo, the defence and security group.
• Palestine Action has also expanded internationally. In November 2023, its newly launched US branch occupied the roof of an Elbit facility in Merrimack, New Hampshire, with three activists arrested and later released with misdemeanour charges.
• In August 2024, activists drove a van into Elbit’s headquarters in Bristol, stormed the building and caused extensive damage. At about the same time, they spray-painted the Ministry of Defence, in central London, red and defaced a statue of Arthur Balfour with tomato ketchup inside the House of Commons. Balfour was a former Conservative prime minister who, as serving foreign secretary in 1917, authored the Balfour Declaration which supported the establishment of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine.
• In June 2025, the group carried out one of its most provocative actions to date: infiltrating RAF Brize Norton, the UK’s largest airbase. Activists used electric scooters to breach security and vandalised military aircraft with red paint.

What does Palestine Action say about being banned?

In a statement posted on its X profile, Palestine Action said: “The real crime here is not red paint being sprayed on these warplanes, but the war crimes that have been enabled with those planes because of the UK government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.”

The group added that the government’s move could risk criminalising legitimate protest.

The statement also accused Starmer of “hypocrisy” since the prime minister, back in 2003, supported protesters who broke into an RAF base to stop US bombers heading to Iraq. At the time, Starmer was a lawyer.

“I think it’s a very knee-jerk reaction from an embarrassed government, and it’s an overblown reaction,” Siddiqui said.

Siddiqui said it was unprecedented for Palestine Action to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation. “The majority of the proscribed groups are international. The majority of them take actions in very, very different ways. Palestine Action would be a complete outlier. It’s a draconian approach for the government to stifle protests that they just don’t like. It’s genuinely terrifying for anyone who cares about civil liberties in the UK.”

In all, 81 groups are proscribed in the UK under the Terrorism Act 2000. They include political movements with armed wings such as Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as armed groups like ISIS (ISIL), al-Qaeda and Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan.

“For some, genocide is profitable.” UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has issued a blistering report accusing major companies of profiting from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian land.

Although it’s not clear that Israeli leaders want to end the “Forever War” they launched in the aftermath of the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, the US has enough leverage to force a truce, argues Georgetown University visiting scholar, Khaled Elgindy.

Annelle Sheline, a former State Department official who quit in protest of President Biden’s Gaza policies, argues that Israel’s war was “not really about Hamas” but more about the Israeli desire to control Gaza, the West Bank and the wider region.

Sheline and Elgindy delve into the details of the proposed ceasefire deal with host Steve Clemons.