UK police were recorded arresting a Palestine Action supporter for allegedly taking part in a Zoom meeting to plan a protest against the government’s designation of the group as a “terrorist” organisation.
Published On 3 Sep 20253 Sep 2025
If being forcibly displaced from their destroyed homes and neighbourhoods wasn’t bad enough, Palestinians in Gaza are facing crippling financial costs of complying with Israel’s displacement orders. Al Jazeera’s Moath Al-Kahlout breaks it down.
Published On 3 Sep 20253 Sep 2025
The International Association of Genocide Scholars says Israel is committing genocide.
Israel has engaged in systematic crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in Gaza, according to a resolution by members of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
The group says there is clear intent to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip – by bombardment, starvation and forced displacement.
The assessment comes months after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes.
And there’s a case at the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocide.
So what tangible results can come from this new accusation?
James Bays
Andrew Gilmour – Former United Nations assistant secretary-general for human rights
Ori Goldberg – Political analyst specialising in the Middle East
Jonathan Kuttab – Palestinian human rights lawyer
Published On 2 Sep 20252 Sep 2025
More than 360 people, including 130 children, have died from hunger since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Published On 2 Sep 20252 Sep 2025
A total of 185 people in Gaza died “due to malnutrition” in August, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, as an additional 13 people, including three children, have died in 24 hours since then as the catastrophic effects of Israeli-induced famine in the enclave worsen.
The statement issued on Tuesday said more than 83 people, including 15 children, had died since the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a United Nations-backed global hunger-monitoring system, declared last month that parts of Gaza were undergoing a full-blown famine.
The Health Ministry also said 43,000 children below the age of five were suffering from malnutrition along with more than 55,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women. Two-thirds of pregnant women were suffering from anaemia, the highest rate in years, it added. Mothers and newborns are the most at risk from malnutrition.
The total number of hunger-related deaths in the besieged enclave now stands at 361, including 130 children, since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Israel has killed at least 63,633 people in Gaza and wounded 160,914 during the war, according to the Ministry of Health.
The IPC declared on August 22 that 514,000 people in the Gaza Strip, close to a quarter of the enclave’s population, are experiencing famine. It expected the number to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.
The IPC made its declaration after more than 22 months of war, during which Israeli forces have destroyed medical facilities, schools, infrastructure and bakeries; blocked the entry of aid into the besieged Strip; and targeted and killed Palestinians seeking food aid.
This is the first time the IPC has recorded famine outside Africa, and the global group predicted that famine conditions would spread to Deir el-Balah in central Gaza and Khan Younis in the south by the end of this month.
After the IPC’s declaration, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the famine a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself”.
Guterres said Israel had “unequivocal obligations” under international law as an occupying power to ensure food and medical supplies enter Gaza.
Humanitarian organisations have demanded action. For its part, Israel rejected the findings, saying there was no famine in Gaza despite the IPC’s overwhelming evidence.
At least 63 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn on Tuesday, among them 41 in Gaza City alone, medical sources told Al Jazeera. Among the killed, 19 were aid seekers situated in central and southern Gaza.
Israeli attacks are mainly, but not solely, now focused on Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban centre, as the Israeli army relentlessly bombards it and tries to forcibly displace its residents to the southern part of the enclave.
“Civilians on the ground are bearing the brunt. There are still hundreds of thousands of families in Gaza City,” reported Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum at midday from Deir el-Balah. “They refuse to leave because they know that there are no safe spaces in central and southern Gaza and they would rather stay close to their communities and what’s left of their houses.”
Once teeming and crowded with residential buildings, Gaza City has been home to one million Palestinians, nearly half of Gaza’s population, but it is now a landscape of rubble.
The world’s top genocide scholars formally declared that Israel’s war on Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide, marking a landmark intervention from leading experts in the field of international law.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars, a 500-member body of academics founded in 1994, passed a resolution on Monday stating that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza fulfil the definition of genocide set out in the 1948 UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
BREAKINGBREAKING,
FM Maxime Prevot says his country will recognise Palestine this month and impose 12 ‘firm sanctions’ on Israel.
Published On 2 Sep 20252 Sep 2025
Belgium will recognise the State of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) later this month, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Prevot has announced.
“Palestine will be recognised by Belgium at the UN session! And firm sanctions will be imposed against the Israeli government,” Prevot, who is also the deputy prime minister, wrote on the social media platform X early on Tuesday.
Prevot said Belgium would also impose 12 “firm sanctions” on Israel, including a ban on importing products from the settlements, and “a review of public procurement policies with Israeli companies”.
He added that the announcement was made “in light of the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Palestine, particularly in Gaza”.
At the end of July, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognise Palestine at the UNGA, which will be held from September 9 to 23 in New York.
Following this, several other countries have announced that they will do the same, although some have said they intend to place conditions on their recognition.
As of April this year, some 147 countries, representing 75 percent of UN members, have already recognised Palestinian statehood.
Belgium’s announcement comes as Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 63,459 people and wounded 160,256 more.
In July, Belgian prosecutors referred a war crimes complaint against two Israeli soldiers to the International Criminal Court (ICC), following allegations that they participated in atrocities in Gaza.
This is a breaking news story. More soon.
Media outlets have staged a front page protest to highlight the killings of more than 200 journalists in 22 months.
Published On 1 Sep 20251 Sep 2025
More than 250 media outlets in over 70 countries have staged a front page protest highlighting the killing of more than 200 journalists in Israel’s war on Gaza, the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) media freedom group says.
“At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no-one left to keep you informed,” the group’s general director, Thibaut Bruttin, said in a statement on Monday.
The protest, also supported by the global campaign movement Avaaz, was featured on the websites of news outlets including Al Jazeera, the British newspaper The Independent, French newspapers La Croix and L’Humanite, and the German newspapers Tageszeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau, according to RSF.
About 220 journalists have been killed during Israel’s war in Gaza since it began on October 7, 2023, according to RSF data. Independent analysis by Al Jazeera reveals that at least 278 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel over the past 22 months, including 10 from the network.
Monday’s protest was staged a week after five journalists – Al Jazeera’s Mohammad Salama, Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, freelance journalist Mariam Abu Daqqa working for The Associated Press, Ahmed Abu Aziz and Moaz Abu Taha – were killed in two Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Earlier in August, six journalists, including Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif, were killed in an Israeli air strike on a tent sheltering media workers outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital. The strike targeted al-Sharif.
In total, seven people were killed in the attack, including three other Al Jazeera staff – correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, 33, and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, 25, and Mohammed Noufal, 29.
Those participating in the protest “demand an end to impunity for Israeli crimes against Gaza’s reporters, the emergency evacuation of reporters seeking to leave the Strip and that foreign press be granted independent access”, the RSF statement said.
The media group said it has filed four complaints at the International Criminal Court for war crimes it said the Israeli army has committed against journalists in Gaza.
International media have been denied free access to the Gaza Strip since the war broke out.
A few selected outlets have embedded reporters with Israeli army units operating in Gaza under the condition of strict military censorship.
Israel has killed at least 63,459 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
More settler attacks also take place across the territory, with a Palestinian husband and wife hurt in the violence.
Published On 31 Aug 202531 Aug 2025
The Israeli army has carried out raids and arrests across the occupied West Bank, with incidents reported in the cities of Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus and Ramallah.
Multiple Palestinians were detained in the territory on Sunday, according to the Wafa news agency, including a child and a young man in the town of Yabad.
Reports suggested that a 37-year-old man was also arrested in the town of Beit Fajjar, while a 25-year-old man was taken into Israeli custody in the town of Nilin near Ramallah.
Several raids took place in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate, just days after Israel launched a prolonged raid in the area that injured at least 58 people.
Israeli soldiers were also present in the towns of Kafr Malek, Nilin and Deir Qaddis, but did not make any arrests.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, intense and continuous gunfire broke out south of Hebron, as shown by online videos verified by Al Jazeera.
Wafa said that five Palestinians, including a girl, were injured by Israeli bullets and taken to hospital for treatment.
Israeli soldiers also allegedly fired live ammunition in the northern village of Sarra and the town of Sebastia, but no injuries were reported.
Meanwhile, a settler attack left a Palestinian man and his wife with injuries in Khallet al-Daba village in Masafer Yatta.
Israeli settlers also attacked Palestinian homes in the village of Kisan near Bethlehem.
The Wafa news agency reports that the settlers broke into Palestinian properties and looted them, while receiving protection from the Israeli army.
In the first eight months of the year, more than 1,000 Israeli settler attacks have been recorded in the occupied West Bank that caused injuries, property damage or both, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Settlers rampage on Palestinian land on a daily basis, with impunity and backed by the Israeli military.
Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 671 Palestinians, including 129 children, across the region since October 2023, according to OCHA.
As well as the Israeli raids and the settler attacks, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said that Israeli authorities had engaged in unauthorised excavation and demolition operations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.
“These operations deliberately target Islamic antiquities dating back to the Umayyad period, which stand as living witnesses and irrefutable evidence of Muslims’ rightful claim to the site,” the PA’s Jerusalem governorate said in a statement.
It said that Israel intends to remove the site’s Muslim history to build a Jewish temple there in the future.
Israel has stepped up its destruction of Gaza City as it plans to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre and forcibly displace around one million Palestinians to concentration zones in the south, as it killed at least 78 people across the besieged enclave since dawn, including 32 desperately seeking food.
On Sunday, in Gaza City, the Palestinian Civil Defence reported a fire in tents near al-Quds Hospital after Israeli shelling. At least five people were killed and three wounded when a residential apartment was hit near the Remal neighbourhood.
Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, said the Israeli army is also using “explosive robots” in residential areas and forcibly displacing Palestinians in Gaza City.
In a statement on X on Sunday, al-Thawabta said the army has detonated more than 80 such devices in civilian neighbourhoods over the past three weeks, calling it a “scorched-earth policy” that has destroyed homes and endangered lives.
He said more than one million Palestinians in Gaza City and the north of the enclave “refuse to submit to the policy of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing” despite the destruction and starvation caused by the Israeli assault.
Footage posted on Instagram by Palestinian journalist Faiz Osama and verified by Al Jazeera showed the moments that followed an Israeli aerial attack on the Sabra neighbourhood, in the southern part of Gaza City.
In the footage, as plumes of smoke rise to the sky, a child can be seen screaming with a wound to the leg. A man also lays on the ground with what appears to be a head injury.
The video also shows the destruction left by the strike after residential buildings were flattened by the explosion.
Israel’s forces have carried out sustained bombardment on Gaza City since early August as part of a deepening push to seize the area in the latest phase of its nearly two-year genocidal war.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it had begun the “initial stages” of its offensive, declaring the area a “combat zone”.
Reporting from Gaza City on Sunday, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said intensifying Israeli attacks have been turning parts of Gaza City, once teeming and crowded with residential buildings, into “fields of rubble”.
“There is non-stop heavy artillery targeting the Zeitoun area and Jabalia, where we are seeing the systematic demolition of homes. There is hardly any fighting going on, but heavy artillery and bulldozers are moving from one street to the other, destroying all of these residential clusters,” he said.
“The majority of people in those areas do not have the luxury to pack up and leave because there is no safety anywhere.”
Another Palestinian journalist was also killed on Sunday. A source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera that Islam Abed was killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City and that she worked for Al-Quds Al-Youm TV channel.
The Government Media Office said the “number of martyred journalists has risen to 247″ since the war began. Other tallies have put the number of journalists and media workers killed at more than 270.
On Monday, five journalists – one of whom worked for Al Jazeera – were among at least 21 people killed in an Israeli attack on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.
Many residents in Gaza City are opting to stay put despite Israel declaring it a “combat zone”.
It was Gaza’s most populous city before the war began, home to about 700,000 people. Then hundreds of thousands fled under Israel’s forced evacuation threats before many returned, joined by thousands of other displaced from the south, during a January-to-March ceasefire, which Israel broke.
Fedaa Hamad, who was displaced from Beit Hanoon, said she has “no plans to leave” Gaza City this time despite Israel’s latest warning.
“We are tired from the first displacement. Where are we going to go? Is there a place in the south? We cannot find it,” she said.
Akram Mzini, a resident of Gaza City, said he would not leave “because displacement is very difficult”.
“We were displaced to the south before, and displacement in the south is not simple and it is costly,” he said. “Life is difficult, so we will stay in our home, and whatever God wants will happen.”
Elsewhere in Gaza on Sunday, an Israeli attack on the centre of Deir el-Balah killed at least four people, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.
Earlier, medical sources said an Israeli bombardment killed at least one person and wounded several in the city, located in the central part of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces have killed at least 78 Palestinians across Gaza since dawn, including 32 aid seekers, according to medical sources.
Since the war began, Israel has killed at least 63,459 people and wounded 160,256. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks, and about 200 were taken captive.
On Sunday, Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir held a situation assessment meeting with his top commanders, saying the military must “initiate” more attacks to surprise and reach its targets anywhere.
Many more reserve soldiers will assemble this week “in preparation for the continued intensification of the fighting against Hamas in Gaza City”, Zamir was quoted as saying by the military.
Meanwhile, the armed wing of Hamas said its fighters successfully attacked two invading Israeli military vehicles in Gaza City on Saturday.
The Qassam Brigades said a Merkava tank of the Israeli army was hit with a Yassin-105 shell, while a D9 military bulldozer was targeted with an explosive device on a street southwest of the Zeitoun neighbourhood of the besieged area.
As global condemnation against the situation grows, in the largest attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory by sea, the Global Sumud Flotilla left the Spanish port city of Barcelona on Sunday.
The flotilla’s launch comes after the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared a state of famine in Gaza this month.
The Global Sumud Flotilla, which describes itself as an independent group not linked to any government or political party, did not say how many ships would set sail or the exact time of departure, but Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg spoke of “dozens” of vessels.
Sumud means “perseverance” in Arabic.
Two previous attempts by activists to deliver aid by ship to Gaza were blocked by Israel.
Mohamad Elmasry of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies told Al Jazeera that while the flotilla was “an important act of symbolic resistance … ultimately, they will be intercepted”.
“This is not going to solve the famine,” he said. “What’s going to solve the famine, ultimately, is governments doing their job to stop genocide and deliberate starvation programmes.”
US and Western support have been vital in Israel’s war.
Weapons and support from the West, led by the United States, have been central to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The United Kingdom’s and European Union’s relations with Israel remain essentially unchanged despite the war.
Is this complicity? And could there be legal consequences for Western nations and their leaders?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Michael Lynk – former United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in occupied Palestinian territory
Yara Hawari – co-director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network
Ralph Wilde – professor of international law at University College London
Published On 31 Aug 202531 Aug 2025
Barcelona, Spain – Volunteers from across the world have come together in the main hall of one of Spain’s oldest labour unions, the UGT – once a registration centre for international volunteers who came to Spain to fight fascism during the Spanish Civil War.
Now it has trained the nonviolent international volunteers – Palestine supporters, activists, journalists and politicians – who will sail on the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza on Sunday.
“We are not heroes. We are not the story. The story is the people of Gaza,” organiser Thiago Avila, a lifelong activist for Palestine and environmental justice, told the crowds gathered for a news conference before the ships set sail.
Their goal is to deliver humanitarian aid, which is the flotilla’s only cargo, and open a humanitarian corridor for Palestinians facing being starved and killed by Israel.
In less than two years of war, Israel has killed more than 63,000 Palestinians with tens of thousands more injured and missing.
About 26,000 applications from people around the world came in and were whittled down to the hundreds who will be on board the roughly 100 flotilla boats.
The flotilla will start in Barcelona and head to Tunisia, where it will be joined by more vessels on Thursday.
Once out again on the Mediterranean Sea, it will converge with more boats leaving Italy and other undisclosed ports, and together they will sail in formation to the Gaza Strip.
Organisers know time is against them as Israel kills Palestinians daily, not only using air strikes and ground forces but also a man-made famine that it has imposed.
Since 2010, all freedom flotillas to Gaza have been intercepted or attacked by Israeli forces.
In June, the ship Madleen was illegally intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters about 185km (115 miles) west of Gaza, where Israel has no authority. Its crew, which included climate activist Greta Thunberg, were detained or expelled.
In 2010, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, made up of six ships carrying humanitarian aid and more than 600 passengers, was raided by Israeli commandos in Mediterranean waters.
The commandos killed 10 activists and wounded dozens.
Other attempts were blocked by Israel in 2011, 2015, 2018 and multiple attempts in 2025, including the Conscience, which was struck twice by drones 25km (14 nautical miles) off Malta.
An earlier attempt over land, called the Global March to Gaza, set out in June to deliver aid to Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
Many of those volunteers have regrouped in Tunisia to gather ships to join the Global Sumud Flotilla.
The Barcelona gathering reflected a wide international presence, including delegations from Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland and the United States.
The volunteers, some veterans of multiple flotillas, are focused on their collective purpose: to break Israel’s siege of Gaza and deliver aid to its people.
Training sessions in Barcelona were intense, designed to prepare participants for scenarios such as interception in international waters, arrest, imprisonment, deportation, violent assault or bureaucratic strategies to halt the departure of boats.
But the foundation of their preparation is maintaining nonviolence in any of these scenarios, something the organisers highlighted several times and warned that breaking from that principle would not be accepted.
Every volunteer has signed a strict code of conduct, committing to peaceful resistance and rejecting systems of oppression and exploitation throughout the mission.
Workshops also revisited the history of nonviolent struggle – from Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership in India’s independence movement to Rosa Parks’s defiance against racial segregation in the United States.
Among the participants was Luna Valentina, a 24-year-old Colombian volunteer. She is married to a Palestinian refugee and has lived in exile herself after being targeted in Colombia for her activism during mass protests against right-wing former President Ivan Duque.
![Luna Valentina [Mauricio Morales/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/576A6746-1756632046.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
The couple live in Jordan after facing racism in Europe as they tried to find somewhere to settle, she told Al Jazeera.
During the Global March to Gaza, Valentina joined other Colombians on the way to Rafah. She recalled the solidarity, strength and care she found among fellow Colombian female activists, some of whom will set sail with her now, and others who will support the mission from land.
On Friday, a three-day celebration of the volunteers and their mission began on Moll de la Fusta, a port walkway in Barcelona, as the countdown began for their departure.
It was a warm outpouring of support as sounds of drums filled the air, hundreds of Palestinian flags fluttered and crowds gathered for a festival of music, culture and art to show support for Palestinians in Gaza and for the volunteers of the flotilla.
What everyone is hoping for is that the ships will arrive on the coast of besieged Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid that Israel has blocked from entering.
For Avila, the father of a newborn, this flotilla continues a legacy: “I love my daughter so much, as the mothers and fathers in Gaza, and because of this love, … we cannot leave a world like this. We have to change the society that enables a genocide to happen,” he told Al Jazeera.
“I believe that anyone that is not dead inside dies a little bit with every child in Gaza that dies,” he added.
That sentiment was shared by an Australian mother of four who has also joined the flotilla. Her voice broke as she said: “No one should live and die like this. Everyone deserves the same dignity and freedom.”
A global fleet of boats is preparing to set sail for Gaza as part of an international maritime initiative aimed at delivering humanitarian aid to starving people in Gaza.
The first convoy, consisting of dozens of small civilian vessels carrying activists, humanitarians, doctors, seafarers, and humanitarian supplies, is scheduled to depart from Spanish ports on August 31, to meet up in Tunisia with a second wave on September 4.
Organisers describe the Global Sumud Flotilla as the largest maritime mission to Gaza, bringing together more than 50 ships and delegations from at least 44 countries.
According to the Global Sumud Flotilla, delegations from 44 countries have already committed to sail to Gaza as part of the largest maritime mission to break Israel’s illegal siege.
Countries from six continents will be taking part in the flotilla, including countries such as Australia, Brazil, South Africa and numerous European states.
According to the group, participants are unaffiliated with any government or political party.
This mission is organised by four major coalitions, including groups that have participated in previous land and sea efforts to Gaza:
Collectively, they will form the largest coordinated civilian flotilla in history.
According to the Global Sumud Flotilla website, the coalition comprises a range of people, including organisers, humanitarians, doctors, artists, clergy, lawyers, and seafarers, who are united by a belief in human dignity, the power of nonviolent action, and a single truth: the siege and genocide must end.
A steering committee has also been set up, which includes the likes of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, historian Kleoniki Alexopoulou, human rights activist Yasemin Acar, socioenvironmentalist Thiago Avila, political scientist and lawyer Melanie Schweizer, social scientist Karen Moynihan, physicist Maria Elena Delia, Palestinian activist Saif Abukeshek, humanitarian Muhammad Nadir al-Nuri, activist Marouan Ben Guettaia, activist Wael Nawar, activist and social researcher Hayfa Mansouri, and human rights activist Torkia Chaibi.
Although hundreds will set sail from the organised fleet, tens of thousands of others have registered to participate in the initiative.
In a media briefing from Placa del Rei in Barcelona, Saif Abukeshek said the exact number will be specified later and that the details of the specific ports and ships have been withheld for security reasons.
The group estimates that the fleet will take between seven and eight days to make the approximately 3,000km (1,620-nautical-mile) journey to Gaza.
A flotilla is a group of boats or ships organised to deliver essential supplies, such as food, medicine and other materials, to regions in crisis. They are usually organised when traditional supply routes such as air and land corridors are blocked or inaccessible.
Since 2007, Israel has tightly controlled Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters, restricting the movement of goods and people. Even before the war, Gaza had no functional airports after Israel bombed and destroyed the Yasser Arafat International Airport in 2001, just three years after it opened.
Humanitarian and grassroots flotillas usually operate under the protection of international organisations and are governed by naval laws.
By delivering aid by sea, the Sumud flotilla aims to confront Israel’s blockade head-on and carry a message that the siege must end.
Several Freedom Flotilla vessels have attempted to break the blockade of Gaza.
In 2008, two boats from the Free Gaza Movement successfully reached Gaza, marking the first breach of Israel’s naval blockade. The movement, founded in 2006 by activists during Israel’s war on Lebanon, went on to launch 31 boats between 2008 and 2016, five of which reached Gaza despite heavy Israeli restrictions.
Since 2010, all flotillas attempting to break the Gaza blockade have been intercepted or attacked by Israel in international waters.
2010 – Gaza Freedom Flotilla
In 2010, Israeli commandos raided the Mavi Marmara in international waters. The assault killed 10 activists and injured dozens, leading to global outrage. The ship was carrying humanitarian aid and more than 600 passengers.
2011 – Freedom Flotilla II
Freedom Flotilla II was launched in 2011 as a follow-up to the 2010 mission. Organised by a coalition of international activists and NGOs, it aimed to breach Israel’s blockade on Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid.
2015 – Freedom Flotilla III
Freedom Flotilla III was launched in 2015 as the third major attempt by international activists to break through Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. Organised by the FFC, the mission included several vessels, with the Swedish-flagged Marianne of Gothenburg leading the effort.
2018 – Just Future for Palestine
The Just Future for Palestine Flotilla – also known as the 2018 Gaza Freedom Flotilla – was part of a continued effort by the FFC to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.
2025 – Break the Siege ‘Conscience’
While preparing to sail to Gaza on May 2, the Conscience was struck twice by armed drones, just 14 nautical miles (25km) off the coast of Malta. The attack triggered a fire and caused a significant breach in the hull, forcing the 30 Turkish and Azeri activists on board into a desperate effort to bail out water and keep the ship afloat.
2025 – Madleen – The Madleen, launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) on June 9, was intercepted by the Israeli military about 185km (100 nautical miles) from Gaza, in international waters.
2025 – Handala – On June 26, Israeli forces stormed the Gaza-bound Handala ship, which was carrying aid to starving Palestinians.
Israeli forces step up air attacks as the military advances with plans to seize Gaza City and push out 1 million people.
Published On 31 Aug 202531 Aug 2025
Published On 30 Aug 202530 Aug 2025
Hundreds of Palestinians have fled Gaza City, piling their few remaining possessions onto pick-up trucks and donkey carts as Israel’s deadly bombings and forced displacement campaign intensifies in the area.
Families fleeing the Israeli military’s relentless bombardment have begun setting up makeshift tents amid miserable conditions in an area west of central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, to the south of Gaza City near Deir el-Balah.
Most of them have been forced to leave their homes more than once.
“We are thrown in the streets, like what would I say? Like dogs? We are not like dogs. Dogs are [treated] better than us,” Mohammed Maarouf, 50, told The Associated Press news agency, standing in front of his tent.
Maarouf and his family of nine had already been displaced from the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. “We have no homes. We are on the streets,” he said.
Ahmad Saadeh, originally from Beit Hanoon, also in Gaza’s north, told AP that Palestinians were suffering from hunger, sickness and a lack of shelter in the coastal enclave, where famine was confirmed earlier this month.
“We suffer from many things,” he said. “We suffer that our children are ill.”
Israeli forces have carried out a sustained bombardment on Gaza City since early August as part of a deepening push to seize the city and displace about one million Palestinians living there.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it had begun the “initial stages” of its offensive, declaring the largest urban centre in the territory a “combat zone”.
The new operation could forcibly displace one million Palestinians to concentration zones in southern Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned.
At least 71 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Saturday, hospital sources told Al Jazeera.
Of that, 41 people were killed in Gaza City alone, including at least 11 Palestinians who were killed while queueing for bread from ovens serving communities of displaced people.
At least seven Palestinians also were killed in a series of Israeli attacks on a residential apartment block in a densely populated area of the city. Rescuers were seen digging through the rubble to retrieve bodies and try to find any survivors.
“The Israeli army has been intensifying its attacks across Gaza City. Homes and community centres have been reduced to rubble, eroding the foundations of civilian life in the area,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported.
“This is happening while people are going through famine, enforced starvation and dehydration. Things are leading to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.”
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Saturday also questioned Israel’s plans for a forced mass expulsion.
“It is impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City could ever be done in a way that is safe and dignified under the current conditions,” ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger said in a statement, describing the plan as “not only unfeasible but incomprehensible”.
Yet while Israel’s push to seize Gaza City has drawn international condemnation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has shown no signs of halting the military offensive.
Gideon Levy, a columnist with Israeli news outlet Haaretz, told Al Jazeera that Israel’s overarching plan for Gaza amounts to ethnic cleansing.
“The plan is to push all the inhabitants of Gaza out of their houses, then lock them in those concentration camps and then give them two choices, either to live in those camps forever or to leave the Gaza Strip,” Levy said.
Describing the Israeli government’s policy as “outrageous”, Levy added that Israel will only halt its offensive if US President Donald Trump decides that “enough is enough” and applies pressure on the country.
The US has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance since its war on Gaza began in October 2023. Washington has also shielded its top ally from calls for accountability at the UN and other international arenas.
In February, Trump suggested removing all Palestinians from Gaza – a plan that would amount to ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity.
Published On 30 Aug 202530 Aug 2025
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s office has urged the United States to reverse a decision to revoke the Palestinian leader’s visa, just weeks before he was set to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
The Palestinian presidency expressed “astonishment” at Washington’s decision on Friday to rescind the visas for Abbas and 80 other Palestinian officials before next month’s high-level meetings at UN headquarters.
Abbas has addressed the General Assembly for many years and generally leads the Palestinian delegation.
“We call upon the American administration to reverse its decision,” Abbas’s spokesperson spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh told The Associated Press on Saturday, warning that the move “will only increase tension and escalation”.
“We have been in contact since yesterday with Arab and foreign countries, especially those directly concerned with this issue. This effort will continue around the clock,” Abu Rudeineh said.
The spokesperson also urged other countries to put pressure on US President Donald Trump’s administration to reverse its decision, including most notably those that have organised a high-level conference about reviving the two-state solution.
Set for September 22, the conference is being co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia.
The Trump administration’s visa curbs come amid growing condemnation of Israel’s devastating war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and a wave of Israeli settler and military violence in the occupied West Bank.
The deadly attacks have prompted a growing number of countries to announce plans to recognise an independent Palestinian state at the UN in September.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified the revocations on Friday by accusing the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) of “not complying with their commitments” and “undermining the prospects for peace”.
Rubio also accused the PA of taking part in “lawfare campaigns”, including appeals to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court to hold Israeli accountable for abuses in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
But Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, a US-based think tank, accused the Trump administration is “clearly violating diplomatic protocol” in its decision to revoke the visas.
As a host state, the US is meant to grant visas to UN member-state representatives and officials to visit the international body’s headquarters in New York City.
“What’s going on here is clearly ideologically driven,” Duss told Al Jazeera.
“There are people inside the Trump administration who are working closely with the right-wing Israeli government and their goal is to simply remove the Palestinian liberation movement from the international agenda,” he said.
“They do not recognise the Palestinian peoples’ right to state, and they’re both trying to prevent that on the ground in Palestine and now they’re trying to remove them from the international agenda in New York.”
Meanwhile, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said the bloc is calling on Washington to reconsider its visa denials.
“In the light of the existing agreements between the UN and its host state, we all urge for this decision to be reconsidered,” Kaja Kallas said on Saturday following a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Copenhagen.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot also said the General Assembly “cannot suffer any restrictions on access”.
“The United Nations headquarters is a place of neutrality, a sanctuary dedicated to peace, where conflicts are resolved,” Barrot said.
Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he spoke with Abbas on Saturday to express his “firm support” after the “unjust” visa revocations.
“Palestine has the right to make its voice heard at the United Nations and in all international forums,” Sanchez wrote in a post on social media.
A few days ago, my 30-year-old daughter Yasmin, who has special needs, walked up to me in our little place at the school shelter. Her steps were gentle, but determined. And I could see her eyes glittering with joy. I listened intently as she was struggling to speak.
“Dad…, I ate…chocolate!” she said triumphantly.
My mind started to race, trying to work out what I had heard. Where did Yasmin get chocolate?
For many years, Yasmin has lived in a world that has its own rhythm, its own language of affection and wonder. Unfortunately, when she was just four months old, a severe fever left her with a developmental disability. And at the age of seven, she suffered chronic bronchitis and underwent lung surgery in Egypt, which further affected her health and development.
We tried to provide a comfortable life for Yasmin as much as we could. We equipped her room with a computer, a tablet, colouring books, and toys of all sorts – building blocks, teddies, balloons, and even a swing suspended from the ceiling.
We also consulted specialists who prescribed Yasmin special medication. We organised various indoor and outdoor activities for her. Hide-and-seek was her favourite game, which gave her thrills of excitement.
Fortunately, for years, we were considerably able to manage Yasmin’s condition.
However, in October 2023, an Israeli warplane attacked our beautiful house, turning it into a pile of rubble. Our belongings and resources, including Yasmin’s kingdom (her room), disappeared altogether.
Since then, we have been forcibly displaced multiple times, taking refuge in schools-turned-shelters.
Where we are staying now, Yasmin sleeps on a thin mattress in crammed conditions. There is no privacy, no quiet, no comfort.
Caring for Yasmin at the shelter has been an exhausting and draining experience. She needs help dressing, navigating the toilet queue, walking through the chaotic courtyard. We have struggled to get her even a few toys and colouring pencils. And her medications have been very hard to find.
Yasmin is a good-looking and very sociable girl. Interestingly, people don’t have much difficulty getting used to how her tongue dances differently with words. Sometimes she misbehaves, which causes annoyance. But most people show empathy towards her.
Yasmin is also very kind. She often shares her food with friends, and on different occasions, she insists on preparing gifts for them. During Eid al-Adha last year, we decorated a tray of candies, each with a note reading, “Eid is happier with Yasmin!” She distributed the gifts with pride, lighting up the gloomy atmosphere of the shelter.
Unfortunately, now the situation has only gotten worse. Israel has tightened its merciless siege on the Gaza Strip, impeding the delivery of basic food supplies, fuel, and medical and sanitation aid. The markets have seen no trace of so many things for months. No vegetables, no fruit, no meat, no fish, no chicken, no eggs, no milk, no sugar, no chocolate!
The lack of nourishment has been a serious problem for all people in Gaza. Everyone I know has grown much thinner, with pale skin and an emaciated body. My wife and I have suffered from spells of dizziness.
Yasmin has been especially vulnerable. She has lost a lot of weight, and her health has deteriorated.
In July, nearly 12,000 Palestinian children under the age of five were officially diagnosed as malnourished.
On August 22, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reported that Gaza City is officially experiencing a “man-made famine” and that an immediate, at-scale response is needed. The report marked the first time famine was declared in the Middle East.
According to the IPC, more than 500,000 people in the Gaza Strip, roughly a quarter of the population, are either close to or have already reached catastrophic levels of famine. Unless the situation on the ground changes quickly, that number is expected to rise to more than 640,000 by the end of September, while those in emergency-level food insecurity will likely rise to 1.14 million.
In addition to the casualties of the ongoing war – more than 62,000 killed and 140,000 injured – more than 315 Palestinians have already died as a result of the forced starvation, half of them children.
At this critical time, Yasmin surprisingly stood before me, carrying the lightness of a secret. With a glowing face, she declared she had eaten chocolate!
Startled, I turned to her. “You ate chocolate, Yasmin? Where? Who gave it to you?”
Sensing my confusion, she smiled and her face lit up with more delight. She gently shook her head and explained, “No, no, Dad. I…didn’t eat…chocolate. I said…I dreamed!”
I jumped up and gave Yasmin a big hug, bursting into laughter – laughter that was louder and longer than I had in months. My laughter, however, was laced with extreme sorrow and fatigue.
Amid the horrors of war and widespread famine, Yasmin had a dream of something sweet. And the dream was sweet enough to make her highly delighted.
Yasmin, a child/young woman with special needs, was not aware of the political meaning of her dream. She didn’t know that her dream, where she tasted something unreachable, was an act of rebellion against Israel’s atrocities and defiant hope to live freely in peace and dignity.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
UNICEF says “famine is absolutely ravaging Gaza City,” as aid workers at a nutrition centre warn parents have run out of options to feed their children. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud visited the centre, where “the signs of famine are everywhere.”
Published On 29 Aug 202529 Aug 2025
Turkiye’s top diplomat said his country has ‘completely’ cut off trade with Israel over its ongoing genocide.
Published On 29 Aug 202529 Aug 2025
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said his country has completely severed economic and trade ties with Israel and has closed its airspace to its aircraft, in protest over the war in Gaza.
Speaking at an extraordinary session of the Turkish parliament on Gaza on Friday, Fidan said Israel has been “committing genocide in Gaza for the past two years, ignoring basic humanitarian values right before the world’s eyes”.
Turkiye cut off direct trade ties with Israel in May last year, demanding a permanent ceasefire and the immediate entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza. In 2023, the two countries carried out $7bn in trade.
Ankara has not minced its words about Israel’s war on Gaza, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling it a genocide – like many other world leaders and leading human rights organistions – and likening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler.
“We have completely cut off our trade with Israel. We do not allow Turkish ships to go to Israeli ports. We do not allow their planes to enter our airspace,” Fidan said.
The Turkish foreign minister’s condemnation comes amid years of increasingly tense relations between the two countries, said Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar.
“It’s not only about the humanitarian crisis that’s unfolding in Gaza; Turkiye gradually is perceiving Israel as a national security threat,” Serdar explained, noting that Israel’s expansionism and attacks across the wider Middle East have been cause for concern.
In Syria particularly, Ankara has accused Israel of wilfully undermining the country’s recovery efforts after the devastation of a 14-year civil war and the removal of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad last December by a lightning rebel offensive.
“Diplomats in Ankara are seeing that if Israel is not stopped, eventually there might be a direct military confrontation between these two countries,” he said.
Serdar added that the Turkish foreign minister’s comments also show that Turkiye is looking to the Global South and other powers to take action, amid the United States’ and European Union’s largely unwavering support for Israel.
Turkish media reported last week that a ban on maritime traffic linked to Israel had been imposed, although there was no official statement. According to reports, Israeli vessels were banned from docking in Turkiye, and Turkish-flagged ships were not allowed to enter Israeli ports.
Meanwhile, Turkiye’s latest move is making “more and more Israelis feel the disadvantages of this kind of war that has no deadline”, said Akiva Eldar, an Israeli political analyst.
“Turkiye is not just another country that is deciding to cut its relationship with Israel. Turkiye has been an ally of Israel for many years, a very important market to Israeli goods,” Eldar told Al Jazeera, speaking from Kiryat Shmona, adding that it was also a favourite summer destination for many Israelis.
“We feel more and more … Israelis are feeling isolated and [like] pariahs. More and more countries and companies have decided to stop their business with Israel.”
Last November, Turkish authorities denied permission for Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s plane to enter Turkiye’s airspace for a trip to an international summit in Azerbaijan.
“As Turkiye, we have to take a stance on certain issues,” Erdogan later said when asked about the incident.
Israel and Turkiye’s relationship had soured as far back as 2010, following Israel’s deadly attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, which killed 10 Turkish citizens.
More recently, a Turkish-American activist, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, was killed by Israeli forces during a protest in the occupied West Bank in September 2024.
DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,
Israeli military says city in northern Gaza is now a ‘combat zone’, suspends daily pauses in fighting there that allowed delivery of humanitarian aid.
Published On 29 Aug 202529 Aug 2025
The Israeli military says it has begun the “initial stages” of its offensive on Gaza City, as it declared the largest urban centre in the besieged territory a “combat zone” and announced the suspension of daily pauses in fighting there that allowed the entry of humanitarian aid.
“We are not waiting. We have begun preliminary operations and the initial stages of the attack on Gaza City,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X on Friday.
“We are currently operating with great force on the outskirts of the city,” he said.
The announcement came as the Israeli military confirmed it suspended so-called “tactical pauses” in its attacks on the city in northern Gaza that had previously allowed limited humanitarian operations there.
“Starting today at 10:00am (07:00 GMT), the tactical-local ceasefire of military activity will not apply to the Gaza City area, which constitutes a dangerous combat zone,” the military said on X.
Israeli forces have launched a sustained bombardment on Gaza City since early August, as the military prepares for a larger assault to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre – in an operation that could forcibly displace a million Palestinians to concentration zones in southern Gaza.
The relentless bombardment from the air and land has forced residents to flee to the western parts of the city, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has told Al Jazeera.
Gaza’s Civil Defence estimates that more than 1,000 residential buildings in the Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods of Gaza City have been flattened since August 6.
Residents described relentless bombardment and attacks from helicopters. “They launched a firebelt attack only 150 metres (500ft) away from us. They scorched the entire area,” said Nihad Madoukh from Sheikh Radwan in northwestern Gaza City, speaking to Al Jazeera. “It was very scary bombardment.”
Displaced resident Ahmed Moqat said he had been moving constantly to escape Israeli attacks. “Here’s the debris that fell last night next to my head,” he said. “Now I will go out in the street, only God knows where I will go.”
At least 41 Palestinians, including six aid seekers, were killed in attacks across Gaza on Friday, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
Palestinian health workers told Al Jazeera that three of the aid seekers were shot dead by Israeli forces near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza on Friday.
Medical sources said Israeli air strikes hit the so-called “safe zone” of al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, killing at least five people and wounding dozens as they slept in tents.
“We were sleeping when the bombing happened,” said a man caring for his grandchildren, whose father was killed two months ago. “The strike hit our area … We took the wounded ourselves to Nasser Hospital before the ambulances arrived. Stop this war against us. Have mercy on the children.”
More than 62,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by Israel in its nearly two-year war on Gaza, and at least 157,600 have been wounded, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The al-Mawasi area in southern Gaza where Israel has told displaced people to go is among places targeted this morning.
Published On 29 Aug 202529 Aug 2025
Hamas condemns far-right Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s remarks as ‘an official call to exterminate’ Palestinians.
Published On 28 Aug 202528 Aug 2025
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for Israel to annex the Gaza Strip if Hamas refuses to disarm, the latest push by an Israeli official to forcibly displace Palestinians and take complete control of the coastal enclave.
During a news conference on Thursday, Smotrich said if Hamas does not agree to surrender, disarm and release Israeli captives, Israel should annex a section of Gaza each week for four weeks.
He said Palestinians would first be told to move south in Gaza, followed by Israel imposing a siege on the territory’s north and centre regions, and ending with annexation.
“This can be achieved in three to four months,” said Smotrich, describing the measures as part of a plan to “win in Gaza by the end of the year”.
The far-right minister’s annexation push comes as the Israeli army has advanced deeper into Gaza City in an effort to seize the city and forcibly displace about one million Palestinians living there.
Israel’s intensified attacks on Gaza City have been widely condemned, with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warning last week that the campaign would cause “massive death and destruction”.
Meanwhile, Gaza City and the surrounding areas continue to experience famine as Israel continues to block food, water and other humanitarian aid from entering the Strip.
“Famine is no longer a looming possibility; it’s a present-day catastrophe,” Guterres said on Thursday.
“People are dying of hunger. Families are being torn apart by displacement and despair. Pregnant women are facing unimaginable risks, and the systems that sustain life – food, water, healthcare – have been systematically dismantled.”
Israel and its Western allies have long been pushing for Hamas to lay down its weapons, insisting that the Palestinian group cannot be involved in any future governance of Gaza.
Hamas rejected Smotrich’s remarks on Thursday, saying they represent “an official call to exterminate our people” as well as “an official admission of the use of starvation and siege against innocent civilians as a weapon”.
“Smotrich’s statement is not an isolated extremist opinion, but rather a declared government policy that has been implemented for nearly 23 months” of Israel’s war on Palestinians in the enclave, Hamas said in a statement.
“These statements expose the reality of the occupation to the world and confirm that what is happening in Gaza is not a ‘military battle’ but rather a project of genocide and mass displacement,” the group added, urging the international community to hold Israeli leaders accountable.
During his news conference, Smotrich called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to adopt his annexation plan “in full immediately”.
Netanyahu did not comment publicly on Smotrich’s remarks. But the Israeli leader has alluded to a plan for Israel to “take control of all Gaza” and send troops to reoccupy the entire enclave.
Israel’s military has for weeks been issuing forcible evacuation notices to Palestinians in so-called “combat zones” to relocate to southern Gaza.
Smotrich, a major backer of Israel’s settler movement who himself lives in an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, has expressed support for re-establishing illegal settlements in the Gaza Strip that were dismantled in 2005.
He and other far-right members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition also have voiced staunch opposition to efforts to reach a deal to end Israel’s war on Gaza, threatening to topple the government if an agreement is reached.