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.
The independent UN body responsible for investigating Israel says it is short on money.
An independent commission of inquiry investigating violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian territory has warned it cannot continue its work.
Severe funding shortages are derailing the body established by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council in 2021.
The United States withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year. Still, it continues to owe about $1.5bn in outstanding fees to the UN.
What, then, is the impact on this commission in the face of rapidly increasing Israeli settler violence and the illegal expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank?
Presenter:
James Bays
Guests:
Andrew Gilmour – Former UN assistant secretary-general for human rights
Sari Bashi – Human rights lawyer and founder of Gisha, an Israeli human rights organisation
William Schabas – Professor of international law at Middlesex University and a former chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict
French leader responds in diplomatic row that erupted after Macron said France would recognise a Palestinian state.
President Emmanuel Macron has rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for accusing him of fuelling anti-Semitism, calling the comments an “offence to France as a whole”.
The French leader responded to his Israeli counterpart in a letter published on Tuesday in several newspapers, in which he said Netanyahu’s recent accusations aimed at Macron were “unacceptable” and warned that the battle against anti-Semitism “must not be weaponised”.
“Accusations of inaction in the face of a scourge that we are fighting with everything in our power are unacceptable and are an offence to France as a whole,” Macron wrote in the letter.
“The fight against antisemitism must not be weaponised and will not fuel any discord between Israel and France.”
The French leader also appealed to Netanyahu to bring the “murderous and illegal permanent war” in Gaza to an end, saying it was “causing indignity for your country and placing your people in a deadlock”.
The accusation was contained in a letter which claimed that anti-Semitism had surged in France since Macron’s recent announcement that he would recognise Palestine as a state at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly next month.
The French president’s office responded by labelling the remarks “abject” and “erroneous”.
“This is a time for seriousness and responsibility, not for conflation and manipulation,” the French presidency said last week, adding that violence against the Jewish community was “intolerable” and asserting that France “protects and will always protect its Jewish citizens”.
The row has widened to draw in Israel’s chief ally, the United States, after Washington’s ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, published an open letter to Macron in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, echoing the allegation that France was failing to take sufficient action against anti-Semitism.
Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law, was summoned to the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs over the accusations, which France said were “unacceptable”, but the US embassy’s charge d’affaires went in his place, as Kushner was absent.
US senators Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley condemned violence against Palestinians as they visited the historic church of St George in the occupied West Bank, which was attacked by Israeli settlers in July.
Tehran rejects Australia’s accusations, calling the move unjustified and influenced by internal political developments.
Iran has promised reciprocal action following Australia’s decision to expel its ambassador in Canberra over accusations that Tehran was behind anti-Jewish attacks in the country.
On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei “absolutely rejected” Australia’s accusations, saying “any inappropriate and unjustified action on a diplomatic level will have a reciprocal reaction”.
Baghaei also said the measures appeared to be “influenced by internal developments” in Australia, including weekend protests across the country against Israel’s war on Gaza, which organisers said were the largest pro-Palestine demonstrations in Australia’s history.
“It seems that this action is taken in order to compensate for the limited criticism the Australian side has directed at the Zionist regime [Israel],” he added.
Earlier on Tuesday, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Iran was behind the torching of a kosher cafe in Sydney last October and directed a major arson attack on a synagogue in Melbourne in December.
There were no casualties in either of the attacks where assailants set fire to the properties, causing extensive damage.
Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said Iran sees Australia’s actions “as a continuation of hostile actions by the Australian side over the past years”.
“Australia has imposed several sanctions [on Iran], for example, in 2024 after Iran’s retaliatory action to attack the Israeli territory”, he said, adding that Tehran sees these latest moves “as another sign of Australia siding with the Israelis”.
Expelled ambassador ‘vocal in his support for the Palestinian cause’
Australia declared the Iranian ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, “persona non grata” and ordered him and three other officials to leave the country within seven days. Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the move marked the first time Australia has expelled an ambassador since World War II.
Australia also withdrew its ambassador to Iran and suspended operations at its embassy in Tehran, which opened in 1968.
Wong added that the government will continue to maintain some diplomatic lines with Iran to advance Canberra’s interests.
Sadeghi was “vocal in his support for the Palestinian cause”, Foad Izadi, a world studies professor at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera.
“That is the main reason for Australia’s decision to expel him. Just a few days ago, we saw the largest pro-Palestine demonstrations in many Australian cities.
“Expelling a country’s ambassador is rarely done, and the fact that the Australian government has done this is an indication that … they’re afraid of their own population and they’re afraid of the demands this population [makes] when it comes to the issue of genocide in Palestine.”
PM Albanese also said, “… the government will legislate to list Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, as a terrorist organisation.”
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is investigating possible IRGC involvement in other anti-Jewish attacks since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.
Izadi rejected those claims, saying it “has not provided any evidence”. He believes the Australian government has taken these decisions as it “is worried about the fact that the Australian people are seriously questioning Australia’s support for Israel” and “demanding that the government be more active in opposing the genocide in Palestine”.
Australia’s moves against Iran come as the country’s ties with Israel plummet over its criticism of Israeli-imposed famine and the war on Gaza, as well as its decision to join France, the United Kingdom and Canada in recognising a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Last week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Albanese a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”.
The Australian government has hit back at Netanyahu, with Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke saying that strength was not measured “by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry”.
Israel has struck Nasser Hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip, killing at least 21 people, including five journalists, as well as medics and rescue workers, in the latest deliberate attack on civilians and the besieged enclave’s decimated health system.
Monday’s attack, which killed journalists who worked for Al Jazeera, the Reuters and Associated Press (AP) news agencies, and others, was among the deadliest of a multitude of Israeli strikes that have targeted both hospitals and media workers over the course of the nearly two-year genocidal assault.
It comes as Israel widens its offensive to heavily populated areas and urban centres, including Gaza City, increasing the already heightened peril for the population.
The first strike of the “double-tap” attack, where one strike is followed by a second soon after, hit the top floor of a building at Nasser Hospital. Minutes later, as journalists and rescuers in orange vests rushed up an external staircase, a second projectile hit, said Dr Ahmed al-Farra, the head of the paediatrics department.
Among the journalists killed were Al Jazeera’s Mohammad Salama, Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, Mariam Abu Daqqa, a freelance journalist working for AP at the time, as well as Ahmed Abu Aziz and Moaz Abu Taha.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said the attack has “sent the entire area into an absolute sense of chaos and panic”.
“Not only for passers-by or people living in the vicinity of the hospital, but for the patients themselves, who are receiving treatment in one of the areas that must be protected under … international humanitarian law,” Abu Azzoum said.
The attack was met with widespread global condemnation, including from press freedom groups and rights advocates, who expressed outrage over Israel’s repeated targeted killings of Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
Al Jazeera condemned the attack as “a clear intent to bury the truth”.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, also decried the attack.
“Rescuers killed in line of duty. Scenes like this unfold every moment in Gaza, often unseen, largely undocumented,” Albanese said.
“I beg states: how much more must be witnessed before you act to stop this carnage? Break the blockade. Impose an Arms Embargo. Impose Sanctions.”
Israel’s allies, such as France Germany and the United Kingdom, have called for an investigation.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate also condemned Israel for the strikes, saying it represented “an open war against free media, with the aim of terrorising journalists and preventing them from fulfilling their professional duty of exposing its crimes to the world”.
The Committee to Protect Journalists called for “the international community to hold Israel accountable for its continued unlawful attacks on the press”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strike was a “tragic mishap”, and that the military was investigating it. Israel has often issued similar statements after incidents that drew international outrage and calls for UN investigations, but actual accountability for the perpetrators is unheard of.
Israeli forces also killed Palestinian correspondent Hassan Douhan, who worked for the Al-Hayat al-Jadida publication, in a separate incident in Khan Younis later on Monday, bringing the death toll of journalists killed that day to six.
Two weeks ago, Israel killed prominent Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif and four other journalists in a strike. In that attack, Israel acknowledged targeting Sharif and falsely alleged he worked for Hamas, without providing any evidence, after having openly maligned and condemned him for months before murdering him.
Nasser Hospital has withstood raids and bombardment during the war, with officials repeatedly noting critical shortages of supplies and staff amid a crippling aid blockade. Other hospitals have also come under attack, including al-Shifa Medical Complex, the enclave’s main hospital, where Israel has killed hundreds.
Death, desperation and famine stalk enclave
Israeli attacks across the famine-struck territory have killed at least 61 people since dawn on Monday, including seven people desperately seeking aid.
Tanks have been advancing in Gaza City, where Israeli forces have been intensifying attacks in a bid to force nearly 1 million Palestinians there southwards into concentration zones.
Gaza’s Civil Defence said that Israel had destroyed 1,000 buildings in Gaza City since August 6, trapping hundreds under the rubble, while ongoing shelling and blocked access routes prevented many rescue and aid operations.
The al-Awda Hospital said Israeli gunfire also killed six aid seekers trying to reach a distribution point in central Gaza and wounded another 15.
Israeli forces have been routinely opening fire on hungry Palestinians as they attempt to secure meagre aid parcels at the controversial Israeli and United States-backed GHF sites.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed and some 13,500 wounded while seeking aid at distribution points or along convoy routes used by the UN and other aid groups.
Al-Awda said that two Israeli strikes in central Gaza killed six Palestinians, including a child, while al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said three Palestinians, including a child, were killed in a strike there.
The relentless attacks continue as the UN warns that malnutrition among children in Gaza is deepening.
The UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA) renewed calls for the unrestricted flow of aid into and within Gaza.
“With famine conditions now confirmed in Gaza governorate, hunger and malnutrition among children are deepening,” OCHA said.
“Partners working on nutrition note that in any food crisis, children with underlying health conditions are affected first – and without proper nutrition, water and care, their condition worsens more quickly.”
Chris McIntosh, Oxfam’s humanitarian response adviser in Gaza, has described the situation as unprecedented in scale and severity.
“It’s difficult not to overuse superlatives in this context, but truly, this is a singular humanitarian disaster and the worst crisis that I’ve ever been part of… by far,” he said.
In the meantime, US President Donald Trump has predicted that the war on Gaza could see a “conclusive end” within two to three weeks. Similar claims have quickly fallen by the wayside as Washington’s full military and diplomatic backing of Israel’s genocidal war shows no signs of abating.
“It’s got to get over with because between the hunger and all of the other problems – worse than hunger, death, pure death – people [are] being killed,” Trump said.
Foreign Ministry calls Charles Kushner’s claim that Paris is not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism ‘unacceptable’.
France has summoned the US ambassador, Charles Kushner, after he wrote a letter to President Emmanuel Macron alleging that Paris had failed to do enough to stem anti-Semitic violence, a French Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson says.
Kushner published the open letter in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, in which he focused on France’s criticism of Israel – which has been accused by leading rights groups of carrying out a genocide in Gaza – and its plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
“Public statements haranguing Israel and gestures toward recognition of a Palestinian state embolden extremists, fuel violence, and endanger Jewish life in France,” he wrote. “In today’s world, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism – plain and simple.”
Paris was quick to respond to the ambassador.
“France firmly refutes these latest allegations,” a Foreign Ministry statement said on Sunday. “The allegations from the ambassador are unacceptable.”
France is “fully committed” to fighting anti-Semitism, the ministry added.
The Foreign Ministry’s statement also said that Kushner’s comments went “against international law, and in particular the duty not to interfere in internal matters of states” by diplomatic personnel.
“Furthermore, they do not live up to the quality of the transatlantic relationship between France and the United States and the trust that should result between allies,” it added.
Israel has been imposing deadly hunger on Palestinians in Gaza, whom it has displaced repeatedly as it systematically destroys the enclave of 2 million people, killing dozens daily.
In recent weeks, France and other Western nations have announced plans to recognise a Palestinian state, while maintaining their trade, diplomatic and security ties to Israel.
Still, the move has angered Israel and its top ally, the US.
Kushner, who is the father of US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former adviser Jared Kushner, was pardoned by Trump during his first term, having been convicted of tax evasion and witness tampering in 2005.
The envoy’s letter follows a similar statement addressed to Macron by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, which also linked France’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state to anti-Semitism.
The French president’s office hit back swiftly at Netanyahu, calling his allegations “abject” and “erroneous”, and promising that they “will not go unanswered”.
“This is a time for seriousness and responsibility, not for conflation and manipulation,” the French presidency said, adding that France “protects and will always protect its Jewish citizens”.
Rights advocates say that Israel’s supporters often invoke accusations of anti-Semitism to distract from the country’s abuses against Palestinians and silence the debate around the issue.
Why some protests in the UK are being criminalised, and what that means for free speech.
In Britain, citizens protesting against the war in Gaza are being arrested and detained under “terrorism” laws. Activists and legal experts warn that “public safety” is being used as a pretext to silence dissent, curb free speech and criminalise legitimate political activism.
Presenter: Stefanie Dekker
Guests: Clare Hinchcliffe – mother of imprisoned activist Laura O’Brien – head of protest team Matt Kennard – investigative journalist and author
Huda Abu Naja lies weak and emaciated on a thin mattress in her family’s tent in a displacement camp in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.
The 12-year-old Palestinian girl’s arms are painfully thin, and the bones on her torso are protruding from under her skin, a telltale sign of her acute malnutrition.
“My daughter has been suffering from acute malnutrition since March when Israel closed Gaza’s borders,” Huda’s mother, Somia Abu Naja, tells Al Jazeera, stroking her daughter’s face.
“She spent three months in hospitals, but her condition did not improve,” said Somia, explaining that she decided to bring Huda back to the family’s tent after witnessing five children die of starvation at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.
“She used to weigh 35 kilos [77lbs], but now she’s down to 20 [44lbs],” Somia added.
Huda is just one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children suffering from malnutrition in Gaza, according to local health authorities, as Israel continues to block food and other humanitarian aid from entering the bombarded enclave.
On Friday, a United Nations-backed hunger monitor confirmed for the first time that more than half a million people were experiencing famine in northern Gaza – the first such designation ever recorded in the Middle East.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system warned that the figure could reach 614,000 as famine is expected to spread to the Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis governorates by the end of September.
According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, more than 280 people, including more than 110 children, have died due to Israel-induced starvation since the country’s war on Gaza began nearly two years ago.
Children are being hit hard by the crisis, the IPC said on Friday, with an estimated 132,000 children under the age of five projected to be at risk of death from acute malnutrition by June 2026.
Dr Ahmad al-Farra, the chief paediatric physician at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, said 120 children are seeking treatment for malnutrition at the facility, while tens of thousands more are suffering in displacement camps with little assistance.
He told Al Jazeera that children in Gaza will suffer the consequences of malnutrition for the rest of their lives, as hospitals in the enclave are lacking the resources and supplies to respond to the crisis.
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, also told Al Jazeera that an estimated 320,000 children across Gaza were in a state of severe malnutrition.
He said all wounded patients in hospitals were suffering from malnutrition, as well, amid Israel’s continued blockade of the enclave.
Israel has rejected the IPC’s findings, with its foreign ministry saying – despite mounds of evidence – that there was “no famine in Gaza”.
While Israel has allowed limited supplies into the territory in recent weeks amid global outrage over the starvation crisis, the UN and humanitarian groups say what is being allowed in remains woefully insufficient.
An Israeli-backed aid distribution scheme known as GHF has also been condemned as ineffective and deadly, with Israeli forces and US contractors killing more than 2,000 Palestinians as they sought food at the sites since late May.
The IPC famine classification has triggered a renewed wave of calls for Israel to urgently allow a massive and sustained influx of aid into Gaza.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that the famine was a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself”.
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher also said starvation was occurring “within a few hundred metres of food” as aid trucks were stuck at border crossings due to Israeli restrictions. He demanded that Israel allow food and medicine in “at the massive scale required”.
You open your wallet; what’s inside? A faded 10-shekel note, barely held together by a strip of tape. No one wants it; it is all rubbish now.
The 10-shekel note, normally worth about $3, was once the most commonly used bill in daily life. Now, it is no longer in circulation. Not officially—only practically. It has been worn out beyond recognition. Sellers will not accept it. Buyers cannot use it.
There is no fresh cash. No replenishment.
Other banknotes are following the fate of the 10 shekels, especially the smaller ones.
If you pay with a 100-shekel note for an 80-shekel purchase, the seller will likely be unable to return the remaining 20 due to the poor physical state of the banknotes.
Many notes are torn or taped together, and entire stalls now exist just to repair damaged currency so it can be used again. Anything is better than nothing.
But the disintegration of banknotes is not the only problem we have in Gaza.
Civil servants have gone months without pay. NGOs are unable to transfer salaries to their employees. Families cannot send remittances. What once supported Gaza’s financial structure has vanished. There is no mention of when it will return. Just silence.
Money is stuck. Trapped behind closed systems and political barriers.
If you manage to obtain money from outside sources — perhaps from a cousin in Ramallah or a sibling in Egypt — it comes at a cost. A brutal one. If you get sent 1,000 shekels ($300), the agent will hand you 500. That’s right, the commission rate on cash withdrawals in Gaza is now 50 percent.
There are no banks to offer such withdrawals or oversee transfers.
The signs are still there. Bank of Palestine. Cairo Amman Bank. Al Quds Bank. But the doors are shut, the windows are dusty, and the inside is empty. No ATMs work.
There are only brokers, some with connections to the black market and smugglers, who are somehow able to obtain cash. They take huge cuts to dispense it, in exchange for a bank transfer to their accounts.
Every withdrawal feels like theft disguised as a transaction. Even so, people continue to use this system. They have no choice.
Do you have a bank card? Great. Try using it?
There is no power. There’s no internet. No POS machines. When you show your card to a seller, they shake their head.
People print screenshots of account balances that they cannot access. Some walk around with expired bank documents, hoping someone will think they’re “good enough” as a pay guarantee.
Nobody does.
There are a few sellers who accept so-called “digital wallets”, but those are few, and so are people who have them.
In Gaza today, money you can’t touch is equivalent to no money at all.
And so people have to resort to other means.
At the market, I saw a woman standing with a plastic bag of sugar. Another was holding a bottle of cooking oil. They did not speak much. I just nodded. Traded. Left.
This is what “shopping” in Gaza looks like right now. Trade what you’ve got. A kilo of lentils for two kilos of flour. A bottle of bleach for some rice. A baby’s jacket for several onions.
There is no stability. One day, your item will be worth something. The next day, nobody wants it. Prices are guesses. Value is emotional. Everything is negotiable.
“I traded my coat for a bag of diapers,” my uncle Waleed, a father of twins, told me. “He looked at me as if I were a beggar. I felt like I was giving up a part of my life.”
This is not a throwback to simpler times. This is what happens when systems disappear. When money dies. When families are forced to sacrifice dignity for survival.
People don’t just suffer—they shrink. They lower their expectations. They stop dreaming. They stop planning. What future can you plan when you can’t afford tomorrow?
“I sold my gold bracelet,” Lina, my neighbour by tent, told me. “It was for emergencies. But now, every day is an emergency.”
Gaza’s economy did not collapse due to bad policy or internal mismanagement. It was broken on purpose.
The occupation has not just blocked goods entering Gaza; it has also blocked currency and with it, any sense of financial control. It has destroyed the banking system. It has made liquidity a weapon.
Cutting off Gaza’s money is part of a larger siege. There is no need to fire a bullet to destroy a people. Simply deny them the ability to live.
You can’t pay for bread, for water, for medicine, so how do you sustain life?
If this trend continues, Gaza will be the first modern society to completely return to barter. There are no salaries. There is no official market. Only personal trades and informal deals. And even those will not last forever. Because what happens when there is nothing left to trade?
If this isn’t addressed, Gaza will be more than just a siege zone. It will be a place where the concepts of money, economy, and fairness will die forever.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Israeli destruction in al-Mughayyir near Ramallah is part of push to forcibly displace Palestinians, researcher says.
The Israeli military has destroyed about 3,000 olive trees in a village near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the head of the local council says, as Palestinians face a continued wave of violence across the territory in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza.
The Israeli military issued an order on Saturday to uproot olive trees in a 0.27sq-km (0.1sq-mile) area in al-Mughayyir, a village of about 4,000 residents northeast of Ramallah.
The army justified the measure by saying the trees posed a “security threat” to a main Israeli settlement road that runs through the village’s lands.
The destruction was carried out as al-Mughayyir has been under lockdown since Thursday after an Israeli settler said he was shot at in the area.
The deputy head of the village council, Marzouq Abu Naim, told Palestinian news agency Wafa that Israeli soldiers had stormed more than 30 homes since dawn on Saturday, destroying residents’ property and vehicles.
For decades, the Israeli military has uprooted olive trees – an important Palestinian cultural symbol – across the occupied Palestinian territory as part of the country’s efforts to seize Palestinian land and forcibly displace residents.
The West Bank also has seen a surge in Israeli military and settler violence since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, and tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced out of their homes.
Palestinian men collect wheat after an attack by Israeli settlers in al-Mughayyir in May [File: Mohammed Torokman/Reuters]
More than 2,370 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians have been reported across the area from January 2024 to the end of July this year, according to the latest figures from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The highest number of attacks – 585 – was recorded in the Ramallah area, followed by 479 in the Nablus region in the northern West Bank.
At least 671 Palestinians, including 129 children, also have been killed by Israeli forces and Israeli settlers across the West Bank in that same time period, OCHA said.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Saturday on the uprooting of the olive trees in al-Mughayyir.
Hamza Zubeidat, a Palestinian researcher, said the destruction is part of Israel’s “continuous” effort to force Palestinians off their lands.
“We have to be clear that since 1967, Israel is still implementing the same plan of evicting the Palestinian population from the countryside and the cities of the West Bank. What’s going on right now is just a continuous process of this eviction of Palestinians. It’s not a new Israeli process,” Zubeidat told Al Jazeera.
He noted that al-Mughayyir has a long agricultural history and, like other villages in the West Bank, relies almost entirely on agriculture and livestock as its main source of income.
“This area where more than 3,000 olive trees [were] uprooted is one of the most fertile areas in this part of the Ramallah area,” Zubeidat explained.
“Uprooting trees, confiscated water springs, blocking and preventing Palestinians from accessing their farms and water sources means more food and water insecurity.”
Hamas accepts latest ceasefire proposal; Israel escalates military action.
Israeli attacks around Gaza City are escalating – while diplomatic efforts intensify.
Hamas has accepted the latest proposal from Egypt and Qatar. But Israel has yet to respond.
So, as international pressure mounts, can a ceasefire be reached?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Daniel Levy – President of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli negotiator
Omar Rahman – Fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs in Washington, DC
Muhammad Shehada – Visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, where he investigates human rights violations in his native Gaza and the occupied West Bank
PM’s office says the weapons transfer to the Lebanese army marks the start of a wider disarmament campaign.
Lebanon has launched a plan to disarm Palestinian groups in its refugee camps, beginning with the handover of weapons from Burj al-Barajneh camp in Beirut.
The prime minister’s office announced on Thursday that the weapons transfer to the Lebanese army marks the start of a wider disarmament campaign. More handovers are expected in the coming weeks across Burj al-Barajneh and other camps nationwide.
A Fatah official told the Reuters news agency the arms handed over so far were only illegal weapons that had entered the camp within the previous day. Television footage showed military vehicles inside the camp, though Reuters could not verify what type of weapons were being surrendered.
The initiative follows Lebanon’s commitment under a US-backed truce between Israel and Hezbollah in November, which restricted weapons to six state security forces. Since the November 27, 2024, ceasefire agreement, Israel has continued attacking Lebanon, often on a weekly basis.
The government has tasked the army with producing a strategy by the end of the year to consolidate all arms under state authority.
According to the prime minister’s office, the decision to disarm Palestinian factions was reached in a May meeting between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Both leaders affirmed Lebanon’s sovereignty and insisted that only the state should hold arms. Lebanese and Palestinian officials later agreed on a timeline and mechanism for the handovers.
For decades, Palestinian groups have maintained control inside Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps, which largely operate outside state jurisdiction. The latest initiative is seen as the most serious effort in years to curb the presence of weapons inside the camps.
Palestinian resistance movements grew out of displacement and political exclusion after the creation of Israel in 1948, when some 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes.
Over the years, groups including Fatah, Hamas, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) established a presence in Lebanon’s camps to continue armed struggle against Israel.
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon remain without key civil rights, such as access to certain jobs and property ownership. With limited opportunities, many have turned to armed factions for protection or representation.
The disarmament push also comes as Hezbollah faces what analysts describe as its greatest military challenge in decades, following Israeli strikes in 2024 that decimated much of its leadership.
London, United Kingdom – Jonathon Porritt, a 75-year-old Oxford-educated environmentalist, is among the hundreds of people that the UK has cracked down on over their support of Palestine Action.
He was arrested and charged earlier this month, under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, for holding up a sign at a rally decrying the government’s decision to outlaw the protest group.
“I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” read the cardboard placard that he, and many of the 520 others arrested, raised.
His bail hearing is scheduled for late October.
But Porritt is not a hardened criminal.
He spent 30 years advising the king on environmental issues when the monarch held the Prince of Wales title. He has also chaired a sustainable development commission set up by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and throughout his career has worked in politics, academia and directed Friends of the Earth. In 2000, he was awarded a CBE, a high-ranking order, for services to environmental protection.
Al Jazeera spoke to Porritt about his activism, Palestine, the role of business and the effect of weapons manufacturing on climate change.
Al Jazeera: As the crisis in Gaza worsens, you have urged the UK to take action to stop Israel’s onslaught. With more than 700 other business leaders, you recently called for targeted sanctions against those accused of violating international law, including war crimes. Does that include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, since he is wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court?
Jonathan Porritt: It would certainly include members of his cabinet who have been very forthright in the comments that they’ve made, which clearly breach any understanding of the rights of people to exist … and indicate a readiness to ethnically cleanse Gaza and indeed to prepare to do the same in the West Bank.
It’s very clear that those sanctions do now need to be brought forward, and I think it is important that it’s business leaders that are suggesting that you just can’t allow those kinds of blatant attacks on the Palestinian people to continue.
Al Jazeera: On an individual level, many people appalled at Israel’s conduct in Gaza have joined a campaign to boycott Israeli goods, in an attempt at hitting the economy that fuels the war. Is this an effective way to stem the violence?
Porritt: It is something I do on an individual level. And this is purely personal, but I would be deeply unhappy buying anything exported into the UK from Israel. I feel that the government of Israel at the moment and its track record in terms of the way it’s dealt with the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is so repugnant to me personally that I feel uncomfortable supporting the economic standing of that country, so that’s my own personal choice.
I don’t go out of my way to suggest that everybody needs to do that.
I think lifestyle decisions are really important, ethical decisions are really important, but do they actually change very much? Probably not, is the reality, and an awful lot of people simply don’t know the issues behind these choices.
Al Jazeera: Your arrest earlier this month made headlines. What do you think figures such as King Charles and Tony Blair, who you’ve worked with, would make of your radical activism?
Porritt: I was comfortable taking on establishment roles as chair of the commission [launched by Blair], for instance, [and] helping to set up the Prince of Wales’s business and sustainability programme, all that kind of stuff. But my life started as an activist in the Green Party and in Friends of the Earth, so they probably always knew that I was more predisposed to that tactical route than to the inside track that I nonetheless spent 30 years pursuing.
Al Jazeera: With several wars raging, is the link between militaries and weapons companies, which are major carbon polluters, and climate change being talked about enough?
Porritt: No, and this really bugs me a lot.
The investment in nuclear weapons of one kind or another, upgrades going on all over the world, and increasing the number of warheads again – this is just crazy, and on the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima you think, how can that possibly be?
And then, then you look at the environmental impacts of all of that, of course, including the CO2 footprint of vast increases in expenditure on arms, and it’s just the worst possible way of trying to increase security for people in their own country – to make these hugely carbon-intensive and destructive investments and yet more weapons of mass destruction.
Al Jazeera: The UK has proscribed Palestine Action as a terror organisation, but its backers say outlawing the group is a way to silence dissent as Israel wages war in Gaza. It is now legally challenging the proscription. What does Palestine Action stand for, in your view?
Porritt: What Palestine Action actually stands for is a readiness to use violence against property as part of its campaigning tactics against, in particular, those arms companies [that are] deeply complicit in the continuing genocide in Gaza. They see as being proportionate when set against the devastation going on in Gaza.
That choice about tactics is morally based, wholly defensible … and in no way indicative of a formally designated terrorist organisation.
In the last few years, there’s been an astonishing legal crackdown on basic rights in this country, particularly the right to the freedom of speech and the right to freedom to protest
The designation as a terrorist organisation … is to try and silence Palestine Action. That’s where I come back to the now incontrovertible proof of the UK government’s complicity in this genocide, and because of that complicity – its continuation of licences for arms quite clearly being used to massacre innocent people across Gaza – if you look at that complicity, they needed something extra. They needed an even bigger stick to shut Palestine Action up so that the citizens of the UK were not permitted to recognise just how abhorrent this government’s behaviour is.
Israeli troops have begun advancing on Gaza City as part of the military’s plan to besiege and occupy the area. Despite a global outcry, the Netanyahu government is pressing forward with the assault. Soraya Lennie explains what we know.
Historian Zach Foster on preserving Palestinian maps and archival materials.
In this episode of Centre Stage, our guest is a Jewish historian of Palestine, Zach Foster. He joins us to discuss his work on preserving Palestinian maps and archival materials, despite the deliberate destruction of archives by Israel.
Foster explains his journey from growing up in a Zionist household to advocating for the rights and history of Palestinians.
Phil Lavelle is a TV news correspondent at Al Jazeera.
Israeli leader claims Australian prime minister’s legacy ‘tarnished’ by decision to recognise a Palestinian state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stepped up his government’s bitter diplomatic dispute with Australia, claiming that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s legacy has been irrevocably blackened by his “weakness” towards Hamas.
In an interview with Sky News Australia scheduled to air on Thursday night, Netanyahu said Albanese’s record would “forever be tarnished” by his decision to recognise a Palestinian state.
“When the worst terrorist organisation on earth, these savages who murdered women, raped them, beheaded men, burnt babies alive in front of their parents, took hundreds of hostages, when these people congratulate the Prime Minister of Australia, you know something is wrong,” Netanyahu said in the interview, portions of which were posted online by Sky News before the broadcast.
Netanyahu’s accusation appeared to refer to a disputed statement that appeared last week in the Sydney Morning Herald, in which Hamas cofounder Sheikh Hassan Yousef was quoted praising Albanese for his “political courage”.
Following the report, Hamas publicly denied that any statement had been issued by Yousef. The Palestinian armed group, which governs Gaza, said Yousef had been in Israeli custody for nearly two years without means of communicating with the outside world.
Netanyahu’s broadside against Albanese follows an extraordinary missive earlier this week in which he claimed the Australian leader would be remembered by history as a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”.
On Wednesday, Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke hit back at the Israeli leader, saying strength was “not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry”, though Albanese attempted to play down the spat by saying he did not take it personally.
Relations between Australia and Israel, traditionally close allies, have sunk to their lowest ebb in decades following Canberra’s decision to recognise Palestine.
On Monday, Australia said it had cancelled a visa for Simcha Rothman, a far-right member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, amid concerns that a speaking tour he had scheduled in the country aimed to “spread division”.
Hours after that decision, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar said he had revoked the visas of Australian diplomats to the Palestinian Authority.
Expressing dismay at the tensions, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said on Wednesday that it had written to both prime ministers to urge them to address their differences “in the usual way through diplomacy rather than public posturing”.
“The sum total of human wisdom would not have been diminished in the slightest if none of these public comments had been made,” the peak body for Jewish Australians said in its letter to Albanese.
“The Australian Jewish community will not be left to deal with the fallout of a spat between two leaders who are playing to their respective domestic audiences.”
Israel has come under mounting international pressure, including from some of its closest allies, over the scale of human suffering being inflicted by its war in Gaza.
More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since it launched its war on Gaza following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 251 people captive during its incursion into southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.
Al-Mawasi, Gaza Strip – Sweat streams down Tareq Abu Youssef’s face as he struggles through his gym workout on makeshift bodybuilding equipment, each movement more laboured than it should be.
The 23-year-old Palestinian deliberately keeps his training sessions minimal, a painful reduction from the intensive routines he once loved – but in a territory where nearly everyone is starving, maintaining muscle mass has become an act of survival and resistance.
“I have dropped 14 kilograms, from 72kg to 58kg (159lb to 128lb), since March,” Abu Youssef said, referring to when Israel tightened its siege by closing border crossings and severely restricting food deliveries. “But if eating has become an abnormality in Gaza, working out for bodybuilders like us is one rare way to maintain normalcy,” he tells Al Jazeera.
His story reflects a broader humanitarian catastrophe: Across Gaza’s 365 square kilometres, 2.1 million Palestinians face what aid agencies describe as deliberate, weaponised hunger.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that virtually the entire population faces “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity, with northern Gaza experiencing famine conditions. Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, has documented severe acute malnutrition cases throughout the Strip, describing the crisis as “man-made” and deliberately imposed. The World Food Programme warns that without immediate intervention, famine will spread across all of Gaza, while millions of tonnes of aid are parked at Israel-locked border crossings.
Even when aid trucks manage to enter through Israel’s heavily restricted crossings, distribution of food and other essential items remains nearly impossible due to ongoing military operations and widespread destruction of infrastructure.
During Abu Youssef’s extended rest breaks in between machines – now five times longer than before Gaza’s famine began – he runs his hands over his chest, arms, and shoulders, feeling the devastating muscle loss that mirrors the physical deterioration of an entire population.
“Starvation has completely affected my ability to practice my favourite sport of bodybuilding,” Abu Youssef says in a tent gym in al-Mawasi, located in Gaza’s overcrowded southern “safe zone”. “I now come to train one day, sometimes two days, a week. Before the war, it was five to six days. I’ve also reduced my training time to less than half an hour, which is less than half the required time.”
Where he once bench-pressed 90-100kg (200-220lb), Abu Youssef now barely manages 40kg (90lb) – a decline that would be concerning for any athlete but devastating in a context where such physical deterioration is becoming the norm across an entire society.
Tareq Abu Youssef works out in the tent gym but struggles to lift less than half the weight he did before the man-made famine in Gaza [Mohamed Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
A gym among the refugees
The makeshift facility where Abu Youssef trains exists inside a tent in al-Mawasi, now home to roughly one million displaced Palestinians living in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. Here, amid sprawling refugee camps, coach Adly al-Assar has created an unlikely sanctuary, using equipment salvaged from his destroyed gym in Khan Younis.
Al-Assar, a 55-year-old international powerlifting champion who won six gold medals at Arab championships in 2020-2021, managed to rescue just 10 pieces of equipment from the more than 30 destroyed when Israeli forces bombed his original facility. The tent gym covers barely 60 square metres (650 sq ft), its plastic sheeting stretched over two uneven levels of ground, surrounded by refugee tents and sparse trees.
“During this imposed famine, everything changed,” al-Assar explains, his own body weight having dropped 11kg from 78kg to 67kg. “Athletes lost 10-15 kilograms and lost their ability to lift weights. My shoulder muscle was 40 centimetres, now it’s less than 35, and all other muscles suffered the same loss.”
Before the current crisis, his gym welcomed over 200 athletes daily across all ages. Now, barely 10 percent can manage to train, and only once or twice weekly.
One of those regular visitors to his makeshift gym is Ali al-Azraq, 20, displaced from central Gaza during the war’s early weeks. His weight plummeted from 79kg to 68kg – almost entirely muscle loss. His bench press capacity dropped from 100kg to just 30kg, back lifts from 150kg to 60kg, and shoulder work from 45kg to barely 15kg.
“The biggest part of the loss happened during the current starvation period, which began months ago and intensified in the last month,” al-Azraq says. “I actually find nothing to eat except rarely a piece of bread, rice, or pasta in tiny quantities that keep me alive. But we completely lack all essential nutrients and important proteins – meat, chicken, healthy oils, eggs, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and others.”
The unemployed young man had hoped to compete in official Palestinian arm-wrestling championships before advancing internationally. Instead, he describes the current starvation as “the harshest thing we’re experiencing as Gazans, but athletes like us are most affected because we need large quantities of specific, not ordinary food”.
Coach Adly al-Assar, a former international powerlifting champion, has created a fitness sanctuary by constructing the tent gym in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza [Mohamed Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
Training through trauma
Yet for these athletes, the tent gym represents more than physical training – it’s psychological survival. Khaled Al-Bahabsa, 29, who returned to training two months ago after being injured in Israeli shelling on April 19, still carries shrapnel in his chest and body.
“Sports give life and psychological comfort. We were closer to the dead even though we were alive,” al-Bahabsa says. “But when I returned to practice my [gym] training, I felt closer to the living than the dead, and the nightmares of genocide and hunger retreated a little.”
He was stunned to discover the gym among the tents and trees. “I considered that I got my passion that war conditions forced me to give up. Bodybuilding isn’t just a sport – for me and many of its players, enthusiasts, and lovers – it’s life.”
Twenty-two months of relentless bombardment by the Israeli military has killed more than 62,000 people, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health, demolished expansive parts of the besieged territory, and displaced the sweeping majority of its people. Those alive are trying to survive dire humanitarian conditions in the near-absolute absence of food.
Al-Assar has adapted his training methods for famine conditions, strictly instructing athletes to minimise workouts and avoid overexertion. Rest periods between sets now extend to five minutes instead of the usual 30 seconds to one minute. Training sessions are capped at 30 minutes, and athletes lift no more than half their pre-famine weights.
“The recommendations are strict to shorten training duration and increase rest periods,” al-Assar warns. “We’re living a deadly starvation crisis, and training might stop altogether if circumstances continue this way.”
Al-Assar, far right, restricts the bodybuilders’ workouts to no more than 30 minutes due to fatigue, muscle cramping and the chronic lack of food available for post-workout recovery [Mohamed Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
On a daily basis, athletes experience complications including collapse, fainting, and inability to move, the coach told Al Jazeera. “We’re in real famine with nothing to eat. We get zero nutrition from all essential and beneficial foods – no animal protein, no healthy oils, nothing. We get a tiny amount that wouldn’t satisfy a three-year-old of plant protein from lentils, while other foods are completely absent.”
But the bodybuilders keep working out anyway.
Even when Israeli air attacks landed just metres from the gym, athletes continued showing up. “I’m hungry all the time and calculate my one training day per week – how will I manage my food afterward?” says Abu Youssef, a street vendor who once aspired to compete in a Gaza-wide bodybuilding championship that was scheduled for two weeks after the war began in October 2023.
Youssef, who was excited at the opportunity to compete and was in full training for the championship, had his dream destroyed when the war “turned everything upside down”. Now, the few loaves of bread he manages to buy from his weekly earnings barely fill him up.
“Despite that, I didn’t lose hope and train again to regain my abilities, even if limited and slow, but the famine thwarts all these attempts,” he says.
For al-Bahabsa, displaced from Rafah with his family, simply reaching the training site represents hope for restoring life generally, not just physical fitness.
“We aspire to live like the rest of the world’s peoples. We want only peace and life and hate the war and Israeli occupation that exterminates and starves us. It’s our right to practice sports, participate in international competitions, reach advanced levels, and represent Palestine,” he said.
The tent gym, despite its limitations, serves as what al-Assar calls a challenge to “the reality of genocide, destruction, and displacement”.
As he puts it: “The idea here is deeper than just training. We’re searching for the life we want to live with safety and tranquility. Gaza and its people will continue their lives no matter the genocide against them. Sports is one aspect of this life.”
Ali al-Azraq, who was displaced from central Gaza in the early stages of the war, holds onto his dream of competing in arm-wrestling competitions by working out at the tent gym in al-Mawasi, whenever possible [Mohamed Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.
