“This reality definitively buries the idea of a Palestinian state.” Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced a plan to effectively split the occupied West Bank in half, approving thousands of new Jewish settler homes between occupied East Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement.
Published On 14 Aug 202514 Aug 2025
The humanitarian tragedy unfolding in the Gaza Strip must not be perceived merely as a conflict confined to a narrow strip of land; rather, it should be regarded as a deepening humanitarian catastrophe that wounds the collective conscience of humanity with each passing day. Israel’s months-long bombardments have targeted women, children, and the elderly, rendering cities uninhabitable. Homes, hospitals, schools, and places of worship have been reduced to rubble; essential services such as food, water, healthcare, and electricity have collapsed. Hunger, thirst, and the threat of epidemic disease are propelling Gaza towards a total humanitarian collapse. To date, more than 61,000 Palestinians — the majority of them women and children — have been killed in Israeli attacks. This picture is not only the mark of war, but also a stark testament to a systematic policy of annihilation.
In the face of such a dire picture, the world’s silence or its feeble responses only deepen the suffering and pave the way for the continuation of oppression. The West’s double standards — rushing to act in other crises while adopting an ambivalent approach to Gaza — undermine the credibility of an international order purportedly founded upon principles and rules. It is a fact that had the swift and comprehensive sensitivity shown towards the crisis in Ukraine also been displayed in the face of the atrocities in Gaza, the landscape we confront today would be entirely different. Israel’s ability to act without the slightest sanction has accelerated the erosion of international law and human rights norms. The crisis in Gaza stands before us as a litmus test of whether the international community is willing and able to uphold the most fundamental human values.
From the outset, Turkiye has demonstrated a resolute, consistent, and principled stance to end the atrocities and the worsening humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Our Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD), the Turkish Red Crescent, and our civil society organisations are working actively on the ground, and despite all obstacles, food, medicines, and medical supplies are being delivered to the region with the support of brotherly nations in the vicinity. Wounded Gazans are being evacuated and treated in Turkiye. These relief efforts not only address urgent needs, but also proclaim to the world that the people of Gaza are not alone. On the diplomatic front, our calls for a ceasefire continue within the United Nations and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and our mediation efforts between Palestinian groups are ongoing.
At the NATO Summit held in The Hague on June 25, I underlined that the fragile ceasefire must be transformed into a lasting peace, warning that “Gaza has no time to lose.” I have openly defined Israel’s attacks and policy of collective punishment — in flagrant disregard for international law — as genocide. We are working closely, particularly with Qatar, on humanitarian access, ceasefire negotiations, and reconstruction. We value Qatar’s leading role in facilitating humanitarian aid and in advancing diplomatic initiatives aimed at bringing the massacre to an end.
The violence in Gaza threatens not only the Palestinian people but also the stability of the entire region. Tensions between Israel and Iran heighten the risk of a broader conflict, with the potential to disrupt the security balance from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf. The deepening of the crisis poses serious threats in the form of new waves of displacement, increased radicalisation, and risks to energy security. The Gaza question is, therefore, not solely a humanitarian crisis, but also a matter of strategic importance for global security and peace.
The path to a solution is, in essence, clear. An immediate ceasefire must be declared, and all attacks must be halted unconditionally. Humanitarian corridors must be opened to ensure the unimpeded delivery of food, water, and medical aid, and international mechanisms must be established to protect civilians. Turkiye stands ready to serve as an actor in shaping this process. War crimes and human rights violations must be investigated before the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice; perpetrators must be held to account before the law. Sustainable resources must be secured for aid organisations — particularly the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) — which are being strangled by Israeli pressure.
The reconstruction of Gaza must not be confined to rebuilding destroyed structures; it must evolve into a comprehensive process that safeguards the rights to education, healthcare, infrastructure, economic development, and political representation. This process should be conducted with the direct participation of the local population and under the oversight of the United Nations and regional organisations. The foundation of lasting peace lies in the recognition of an independent and sovereign State of Palestine with its territorial integrity safeguarded. A two-state solution is the sole key to peace and stability in the region.
The events in Gaza once again demonstrate that war also targets those who pursue truth. In recent months, numerous journalists have been murdered simply for doing their duty, striving to bring the reality of conflict zones to the world. The losses suffered by Al Jazeera, in particular, rank among the most brutal assaults on press freedom and the right to information. The death of courageous individuals who strive to bring the truth to the world and to lift the veil of lies and propaganda that shrouds war is a profound loss for us all. Their memory will remain a symbol of the pursuit of justice. I extend my condolences to the families of the deceased, to their colleagues, and to the entire media community.
The cause of Palestine and Gaza transcends borders; it is a common test for humanity. We must never forget the heavy price borne by human dignity when the world turned a blind eye to the tragedies of Bosnia and Rwanda. For this reason, Turkiye’s unwavering stance on Gaza is both a moral obligation and a strategic necessity. Together with all actors who believe in humanitarian diplomacy, foremost among them Qatar, we will continue our efforts towards a lasting, just, and honourable peace. We hold the view that achieving peace is not beyond reach, but rather an essential goal that has been awaited for far too long. We are committed to making every effort to achieve peace and will persist in our endeavours.
History is bearing witness to those who took action and to those who turned away from the cruelty in Gaza. Gaza has no time to lose; the international community must heed the voice of the global conscience and act. The future of humanity will be shaped by the courage of the steps we take today.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
At least 23 people, including 10 seeking aid, have been killed on Thursday in Israeli attacks across Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities, as four more people died from malnutrition amid a growing starvation crisis in the besieged territory.
Hospital sources told Al Jazeera that 10 people seeking aid were among 12 people killed by Israeli forces near Rafah in southern Gaza.
One person was killed and several others were wounded in an Israeli attack near an aid distribution site, the sources said.
Eight people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a residential home in Gaza City in northern Gaza, medical sources said.
Two other people were killed in an Israeli attack on the city’s Tuffah neighbourhood, hospital sources told Al Jazeera.
The killings come as Israel escalates its attacks on Gaza City, the largest city in the enclave, after the country’s security cabinet approved plans for the military to seize the city, an operation that could forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to concentration zones in southern Gaza.
The plan has received international condemnation from the United Nations and even dissent from within Israel’s own military.
Al Jazeera correspondents reported on Thursday that large swaths of northern Gaza have been turned into “lifeless wastelands” amid the Israeli escalation.
Palestinians in Gaza City have spoken of their fears of further displacement, following an Israeli forced evacuation order to areas further south, ahead of the proposed occupation.
Walaa Sobh said she had already been displaced during the war from the northern city of Beit Lahiya to Gaza City, and was unable to move again.
“We’re afraid to move anywhere else, because we have nowhere to go, no income – and I am a widow,” she told Al Jazeera.
“If they want to force us out, then at least find us a place, give us tents, especially for the widows, the children, and the sick. You’re not only displacing one or two people; you’re displacing millions who have nowhere to stay.”
Another woman, Umm Sajed Hamdan, said she would refuse to follow the order.
“I am a mother of five and the wife of a detainee. I cannot escape with my children from one place to another,” Hamdan told Al Jazeera. “I would rather face death here in Gaza City than go to al-Mawasi.”
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said Israel’s plans to occupy Gaza City are a serious cause for concern.
“It’s a terrible escalation, really,” said Bishara.
“[Netanyahu] really intends to reoccupy Gaza … send the military in and just take it on again.”
As Israel continues to escalate attacks on Gaza City, Mossad spy chief David Barnea is visiting Qatar in an effort to revive talks over a Gaza ceasefire, two Israeli officials told the Reuters news agency on Thursday.
The visit follows a reported expression of positivity from Hamas officials to restart ceasefire negotiations during a meeting with Egypt’s intelligence chief in Cairo earlier this week.
Earlier on Thursday, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel said that a non-Israeli, peaceful civilian administration for Gaza was among the Israeli government’s five key principles for ending the war.
The other principles include the release of captives still held in Gaza, the surrender of weapons by Hamas, the full demilitarisation of Gaza, and Israel retaining overriding security control, he said.
Meanwhile, more than 100 aid groups on Thursday accused Israel of obstructing life-saving aid from entering Gaza, resulting in vast quantities of relief supplies remaining stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt as more Palestinians starve.
“Despite claims by Israeli authorities that there is no limit on humanitarian aid entering Gaza, most major international NGOs [nongovernmental organisations] have been unable to deliver a single truck of life-saving supplies since 2 March,” the groups said.
There is aid sitting all around the boundary between Israel and Gaza that is not being allowed in, Natasha Davies, a nursing activity manager with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), told Al Jazeera.
“We’ve had a couple of trucks in [to Gaza], but really, it’s just a drop in the ocean … We run primarily a trauma surgical hospital, so every single patient has a wound of some sort that needs fixing with supplies that we are intermittently receiving,” Davies said by videolink from Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis.
“It’s just a humanitarian catastrophe. There are these GHF sites, which are slaughter masquerading as aid, which create mass casualty incidents, which create more injuries for us to treat with limited resources,” she said.
The total number of aid seekers killed since May 27, when Israel introduced a new aid distribution mechanism through the US-based GHF, has reached 1,881, with more than 13,863 injured, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The total count of hunger-related deaths is now 239, including 106 children, the ministry records.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,776 people and wounded 154,906. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Mass outcry from aid groups as Israel continues to block millions of dollars in aid supplies to starving Palestinians.
More than 100 aid groups have accused Israel of obstructing life-saving aid from entering Gaza, resulting in vast quantities of relief supplies remaining stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt as more Palestinians starve.
Aid trucks have massed on Gaza’s borders amid Israel’s blockade of the famine-stricken territory, and new rules are being used by Israel to deny the entry of food, medicine, water and temporary shelters, the groups said in a joint statement released on Thursday.
“Despite claims by Israeli authorities that there is no limit on humanitarian aid entering Gaza, most major international NGOs [nongovernmental organisations] have been unable to deliver a single truck of life-saving supplies since 2 March,” the groups said.
“Instead of clearing the growing backlog of goods, Israeli authorities have rejected requests from dozens of NGOs to bring in life-saving goods, citing that these organisations are ‘not authorised to deliver aid’,” the groups, which include Doctors Without Borders (known by their French acronym, MSF) and Oxfam, said.
Relief organisations that have worked in Gaza for decades are now told by Israel that they are not “authorised” to deliver aid due to new “registration rules”, which include so-called “security” vetting.
Hospitals in Gaza are now without basic supplies as a result, and children, the elderly and those with disabilities are “dying from hunger and preventable illnesses”, the statement continued.
Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam policy lead, said her organisation has more than $2.5m worth of humanitarian aid supplies that “have been rejected from entering Gaza by Israel”.
MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, said the restrictions on aid are part of Israel’s militarised distribution of relief supplies, spearheaded by the notorious GHF.
“The militarised food distribution scheme has weaponised starvation and curated suffering. Distributions at GHF sites have resulted in extreme levels of violence and killings, primarily of young Palestinian men, but also of women and children, who have gone to the sites in the hope of receiving food,” Zabalgogeazkoa said.
At least 859 Palestinians have been killed attempting to access aid supplies around GHF distribution sites since May.
The more than 100 relief organisations that signed the statement have called for pressure to be exerted on Israel to end its “weaponisation of aid”, for Israel to end its “bureaucratic obstruction” and for unconditional delivery of life-saving humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Israel’s Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli, who had a role in the new rules imposed on aid groups, told the AFP news agency that registration of humanitarian groups could be rejected if Israeli authorities deem that its activities deny the democratic character of Israel or ” promote delegitimisation campaigns”, such as the movement to boycott Israel over its war on Gaza.
The joint outcry by aid groups comes as Israeli forces launch a new operation to take over Gaza City, which will displace more than a million people and force them to move south to concentration zones.
Israel’s operation to occupy Gaza City has triggered international outrage, with the United Nations and world leaders warning of devastating humanitarian consequences for the war-shattered territory.
‘Stop killing children, Stop killing civilians’ banners shown at match after criticism over tribute to Palestinian footballer Suleiman al-Obeid who was killed by Israel.
UEFA has unfurled a banner with the message “Stop Killing Children. Stop Killing Civilians” on the pitch before the Super Cup football match between Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham in Udine, Italy, in the wake of heavy fallout over its meek tribute to a Palestinian player killed by Israel.
“The message is loud and clear,” European football’s governing body said in a post on X om Wednesday. “A banner. A call.”
Nine children refugees from Palestine, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Iraq carried the banner onto the field of play before the game began.
Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah last week criticised a UEFA tribute to the late Suleiman al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele”, after European football’s governing body failed to reference the circumstances surrounding his killing.
The Palestine Football Association said al-Obeid, 41, was killed by an Israeli attack on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip.
In a brief post on X, UEFA called the former national team member “a talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times”.
Salah responded, “Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?”
Speaking to Al Jazeera last week, Bassil Mikdadi, the founder of Football Palestine, said he did not expect the football body to respond to the criticism.
“UEFA have not issued a follow-up, and frankly, I’d be surprised if they do,” he said, citing the “complete silence” of football and players’ bodies since the start of the war on Gaza.
Even UEFA’s tribute to al-Obeid “was a bit of a surprise”, Mikdadi said.
“Suleiman al-Obeid is not the first Palestinian footballer to perish in this genocide – there’s been over 400 – but he’s by far the most prominent as of now.”
Salah, one of the Premier League’s biggest stars, has advocated for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza during the nearly two-year-long war.
But some responding to Salah’s post asked why it had taken the 33-year-old Egyptian so long to weigh in on Israel’s genocidal war.
The banner move came a day after the UEFA Foundation for Children announced its latest initiative to help children affected by war in different parts of the world – a partnership with Medecins du Monde, Doctors Without Borders (known by its French initials MSF), and Handicap International.
They are charities “providing vital humanitarian help for the children of Gaza,” UEFA said in a news release on Tuesday.
UEFA has supported projects regarding children affected in conflict zones in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine.
‘Stop killing children, Stop killing civilians’ banners shown at match after criticism over tribute to Palestinian footballer Suleiman al-Obeid who was killed by Israel.
UEFA has unfurled a banner with the message “Stop Killing Children. Stop Killing Civilians” on the pitch before the Super Cup football match between Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham in Udine, Italy, in the wake of heavy fallout over its meek tribute to a Palestinian player killed by Israel.
“The message is loud and clear,” European football’s governing body said in a post on X om Wednesday. “A banner. A call.”
Nine children refugees from Palestine, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Iraq carried the banner onto the field of play before the game began.
Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah last week criticised a UEFA tribute to the late Suleiman al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele”, after European football’s governing body failed to reference the circumstances surrounding his killing.
The Palestine Football Association said al-Obeid, 41, was killed by an Israeli attack on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip.
In a brief post on X, UEFA called the former national team member “a talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times”.
Salah responded, “Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?”
Speaking to Al Jazeera last week, Bassil Mikdadi, the founder of Football Palestine, said he did not expect the football body to respond to the criticism.
“UEFA have not issued a follow-up, and frankly, I’d be surprised if they do,” he said, citing the “complete silence” of football and players’ bodies since the start of the war on Gaza.
Even UEFA’s tribute to al-Obeid “was a bit of a surprise”, Mikdadi said.
“Suleiman al-Obeid is not the first Palestinian footballer to perish in this genocide – there’s been over 400 – but he’s by far the most prominent as of now.”
Salah, one of the Premier League’s biggest stars, has advocated for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza during the nearly two-year-long war.
But some responding to Salah’s post asked why it had taken the 33-year-old Egyptian so long to weigh in on Israel’s genocidal war.
The banner move came a day after the UEFA Foundation for Children announced its latest initiative to help children affected by war in different parts of the world – a partnership with Medecins du Monde, Doctors Without Borders (known by its French initials MSF), and Handicap International.
They are charities “providing vital humanitarian help for the children of Gaza,” UEFA said in a news release on Tuesday.
UEFA has supported projects regarding children affected in conflict zones in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine.
Protests and vigils have taken place around the world in support of Palestinians suffering in Gaza and to pay tribute to the four Al Jazeera journalists and two freelancers killed by Israel in the besieged enclave in a deliberate targeted assassination on Sunday.
Journalists, students, activists and members of civil society – notably in Cape Town, South Africa; Manila, the Philippines; and London, the United Kingdom – held the protests on Wednesday to call on their governments to put pressure on Israel to allow international media into Gaza and bring an end to Israel’s genocidal war there.
Late on Sunday, Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, along with cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, were killed in an Israeli strike that had targeted their media tent located by al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Al-Sharif had been one of Gaza’s most recognisable faces for his constant reporting of the reality on the ground since Israel’s war on Gaza began following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,722 people and wounded 154,525. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Nearly 270 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since the war began.
Members of civil society and journalists gathered at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town on Wednesday to express their anger at al-Sharif’s murder, sporting placards with one reading “your voice was louder than their bombs”.
The location is significant, said Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller, reporting from Cape Town, as “it’s been an important signal against oppression here in South Africa, especially during the decades of apartheid”.
The people gathered here “have condemned what Israel has done”, Miller said.
“They want the entry of international journalists into Gaza in addition to the work being done by Palestinian journalists,” she said. “People here are angry.”
Journalist Zubeida Jaffer told Miller, “I was one of the journalists who were targeted, you know those media that documented apartheid, so this really resonates with me.”
Miller said, “The South African government has previously condemned the killing of journalists in Gaza, specifically in 2022 when Shireen Abu Akleh was killed. The South African government had said it was a violation of international law.”
Abu Akleh was a Palestinian-American journalist who worked as a reporter for 25 years for Al Jazeera, before she was killed by Israeli forces while covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
In December 2023, South Africa brought a case before the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Reporters belonging to the UK branches of the National Union of Journalists paid their respects on Wednesday to the slain Al Jazeera workers outside the prime minister’s residence at Number 10 Downing Street, said Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from London.
The reporters, holding placards bearing the names of journalists killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began, read out the names of each journalist that appeared on their placard and “symbolically, recited Islamic funeral prayers” for those killed on Sunday, said Hull.
Those present “have really condemned the British government … talking about its complicity in what is going on in Gaza, for not doing more and speaking out more,” said Hull.
While British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday “talked about his grave concern” about the killings of the Al Jazeera journalists, those present on Wednesday “want outright condemnation and nothing less”, said Hull.
“They also want the government to take firm steps to pressure the Israeli government to ensure the safety of journalists in Gaza, importantly to allow international journalists into Gaza to be able to work freely there and for an independent investigation to be carried out by … the International Criminal Court in order to provide justice and accountability for those involved.”
Last week, Starmer condemned Israel’s plans to take over Gaza City, saying they were “wrong” and “will only bring more bloodshed”. He has also announced that the UK will recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel meets certain conditions, including agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza and reviving the prospect of a two-state solution.
Students, campus journalists and activists gathered at the University of the Philippines on Wednesday to express outrage at the killing of the Al Jazeera journalists.
They say “the attack … is a deliberate cover-up by Israel of its crimes against humanity” in the Gaza Strip, said Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Lo, reporting from Manila.
“They also describe the accusation that Anas al-Sharif, one of the most prominent voices reporting from within Gaza, is a member of Hamas is baseless,” said Lo, noting that protesters say “this is an age-old tactic used by governments who are bent on silencing the truth”.
“Any imperialist power … will choose a scapegoat to use as a pretext, however false it is,” campus journalist Karl Patrick Suyat told Lo.
These protesters also gathered to urge “the international community to ramp up pressure on Israel to stop its genocide, including for the Philippine government to cut its trade and defence ties with Israel”, said Lo.
The Philippines is the third-largest importer of Israeli weapons.
In June, the Philippines voted in favour of a United Nations General Assembly resolution demanding an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza. This resolution also condemned Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war and called for Israel to lift its blockade on humanitarian aid in Gaza.
The occupied West Bank town’s mayor says Thamin Khalil Reda Dawabsheh killed as Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians.
A Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank has been shot dead in an attack instigated by Israeli settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry as cited by the Wafa news agency.
Thamin Khalil Reda Dawabsheh, 35, was shot Wednesday morning in the town of Duma, south of Nablus, by an Israeli off-duty soldier who was accompanying “an Israeli civilian” near Duma “during engineering works”, the Israeli army said.
Earlier Palestinian reports of the attack had stated that Dawabsheh was killed by an Israeli settler.
35-year-old Thameen Khalil Reda Dawabsheh succumbed to his wounds after being shot by colonists during an attack on the village. pic.twitter.com/cHfdUg4Unl
— WAFA News Agency – English (@WAFANewsEnglish) August 13, 2025
According to the mayor of Duma, Palestinians in the town were “startled” by an Israeli settler attack, said Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim.
“The settlers started assaulting a 14-year-old, leading many Palestinian men to go and try to defend him,” Ibrahim said.
Later, more armed settlers arrived, and they started shooting at the Palestinians, resulting in the death of Dawabsheh, “whose only crime was being on his land”, she added.
Suleiman Dawabsheh, the head of the Duma village council, said that settlers attacked Palestinians and opened fire on them in the southern part of the village, amid land-levelling operations that have been taking place in the area for days, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Ibrahim said that Thamin Dawabsheh’s killing is part of a pattern of increased Israeli settler violence against Palestinians that is often filmed on camera.
“Every day, we stumble upon more videos showing how Israeli settlers are attacking Palestinians – intimidating them, shooting them, killing them. And they are not being held accountable by the Israeli authorities,” said Ibrahim.
The statement published by the Israeli army claimed dozens of Palestinians were hurling rocks towards the Israeli civilian and soldier, and “in response, the soldier fired to remove the threat, and a hit was identified”.
Recently, 31-year-old Palestinian activist and English teacher Awdah Hathaleen was shot dead by an Israeli settler on July 28 in the village of Umm al-Kheir, south of Hebron.
Hathaleen was well known for his activism, including helping the creators of the Oscar-winning film No Other Land, which documents Israeli settler and soldier attacks on the Palestinian community of Masafer Yatta.
Israeli settlers, protected by the Israeli military, are often armed and fire at will against Palestinians who try to stop them. They attack residents and burn property with impunity, rarely if ever facing legal consequences.
The Israeli military has also been intensifying its deadly raids, home demolitions and displacement campaigns in the West Bank.
Violent attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank have surged since October 2023, in tandem with Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, with the United Nations reporting that almost 650 Palestinians – including 121 children – have been killed in the territory by Israeli forces and settlers between January 1, 2024 and the start of July 2025.
A further 5,269 Palestinians were injured during that period, including 1,029 children.
Human rights groups have warned that expelling the population from Gaza would violate international law.
Israel is in discussions with South Sudan about forcibly relocating Palestinians from Gaza to the East African country, according to six people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press.
The proposal is part of an Israeli effort to displace Palestinians from Gaza – a move human rights groups warn would amount to forcible expulsion, ethnic cleansing, and would violate international law.
Critics of the transfer plan fear Palestinians would never be allowed to return to Gaza and that mass departure could pave the way for Israel to annex the enclave and re-establish Israeli settlements there, as called for by far-right ministers in the Israeli government.
South Sudan has struggled to recover from a civil war that broke out shortly after independence in 2011, killing nearly 400,000 people and leaving parts of the country facing famine. It already hosts a large refugee population from conflicts in neighbouring countries.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously said he wants to advance what he calls “voluntary migration” for much of Gaza’s population, a policy he has linked to previous statements of United States President Donald Trump.
“I think that the right thing to do, even according to the laws of war as I know them, is to allow the population to leave, and then you go in with all your might against the enemy who remains there,” Netanyahu said Tuesday in an interview with i24, an Israeli TV station. He did not make reference to South Sudan.
The AP reported that Israel and the US have floated similar proposals with Sudan, Somalia, and the breakaway region of Somaliland.
Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza, has strongly opposed any forced transfer of Palestinians out of the enclave, fearing a refugee influx into its territory.
South Sudanese civil society leader Edmund Yakani told the AP that the country “should not become a dumping ground for people … and it should not accept to take people as negotiating chips to improve relations”.
Joe Szlavik, founder of a US lobbying firm working with South Sudan, said he was briefed by South Sudanese officials on the talks.
According to Szlavik, the country wants the Trump administration to lift a travel ban and remove sanctions on some South Sudanese elites, suggesting the US could be involved in any agreement about the forcible displacement of Palestinians.
Peter Martell, a journalist and author of First Raise a Flag, said “cash-strapped South Sudan needs any ally, financial gain and diplomatic security it can get”.
The Trump administration has previously pressured several countries to accept deportations, and South Sudan has already taken in eight individuals removed from the US under the administration’s mass deportation policy.
An American paediatrician who volunteered in the Gaza Strip says the injuries inflicted on Palestinian aid seekers at sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) suggest that Israeli forces there shot the men and boys deliberately, by targeting and maiming specific body parts on specific days.
Ahmed Yousaf made the comments to Al Jazeera from the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Tuesday, hours after returning from Gaza, where he had spent two and a half weeks working at Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir el-Balah and al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
The doctor said he witnessed “mass casualty incidents” from Israeli shootings at the food distribution points run by the United States-backed GHF on an almost daily basis.
The boys and young men came in with very specific injuries, “almost like a daily pattern”, he said.
“Meaning on a given day, say Monday, we’d get 40,60 patients coming in at a given time, and they would all be shot in the legs, or in the pelvic area, or the groin on a given day, just kind of a similar pattern. And the next day, we would see upper body, chest, thoracic pattern, and then there were days we saw only head wounds, upper neck bullet wounds. And what it felt like, at least for me, the position that I went with, was that somebody behind the gun that day was going to choose the way they were either going to maim or decide to kill people,” he said.
“It was age indiscriminate.”
Yousaf’s comments are the latest by medical staff in Gaza that accuse Israeli forces and US contractors of targeted and indiscriminate violence at the GHF sites.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said last week that the GHF-run food distributions in famine-stricken Gaza have become sites of “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation“, while Human Rights Watch said the shootings amount to serious violations of international law and war crimes.
On Tuesday alone, at least 19 aid seekers were killed at GHF sites in Gaza, while many more were wounded, according to medics and witnesses.
At least 1,838 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid, and another 13,409 have been wounded since the GHF began its operations in late May, official figures show.
Israel and the GHF deny the killings.
Yousaf, the US paediatrician, said the victims at the sites were mainly boys and young men, as they are often the ones taking the risk to try to get food for their families, “given the dynamic of the risk associated with trying to carry a 5-pound [2.3kg] bag of flour, maybe kilometres, sometimes”.
“The people would tell us they were sometimes at the site, or around the area, or they were trying to leave… and they were shot indiscriminately; it was like they were being sprayed. It seemed quite obvious to them and to us, from a pattern-recognition perspective, in terms of who came to the ER [emergency room], that on a given day, whoever was making the decision behind the trigger was choosing a very specific pattern of fire,” he said.
The doctor went on to describe all of Gaza as a “death trap”.
“It is a cage in which people are being marked for death. It almost feels like there is a quota for the number of people that need to be killed on a given day,” Yousaf said.
On the days that Palestinians stayed away from the GHF sites, because Israel allowed in more aid trucks, there would be more intense air attacks, he said.
“The last four days that we were there, when there was a bit more aid access via food trucks that were allowed in, the risk profile changed and them going to the food distribution sites wasn’t nearly worth the risk because there was some food elsewhere, we saw a significant uptick in bomb blasts on the streets, homes, vehicles. So the pattern of the MCIs – the mass casualty incidents – changed from bullet wounds, mostly boys and young men, to just indiscriminate bombings. We saw women and children, elderly, on the days the bombs come in,” he told Al Jazeera.
The doctor described the Israeli atrocities in Gaza as a “genocide”.
One clear aspect of this, he said, was Israel’s refusal to let him and his colleagues take in medical supplies or baby formula.
“When we were screened by the [Israeli military] at the border, the vast majority of us had things confiscated from our bags. Things like food and multivitamins and antibiotics and medical supplies, like stethoscopes, everything you can imagine, that we wished we could have to treat the people on the ground in Gaza,” he said.
“And this resulted in a situation in which, when those patients came in, in different stages of dying, screaming in pain for their mothers… we knew that in any other environment, we could have done something for them, but in the environment of Gaza, in the death trap that is Gaza completely, we were unable to give them the aid that they deserve, to provide the human dignity and humanity that they deserve.”
‘Thank you for dedicating your life to tell us the truth.’ Al Jazeera correspondents in Gaza, Hani Mahmoud, Hind Khoudary, Tareq Abu-Azoum, and Moath al-Kahlout, recorded these messages for their colleagues murdered by Israel.
Published On 12 Aug 202512 Aug 2025
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reveals details of phone conversation with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said that Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is “in denial” about the suffering inflicted on Gaza, and the international community is now saying, “Enough is enough”.
A day after announcing that Australia will recognise Palestinian statehood at the United Nations next month, Albanese said that frustration with the Israeli government amid the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza had contributed to Australia’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state.
“[Netanyahu] again reiterated to me what he has said publicly as well, which is to be in denial about the consequences that are occurring for innocent people,” Albanese said in an interview with state broadcaster ABC on Tuesday.
Albanese said he spoke with Netanyahu last week to inform him of Australia’s decision to join France, Canada and the United Kingdom in recognising a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly meeting in September.
Netanyahu, he said, continued to make the same arguments he made last year regarding the conduct of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has now killed more than 61,500 Palestinians since October 2023.
“That if we just have more military action in Gaza, somehow that will produce a different outcome,” Albanese said, recounting his call with the Israeli leader, according to ABC News.
Announcing Australia’s decision to recognise Palestinian statehood on Monday, Albanese said that “the risk of trying is nothing compared to the danger of letting this moment pass us by”.
“The toll of the status quo is growing by the day, and it could be measured in innocent lives,” Albanese said, adding the decision was made as part of a “coordinated global effort” on the two-state solution, which he had discussed with the leaders of the UK, France, New Zealand and Japan.
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) August 11, 2025
“A two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” he said.
“It seems to me very clearly… we need a political solution, not a military one,” he said.
Albanese had said just last month that he would not be drawn on a timeline for recognition of a Palestinian state, and has previously been wary of a public opinion backlash in Australia, which has significant Jewish and Muslim minorities.
But the public mood has shifted sharply in Australia against Israel’s war on Gaza.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched across Sydney’s Harbour Bridge this month, calling for aid deliveries to be allowed to enter Gaza as the humanitarian crisis worsens and Israel’s military continues to block relief efforts.
Israel also plans to take military control of Gaza City, risking the lives of more than a million Palestinians and instigating what a senior UN official said would be “another calamity”, as deaths from starvation and malnutrition continue to grow across the enclave.
“This decision is driven by popular sentiment in Australia, which has shifted in recent months, with a majority of Australians wanting to see an imminent end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” Jessica Genauer, a senior lecturer in international relations at Flinders University, told the Reuters news agency.
Late on Sunday, an Israeli strike shook al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, targeting a journalists’ tent by the gate.
As people rushed to help, it became apparent that five Al Jazeera staff had been killed, including Anas al-Sharif, one of the most famous faces of Arabic reporting from Gaza.
Why did Israel want to kill journalists? What happened that night? Here’s what we know:
Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, 28, was one of Gaza’s most recognisable faces for his constant reporting of the reality on the ground over the last 22 months. The father of two was born in Jabalia refugee camp and graduated from Al-Aqsa University’s Faculty of Media. His father was killed by Israel in an air strike on the family home in December 2023.
Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, 33, made his last live report on air only shortly before his assassination, speaking in his trademark eloquent manner. Qreiqeh was born in Gaza City in 1992 and lived in the Shujayea neighbourhood. He earned a BA in journalism and media at the Islamic University of Gaza. Israel killed his brother, Karim, in March in an air attack on Gaza City.
Al Jazeera cameraman Ibrahim Zaher, 25, was from Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Al Jazeera cameraman Mohammed Noufal, 29, was also from Jabalia. He lost his mother and one brother in earlier Israeli attacks. His other brother, Ibrahim, also works as a cameraman for Al Jazeera.
They were working.
The team was in a tent by the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital late on Sunday evening.
The tent was where they worked, as journalists in Gaza have gathered at hospitals to seek better electricity and internet connections, a fact that has been well-known since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
“I’m not far from al-Shifa Hospital, just one block away, and I could hear the massive explosion that took place in the past half an hour or so, near al-Shifa Hospital,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported yesterday.
“I could see it when it lit up the sky and, within moments, the news circulated that it was the journalist camp at the main gate of the al-Shifa Hospital.”
Al Jazeera’s reporter Hani al-Shaer said an Israeli drone hit the journalists’ tent at approximately 11:35pm (20:35 GMT) on Sunday night.
Shortly before being killed, al-Sharif wrote on X that Israel had launched intense, concentrated bombardment – also known as “fire belts” – on the eastern and southern parts of Gaza City.
Journalist Amer al-Sultan was in a neighbouring tent when the attack took place.
“I came to the scene and saw all the destruction,” al-Sultan said, standing amid the tent’s wreckage, his back to a concrete wall pocked and splattered from the attack. “[I thought] all our colleagues were martyred.”
Al-Sultan added that he wasn’t sure who the journalists were who were in the tent, but “when I started filming, I saw our colleagues Anas al-Sharif was on the ground and Mohammed Qreiqeh, who was on fire.
“We started to pull him out and try to put out the fire.”
The people gathered there tried to get Qreiqeh inside al-Shifa Hospital, but he succumbed to his wounds before they could get him treatment, al-Sultan said.
Mohammed Qeita, a freelance journalist, was also nearby.
“I was not just a witness to the event, I was part of it…The fire was very strong.
“Even now, I can’t believe it,” he said.
“We knew Anas was the target… He was our voice.”
It said one of them wasn’t really a journalist.
Israel’s army posted about deliberately killing the journalists, claiming it had wanted to kill al-Sharif, who it accused of being an armed commander for Hamas only posing as a journalist.
In the statement, it accused al-Sharif of “advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and troops” and alleged it had documents providing “unequivocal proof” of this.
Muhammad Shehada, an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said there was “zero evidence” that al-Sharif took part in any hostilities.
“His entire daily routine was standing in front of a camera from morning to evening,” he told Al Jazeera.
On numerous occasions over the last 22 months, Israel has justified killing reporters by claiming they belonged to armed groups. Groups focused on press freedom and media workers’ rights have said for months that Israel is deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza.
Two of the most prominent incidents included journalist Hamza Dahdouh, son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza Bureau Chief Wael Dahdouh, and journalist Hossam Shabat, who were both assassinated by Israel and accused of being members of Hamas without any evidence.
Al Jazeera called the killing of its staff a “targeted assassination … in yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”.
It said the journalists “were among the last remaining voices from within Gaza, providing the world with unfiltered, on-the-ground coverage of the devastating realities endured by its people”.
Israel has banned international media from entering Gaza since October 2023, but “Al Jazeera journalists remained within besieged Gaza … [delivering] searing eyewitness accounts of the horrors unleashed over 22 months of relentless bombing and destruction,” the statement said.
Al-Sharif was the face of Al Jazeera Arabic in Gaza and of iconic moments as he reported on Israel’s atrocities in the besieged, bombarded enclave.
For months, Israeli officials had threatened him, demanding that he stop reporting, but he refused, pledging to stay in northern Gaza and continue his coverage.
Numerous rights groups and press freedom groups called for al-Sharif’s protection after he was directly threatened by Israel.
Israel ramped up a smear campaign on al-Sharif in recent months, with army spokesperson Avichay Adraee calling out al-Sharif by name in a video on X last month, accusing him of being part of Hamas’s military wing.
Irene Khan, UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, said last month that Adraee made “an unsubstantiated claim” and called the smear a “blatant assault on journalists”.
Israel killing al-Sharif was a targeted attempt to shut down coverage of its atrocities, former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch Ken Roth said.
“This is not an accidental killing. This is not a journalist who happened to get caught in Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Palestinian civilians in general.
“This was a targeted killing,” Roth told Al Jazeera.
Authorities in Gaza say Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists and media workers since it launched its war on Gaza.
An outpouring of grief and condemnation has followed the Israeli assassination of five Al Jazeera staff in Gaza, including prominent correspondent Anas al-Sharif.
The drone attack late on Sunday hit a tent for journalists positioned outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, killing seven people. Among the dead were Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed Noufal.
Just hours earlier, al-Sharif, 28, had posted on X about Israel’s “intense, concentrated bombardment” on eastern and southern Gaza City. Known for his fearless reporting from northern Gaza, he had become one of the most recognisable voices documenting the ongoing Israeli genocide in the enclave.
Al Jazeera Media Network has condemned what it called a “targeted assassination” of its journalists.
Below are a few of the responses to the killing of Al Jazeera staff:
The Palestinian mission to the United Nations accused Israel of “deliberately assassinating” al-Sharif and Qreiqeh, describing them as among the “last remaining journalists” in Gaza.
“They have systematically and dutifully exposed and documented Israel’s genocide and starvation,” the mission said on X. “As Israel continues to ethnically cleanse Gaza, its enemy remains the truth: the brave journalists exposing its heinous crimes.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei has called on the world to hold Israel to account after the killing of the five Al Jazeera staff.
“A press badge is no shield against genocidal war criminals who fear the world witnessing their atrocities,” said Baghaei, accusing Israel of assassinating the journalists “in cold blood”.
“Strong condemnation is the bare minimum for any decent human being, but the world must act immediately to stop this harrowing genocide and hold the criminals accountable,” he added.
“Indifference and inaction are complicity in Israel’s crimes.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, offered condolences to “the Al Jazeera family” and called for an investigation.
“We have always been very clear in condemning all killings of journalists,” Dujarric said. “In Gaza, and everywhere, media workers should be able to carry out their work freely and without harassment, intimidation or fear of being targeted.”
Al Jazeera Media Network has condemned “in the strongest terms” the killing of its journalists in a targeted assassination by Israeli forces.
In a statement, the network said the Israeli military “admitted to their crimes” and deliberately directed the attack at the journalists’ location. It called the assassination “another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”.
The strike came amid what Al Jazeera described as the “catastrophic consequences” of Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, including mass civilian deaths, forced starvation, and the destruction of entire communities.
The network called the killing of al-Sharif, one of Gaza’s most prominent reporters, and his colleagues “a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza”.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says it is “appalled” by Israel’s killing of Al Jazeera journalists.
“Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said the CPJ’s regional director, Sara Qudah.
“Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable,” Qudah added.
Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the CPJ, recalled how Israel accused al-Sharif and others of being “terrorists” last October without evidence.
“We warned back then that this felt to us like a precursor to justify assassination,” she told Al Jazeera. “This is part of a pattern … going back decades, in which it kills journalists.”
Amnesty International condemned the strike as a war crime under international law and remembered al-Sharif as a “brave and extraordinary” reporter.
In 2024, al-Sharif was awarded Amnesty International Australia’s Human Rights Defender Award for his resilience and commitment to press freedom.
“We at Amnesty International are devastated and heartbroken,” said Mohamed Duar, Amnesty International Australia’s spokesperson on the occupied Palestinian territory. “Anas dedicated his life to standing before the camera, exposing Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians, and documenting the truth so the world could bear witness.
“The courageous and brave journalists who have been reporting since the genocide began have been operating in the most dangerous conditions on Earth. At great risk to their lives, they have remained to show the world the war crimes being committed by Israel against almost two million Palestinian women, men and children,” he added.
Mike Balsamo, president of the US-based National Press Club, said the killing of journalists is “a loss felt far beyond one newsroom” and urged a “thorough and transparent” investigation.
“Journalists must be able to work without being targeted or killed,” Balsamo said. “All parties in conflict zones must honour their obligations under international law to protect reporters and ensure they can carry out their work safely.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned Israel’s killing of five Al Jazeera journalists and called on US and international media workers to “stand in solidarity” with their Palestinian colleagues.
“Israel’s ongoing campaign of targeted assassinations of Palestinian journalists is a war crime, plain and simple,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement.
“The murder of these Al Jazeera journalists is not an accident or collateral damage – it is part of a consistent, documented policy of silencing media voices and hiding the truth of the genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza,” Awad said.
Since October 2023, Israel has killed 269 journalists in Gaza, in the deadliest conflict ever recorded for reporters.
If you read the Western press this morning, you may come to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to take military control over Gaza is new. But dropping 2000lb bombs does not rescue captives and wiping out whole neighbourhoods does not come without plans to build something in their place.
On Friday, Israel’s security cabinet approved the occupation of Gaza City, formalising what was always the endgame of this genocide. The plan follows a deliberate sequence: First destroy, then starve, occupy, demand demilitarisation, and finally carry out full ethnic cleansing once Palestinians have no political power and capacity to resist. This is how the dream of “Greater Israel” is achieved.
But why formalise this occupation now, after 22 months of systematic slaughter? Because the crime scene must be sanitised before the world sees what remains of Gaza.
On Sunday, the Israeli army assassinated Al Jazeera journalists Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa by dropping a missile on a media tent near al-Shifa Hospital. Their names are now added to the long list of more than 230 Palestinian journalists and media workers that Israel has killed since October 2023.
With Israel banning all foreign media from freely accessing Gaza, Palestinian journalists have been solely responsible for covering and documenting Israeli war crimes. The assassination is a clear message to them to stop, to stay silent.
Meanwhile, foreign journalists who rode on airdrop flights to Gaza were also warned. Aerial footage they released offered glimpses of Gaza’s corpse: A patchwork of shattered concrete, ruins and hollowed streets. It is complete desolation.
The footage shocked viewers across the world and so the Israeli government was quick to ban filming on these flights, warning that aid drops would be halted if there were any violations.
Israel knows it cannot continue to block foreign media access to Gaza forever. The genocide will come to an end eventually; aid convoys and relief workers will be allowed in and with them, foreign journalists with cameras.
So before that day arrives, Israel is racing to erase the evidence because once the world sees Gaza, it will no longer be able to pretend that the war was about anything other than the mass killing of Palestinians and the erasure of their history.
The occupation of Gaza City is the murderer returning to the crime scene to hide the body. The goal is not only to cover up the crimes, but to convince the world that the dead have not died and that what we see is not what it is.
The official death toll in Gaza stands at 60,000, a number that by many expert accounts is an undercount. According to estimates, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have likely been murdered. As UN experts declared on August 7, “Israel is exterminating the people of Gaza by any and all means.” There are a lot of crimes to cover up.
We have already seen the modus operandi of the Israeli army in trying to destroy evidence in Gaza. It has buried massacred civilians in mass graves with bulldozers; it has withheld bodies of Palestinian torture victims; it has dug into the sand whole crime scenes of execution; it has planted weapons in hospitals that it has ransacked; it has lied about discovering tunnels.
All of this fits neatly with Israel’s long history of burying evidence of atrocities. Since 1948, Israeli authorities have systematically erased their ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by building on top of the ruins of pillaged Palestinian villages and towns.
Israeli intelligence has also removed documents from archives that provide evidence of Zionist and Israeli forces committing war crimes during the Nakba of 1948. Some of the documents that have disappeared give gruesome details about the brutality of Zionist fighters during massacres of Palestinians, like in the village of Dawaymeh, near Hebron, where hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children were killed by artillery fire or directly executed. In 1955, the settlement of Amatzia was built on the ruins of the Palestinian village.
By occupying the northern part of the Gaza Strip now, Israel will certainly resort to these same methods of erasure and falsification. It will also be able to control foreign media coverage, just as it has done until now.
The Israeli army has only allowed foreign journalists into Gaza embedded with its military units under strict conditions that transform reporters into participants in hasbara. Embedded journalists must submit all materials for military review before publication, must operate under constant observation, and cannot speak freely with Palestinians.
Journalists thus become mouthpieces for the Israeli military, parroting their justifications for wholesale destruction and propagating their lies about Palestinian civilians as “human shields” and Gaza hospitals and schools as “terror hubs”.
The full-scale occupation can also help facilitate further massacres and ethnic cleansing. Those who refuse forced displacement will be labelled “militants” to excuse their slaughter. Israel used this strategy early into the genocide, dropping leaflets warning Palestinians in northern Gaza that they will be deemed “partners in a terrorist organisation” if they do not comply with “evacuation orders”.
Mass displacement is essential to the cover-up because it creates a new narrative that Palestinians are voluntarily migrating rather than being ethnically cleansed. The short-term goal is to force those willing to comply into concentration camps in the south and detach them from their homes and land. Over time, it would become easier to expel Palestinians elsewhere and deny them the right to return. It is the same way Nakba refugees were forced to flee to Gaza and were then denied their internationally recognised right of return.
The response of the international community to Israel’s plan has been just more condemnations. Germany went as far as halting military exports that could be used in Gaza – something that should have been done 22 months ago, when Israel started indiscriminately bombing civilians.
These actions are pathetic. They do not absolve these governments of their complicity in aiding and abetting the crime of genocide; they are just another sign of their moral cowardice.
The international community must take decisive action. It must undertake military intervention, as mandated under international law, to force Israel to immediately end the violence, to allow unrestricted humanitarian aid into Gaza, and to give Palestinians the freedom they are entitled to. International journalists must be granted immediate access to collect whatever evidence remains of Israel’s crimes before it disappears under the cover of “military operations”.
It is time the world starts believing Palestinians. For 22 months, Palestinians have said this is genocide. They have said it while stuck under the rubble, while starving, while carrying their children’s bodies. They said Israel was not defending itself but trying to erase Palestinians. They said occupation and ethnic cleansing are the goal. Israeli politicians themselves have said it.
Without urgent international action, the words “never again” will refer not to the prevention of genocide, but to the existence of Palestinian life in Gaza. The truth so many Palestinians have died to tell must not be buried with their bodies.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Australia will recognise a Palestinian state in September, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced.
Albanese said on Monday that his government would formally announce the move when the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meets in New York.
“A two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” Albanese said at a news conference in Canberra.
Australia’s announcement comes as Canada, France and the United Kingdom are preparing to formally recognise Palestine at the meeting next month, joining the vast majority of UN member states.
It also comes about a week after hundreds of thousands of Australians marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to protest Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.
Speaking a day after the protest, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that “there is a risk there will be no Palestine left to recognise.”
“In relation to recognition, I’ve said for over a year now, it’s a matter of when, not if,” Wong added.
The opposition Liberal Party criticised the move, saying it put Australia at odds with the United States, its closest ally, and reversed a bipartisan consensus that there should be no recognition while Hamas remains in control of Gaza.
“Despite his words today, the reality is Anthony Albanese has committed Australia to recognising Palestine while hostages remain in tunnels under Gaza and with Hamas still in control of the population of Gaza. Nothing he has said today changes that fact,” Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley said in a statement.
“Recognising a Palestinian state prior to a return of the hostages and defeat of Hamas, as the Government has today, risks delivering Hamas one of its strategic objectives of the horrific terrorism of October 7.”
The Australian Greens, the fourth-largest party in parliament, welcomed the move to recognise Palestine, but said the announcement did not meet the “overwhelming calls from the Australian public for the government to take material action”.
“Millions of Australians have taken to the streets, including 300,000 last weekend in Sydney alone, calling for sanctions and an end to the arms trade with Israel. The Albanese Government is still ignoring this call,” Senator David Shoebridge, the party’s spokesperson on foreign affairs, said in a statement.
The Australian Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) also criticised the announcement, describing it as a “political fig leaf, letting Israel’s genocide and apartheid continue unchallenged, and distracting from Australia’s complicity in Israeli war crimes via ongoing weapons and components trade”.
“Palestinian rights are not a gift to be granted by Western states. They are not dependent on negotiation with, or the behaviour or approval of their colonial oppressors,” APAN said in a statement.
According to Albanese, Australia’s decision to recognise Palestinians’ right to their own state will be “predicated on the commitments Australia has received from the Palestinian Authority (PA)”.
These “detailed and significant commitments” include the PA reaffirming it “recognises Israel’s right to exist in peace and security” and committing to “demilitarise and to hold general elections”, Albanese said while announcing the decision.
The PA is a governing body that has overseen parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the mid-90s.
It has not held parliamentary elections since 2006 and has been criticised by some Palestinians for helping Israel to keep tight control over residents in the West Bank.
Albanese said the commitments secured by Australia were “an opportunity to deliver self-determination for the people of Palestine in a way that isolates Hamas, disarms it and drives it out of the region once and for all”.
Hamas has been in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when it fought a brief war against forces loyal to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
Meanwhile, New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said on Monday that his country’s cabinet will make a formal decision on Palestinian statehood in September.
“Some of New Zealand’s close partners have opted to recognise a Palestinian state, and some have not,” Peters said in a statement.
“Ultimately, New Zealand has an independent foreign policy, and on this issue, we intend to weigh up the issue carefully and then act according to New Zealand’s principles, values and national interest.”
Peters said that while New Zealand has for some time considered the recognition of a Palestinian state a “matter of when, not if”, the issue is not “straightforward” or “clear-cut”.
“There are a broad range of strongly held views within our Government, Parliament and indeed New Zealand society over the question of recognition of a Palestinian state,” he said.
“It is only right that this complicated issue be approached calmly, cautiously and judiciously. Over the next month, we look forward to canvassing this broad range of views before taking a proposal to Cabinet.”
Of the UN’s 193 member states, 147 already recognise Palestinian statehood, representing some three-quarters of the world’s countries and the vast majority of its population.
Under its 1947 plan to partition Palestine, the UNGA said it would grant 45 percent of the land to an Arab state, though this never eventuated.
The announcements by Australia and New Zealand on Monday came hours after an Israeli attack killed five Al Jazeera staff members in Gaza City, and as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to threaten a full-scale invasion of the city in the north of the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,430 people, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
Close to 200 people, including 96 children, have died from starvation under Israel’s punishing siege, according to health authorities.
Media network condemns ‘assassination’ of its Gaza correspondents and photographers by Israeli forces.
Below is Al Jazeera Media Network’s statement on the killing of Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal.
Al Jazeera Media Network condemns in the strongest terms the targeted assassination of its correspondents Anas Al Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqea, along with photographers Ibrahim Al Thaher, and Mohamed Nofal, by the Israeli occupation forces in yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom.
In a statement by the Israeli occupation force, admitting to their crimes, the journalists were targeted by a directed assault towards the tent where they were stationed opposite Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza. In which they were martyred. This attack comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities. The order to assassinate Anas Al Sharif, one of Gaza’s bravest journalists, and his colleagues, is a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza.
As Al Jazeera Media Network bids farewell to yet another group of its finest journalists, who boldly and courageously documented the plight of Gaza and its people since the onset of the war, it holds the Israeli occupation forces and government responsible for deliberately targeting and assassinating its journalists. This follows repeated incitement and calls by multiple Israeli officials and spokespersons to target the fearless journalist Anas Al Sharif and his colleagues.
Anas and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices from within Gaza, providing the world with unfiltered, on-the-ground coverage of the devastating realities endured by its people. While international media was barred from entering, Al Jazeera journalists remained within besieged Gaza, experiencing the hunger and suffering they documented through their lenses. Through continuous, courageous live coverage, they have delivered searing eyewitness accounts of the horrors unleashed over 22 months of relentless bombing and destruction.
Despite losing several journalists to deliberate attacks and working under constant threat, Anas Al Sharif, Mohammed Qraiqea, and their colleagues persisted in the strip to ensure the world sees the harrowing truth experienced by Gaza’s populace.
While vehemently condemning these heinous crimes and the ongoing attempts by Israeli authorities to silence the truth, Al Jazeera Media Network calls on the international community and all relevant organisations to take decisive measures to halt this ongoing genocide and end the deliberate targeting of journalists. Al Jazeera emphasises that immunity for perpetrators and the lack of accountability embolden Israel’s actions and encourage further oppression against witnesses to the truth.
A senior United Nations official has warned the UN Security Council (UNSC) that Israel’s plan to seize Gaza City risked “another calamity” in the Gaza Strip with far-reaching consequences, as five more people in Gaza reportedly died from starvation – bringing the overall toll to 217, including 100 children.
UN Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas Miroslav Jenca on Sunday told an emergency weekend meeting that if implemented, the plan could result in the displacement of all civilians from Gaza City by October 7, 2025, affecting some 800,000 people, many of them already previously displaced.
This “will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings and destruction, compounding the unbearable suffering of the population,” Jenca said.
Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the UNSC that Israel was aiming for “the destruction of the Palestinian people through forced transfer and massacres to facilitate its annexation of our land”.
“What will force Israel to change course is our ability to transform justified condemnation into just actions … History will judge us all,” he said.
Foreign powers, including some of Israel’s allies, have slammed Israel’s plan. The United Kingdom, a close ally of Israel which nonetheless pushed for an emergency meeting on the crisis, warned the Israeli plan risked prolonging the conflict.
“It will only deepen the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This is not a path to resolution. It is a path to more bloodshed,” the British Deputy Ambassador to the UN James Kariuki said.
Another staunch Israel ally, Germany, said it could not actively support Israel’s plan to expand military operations in Gaza and displace of Palestinians.
“Where are these people supposed to go?” Chancellor Friedrich Merz asked in an interview with public broadcaster ARD. “We can’t do that, we won’t do that, and I will not do that.”
France’s Deputy Permanent UN Representative Jay Dharmadhikari condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the plan, which he said would have “dramatic humanitarian consequences” for civilians already “living in horrifying conditions”.
“The images of children dying of hunger or civilians being targeted as they tried to find food are unbearable,” Dharmadhikari said, urging Israel to comply with international humanitarian law.
The UK, Denmark, France, Greece and Slovenia issued a joint statement asking Israel “to urgently reverse this decision and not to implement” the plan, saying it violates international law.
In a separate statement, the foreign ministers of Spain, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal and Slovenia warned that Israel seizing Gaza City would be “a major obstacle to implementing the two-state solution, the only path towards a comprehensive, just and lasting peace”.
Despite the international backlash and rumours of dissent from Israeli military top brass, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained defiant over the plan to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre, which was approved by Israel’s security cabinet on Friday.
“The timeline that we set for the action is fairly quickly,” Netanyahu told a news conference in Jerusalem on Sunday. “I don’t want to talk about exact timetables, but we’re talking in terms of a fairly short timetable because we want to bring the war to an end.”
He said Israel had “no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas”, given the group’s refusal to lay down its arms. Hamas said it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state was established.
Netanyahu said the military had been given the green light to “dismantle” what he described as two remaining Hamas strongholds: Gaza City in the north and al-Mawasi further to the south.
“This is the best way to end the war and the best way to end it speedily,” he said. “We will do so by first enabling the civilian population to safely leave the combat areas to designated safe zones.”
While the prime minister stressed that these “safe zones” would be given “ample food, water, and medical care”, guards at the controversial Israel- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), purportedly established to deliver aid to the starving Palestinian population, have routinely opened fire on the aid seekers, killing dozens at a time.
Asked about the growing criticism targeting his cabinet’s decision, Netanyahu said the country was prepared to fight alone. “We will win the war, with or without the support of others,” he said.
Hamas released a statement responding to Netanyahu’s claim that Israel did not intend to occupy Gaza but “liberate” it from the Palestinian group.
The group said the use of the term “liberation” was an attempt to distort the reality of occupation “that will not cover up the crime of extermination, killing, and systematic destruction for more than 22 months”.
Hamas added that it constituted a “desperate attempt to exonerate” Israel after it killed more than 61,400 Palestinians, including more than 18,000 children.
Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN Jonathan Miller fired back at Hamas at the UNSC session, saying the group was “exploiting” the captives and Gaza’s population to “maintain its position, benefiting from attempts to pressure Israel and from the willingness of some countries to recognise a Palestinian state”.
The United States, a veto-wielding permanent member of the UNSC, has so far shielded its staunch ally from any practical measures of UN censure. Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister spoke with US President Donald Trump about its plan, without elaborating on the outcome of the conversation.
Speaking to Fox News, the US vice president said Washington neither endorsed nor rejected Israel’s decision to seize Gaza City and the entire Gaza Strip at large. “Obviously, there are a lot of downsides and upsides”, JD Vance said.
Netanyahu’s plan also received domestic criticism, with opposition leader Yair Lapid saying its implementation would mean that “the hostages will die, soldiers will die, the economy will collapse and our international standing will crash.”
Israel’s Channel 12 reported it will cost billions of dollars within several months, increasing the country’s deficit by 2 percent and leading to widespread budget cuts in areas such as healthcare, education, and welfare.
The director of the coordination division at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the “unacceptable catastrophe” unfolding in Gaza must be brought to an end as he addressed the UN Security Council via videolink on Sunday.
Ramesh Rajasingham expressed concern over “the prolonged conflict, the reports of atrocities and further human toll that is likely to unfold following the government of Israel’s decision to expand military operations in Gaza”.
Israel has blocked all but a trickle of aid from entering Gaza for months and has prevented UN workers from accessing and distributing lifesaving assistance. “The UN has a plan and the systems in place to respond. We’ve said this before, and we will say it again and again: Let us work,” Rajasingham said.
The Government Media Office in Gaza said only 1,210 aid trucks have entered Gaza over the past 14 days. Officials said this represents just 14 percent of the territory’s minimum actual needs of 8,400 trucks.
Netanyahu acknowledged there have been issues of “deprivation” in Gaza, but denied that Israel has a “starvation policy”. Human Rights Watch, among other international organisations, has repeatedly called Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war a “war crime”.
Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children International’s director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, told Al Jazeera that his team on the ground was seeing an “exponential increase” in the number of malnutrition cases, with effects that can “span generations”.
“This is not one event. This is not the absence of two or three meals. This is an accumulation of months [of deprivation],” he said. “We can help alleviate the suffering of children in Gaza, but we cannot do that if the government of Israel continues to impose all its limitations.”
Has Israel created a predicament it can’t escape with its zero-sum path for the Palestinians and regional overreach?
By offering nothing except continual massacre for the Palestinians, and attempting to subjugate the surrounding areas to its will, Israel finds itself “in a predicament of its own making”, argues former Israeli adviser Daniel Levy.
Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project, tells host Steve Clemons that Israel has put Arab leaders in a bind, as regional disgust grows towards Israel for its war crimes in Gaza.
And while Western governments and cultural institutions have been carrying water for Israel for decades, argues Levy, some have begun “acknowledging things they worked hard not to acknowledge for an awfully long time.”
Watch the moment a group of Israeli activists stormed a live television broadcast to protest Israel’s war on Gaza. Members of Standing Together, wearing ‘Leave Gaza’ T-shirts, jumped onto the stage during the airing of the Big Brother show on Channel 13.
Published On 10 Aug 202510 Aug 2025