‘People are being shot like animals.’ Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is calling for Gaza’s GHF aid sites to be shut down after its report found Israeli troops are deliberately killing Palestinians trying to access food, in what it describes as ‘orchestrated killings’.
Published On 7 Aug 20257 Aug 2025
Human Rights Watch says US arms were used in ‘unlawful indiscriminate’ Israeli attacks that killed Palestinian civilians.
Israel has used US-made bombs in “unlawful attacks” on schools sheltering displaced civilians in Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.
In a report released Thursday, HRW said Israel had carried out hundreds of strikes on schools since the start of its war on Gaza in October 2023, including “unlawfully indiscriminate attacks” using US munitions, which violated international law.
In its report, HRW investigated two incidents in 2024 in which it found that GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs supplied by the United States were used. One attack on the Khadija girls’ school in Deir el-Balah on July 27, 2024, killed at least 15 people, and another attack on the Zeitoun C school in Gaza City on September 21, 2024, left at least 34 dead.
Israeli authorities have not publicly shared information relating to the attacks. Israel has often said that its attacks on schools were targeting Hamas fighters. It has provided no evidence to indicate the presence of military targets at the sites of the attacks documented by the rights group.
In both attacks, HRW and that there was no evidence of a military presence at the schools on the days of the attacks.
The rights group also warned that recent Israeli attacks on schools sheltering displaced people were worsening the dire humanitarian situation in the territory.
HRW said that from July 1-10, 2025, Israeli forces struck at least 10 schools where displaced people were sheltering, killing 59 people and displacing dozens of families, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The group emphasised that schools used to house civilians remain protected under international law unless used for military purposes.
The rights group called for an immediate halt to arms transfers to Israel, warning of potential complicity by governments providing military support.
“These strikes on schools sheltering displaced families are just one window into the carnage in Gaza,” said Gerry Simpson, associate director at HRW. “Other governments should not tolerate this horrendous slaughter of Palestinian civilians merely seeking safety.”
It also urged states to uphold their obligations under international law, including the Genocide Convention.
“Governments supporting Israel militarily can’t say they didn’t know what their weapons are being used for,” said Simpson.
According to the United Nations, nearly 1 million displaced Palestinians have taken shelter in Gaza’s schools since October 2023.
HRW said the repeated targeting of civilian infrastructure, including shelters, hospitals and schools, showed a pattern of attacks that may amount to war crimes.
HRW noted that nearly all of Gaza’s 564 schools have sustained damage, with 92 percent requiring full reconstruction or major repairs.
The UN has reported that at least 836 people sheltering in schools have been killed.
A majority of people in five nations – Brazil, Colombia, Greece, South Africa and Spain – believe that weapons companies should stop or reduce trade with Israel as its onslaught on Gaza continues, a poll released on Thursday reveals.
Spain showed the highest support for weapons deals to be halted, with 58 percent of respondents saying they should stop completely, followed by Greece at 57 percent and Colombia at 52 percent. In Brazil, 37 percent of respondents believed arms companies should completely stop sales to Israel, while 22 percent believed they should be reduced. In South Africa, those levels stood at 46 and 20 percent, respectively.
Commissioned by the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine network, endorsed by the left-wing Progressive International organisation, and fielded by the Pollfish platform last month, the survey comes in the wake of a call by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, on countries to slash financial relations with Israel as she decried an “economy of genocide“.
“The people have spoken, and they refuse to be complicit. Across continents, ordinary citizens demand an end to the fuel that powers settler colonialism, apartheid and genocide,” said Ana Sanchez, a campaigner for Global Energy Embargo for Palestine.
“No state that claims to uphold democracy can justify maintaining energy, military, or economic ties with Israel while it commits a genocide in Palestine. This is not just about trade; it’s about people’s power to cut the supply lines of oppression.”
The group said it chose the survey locations because of the countries’ direct involvement in the import and transport of energy to Israel.
More than 1,000 respondents in each nation were asked about governmental and private sector relations with Israel to measure public attitudes on responsibility.
Condemnation of Israel’s action in Gaza as the humanitarian crisis escalates was the highest in Greece and Spain and lowest in Brazil.
Sixty-one percent and 60 percent in Greece and Spain respectively opposed Israel’s current “military actions” in Gaza, while in Colombia, 50 percent opposed them. In Brazil and South Africa, 30 percent were against Israel’s war, while 33 percent and 20 percent, respectively, supported the campaign.
To date, Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed more than 60,000 people – most of them women and children. Now home to the highest number of child amputees per capita, much of the besieged Strip is in a state of ruin as the population starves. As the crisis worsens, arms dealers and companies that facilitate their deals are facing heightened scrutiny.
In June, as reported by Al Jazeera, Maersk divested from companies linked to Israeli settlements, which are considered illegal under international law, following a campaign accusing the Danish shipping giant of links to Israel’s military and occupation of Palestinian land.
On Tuesday, Norway announced that it would review its sovereign wealth fund’s investments in Israel, after it was revealed that it had a stake in an Israeli firm that supplies fighter jet parts to the Israeli military. In recent months, several wealth and pension funds have distanced themselves from companies linked to Israel’s war on Gaza or its illegal occupation of the West Bank.
Responding to the poll, 41 percent in Spain said they would “strongly” support a state-level decision to reduce trade in weapons, fuel and other goods in an attempt to pressure Israel into stopping the war. This figure stood at 33 percent in Colombia and South Africa, and 28 and 24 percent in Greece and Brazil, respectively.
“The message from the peoples of the world is loud and clear: They want action to end the assault on Gaza – not just words,” said David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive International. “Across continents, majorities are calling for their governments to halt arms sales and restrain Israel’s occupation.”
The Norwegian government on Tuesday said it would review its sovereign wealth fund’s investment in Israel after the Scandinavian country’s leading newspaper revealed that the nearly $2 trillion fund had a stake in an Israeli company aiding Israel’s war in Gaza.
The newspaper, Aftenposten, identified the company as the Bet Shemesh Engines Ltd (BSEL) group, which provides parts to Israeli fighter jets that are being deployed in its devastating war on Gaza.
In recent weeks, Israeli-induced starvation deaths have caused a global outcry, with Western countries ramping up pressure on Israel to end the war that has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians and ravaged Gaza – home to 2.3 million people.
More than 200 people have died of starvation as Israel has obstructed the entry of humanitarian aid despite its so-called “tactical pause” in its nearly two years of war.
So, what did Norway say, and are Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestinian territory turning the tide of public opinion against it?
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said that the investment in the Israeli firm was “worrying”. “We must get clarification on this because reading about it makes me uneasy,” Stoere told public broadcaster NRK.
Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who manages the world’s largest fund, ordered the central bank to conduct a review of the fund portfolio to make sure Israeli companies aiding the occupation of the West Bank or the war in Gaza are barred from investments.
“The war in Gaza is contrary to international law and is causing terrible suffering, so it is understandable that questions are being raised about the fund’s investments in Bet Shemesh Engines,” Stoltenberg, a former NATO chief, said, referring to the growing public and political pressure.
The decision came weeks after Norway’s parliament rejected a proposal for the fund to divest from all companies with activities in the occupied Palestinian territory.
“In light of … the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the West Bank, I will today ask Norges Bank and the Council on Ethics to conduct a renewed review of the fund’s investments in Israeli companies and Norges Bank’s work on responsible management,” Stoltenberg said. Norges Bank is Norway’s central bank.
The independent ethics council, which provides recommendations on which companies should be banned from the oil fund’s portfolio, has since 2009 suggested excluding nine Israeli groups.
Norges Bank, which manages the $1.9 trillion wealth fund, took a 1.3 percent stake in BSEL in 2023 and raised this to 2 percent by the end of 2024, holding shares worth $15m, the latest available NBIM records show.
The fund held shares in 65 Israeli companies at the end of 2024, valued at $1.95bn, its records show.
The value of its stake was more than four times higher than it was at the end of 2023, shortly after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. At least 1,139 people were killed in that attack.
The sovereign fund, which owns stakes in 8,700 companies worldwide, has sold its stakes in an Israeli energy company and a telecom group in the last year, and its ethics council has said it is reviewing whether to recommend divesting holdings in five banks.
In May, the sovereign fund decided to divest from Israel’s Paz Retail and Energy for its involvement in supplying infrastructure and fuel to illegal Israeli settlements.
In December 2024, the fund sold all its shares in the Israeli company, Bezeq, for its services provided to the illegal settlements, which are considered the biggest impediments in the realisation of a sovereign Palestinian state as part of the so-called two-state solution.
Moreover, Norway’s largest pension fund has decided to sever its ties with companies doing business with Israel.
KLP, which manages a fund worth about $114bn, said in June that it will no longer do business with two companies – the US Oshkosh Corporation and ThyssenKrupp from Germany, which sell equipment to the Israeli military that is possibly being used in the war in Gaza.
According to the pension fund, it had investments worth $1.8m in Oshkosh and almost $1m in ThyssenKrupp until June 2025.
Last year, KLP also divested from US-based Caterpillar, which makes bulldozers.
French insurance giant AXA last August reportedly divested from its remaining investments in Israeli banks for funding illegal settlements, according to a report by advocacy group Eko.
Norwegian asset manager Storebrand has also sold shares in some Israeli firms.
The move came after sustained campaigning by human rights groups, who highlighted Israeli rights violations against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Another major pension fund from Denmark, its largest, divested from several Israeli banks and companies last February over fears that the investment could be used to fund the illegal Israeli settlements.
The fund has sold its stocks and shares to the tune of 75 million krone ($7.4m) in value.
Last month, Ireland’s sovereign wealth fund divested shareholdings worth more than 1 million euros ($1.2m) from two accommodation companies linked to Israeli settlements. The two companies have been identified as Expedia Group and TripAdvisor, according to media reports.
The Irish government, which has been vocal against Israel’s war on Gaza, divested 2.95 million euros ($3.43m) worth of shares from six other Israeli companies.
Amid pressure from campaigners and activists from Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), several corporations have been forced to sever ties with Israel. Shipping giant Maersk was forced to cut ties with companies linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank in June.
The BDS, a grassroots organisation inspired by the anti-apartheid South Africa movement, calls for economic pressure on the Israeli government to end its occupation of Palestinian lands.
Several of Europe’s biggest financial firms have cut back their links to Israeli companies or those with ties to the country, a Reuters analysis of filings shows, as pressure mounts from activists and governments to end the war in Gaza.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in July, banned exports of coal to Israel until the genocide stops. “We cannot allow Colombian coal to be turned into bombs that help Israel kill children,” the left-wing president said.
He has also pledged to cease all arms trade with Israel. Under Petro, Colombia has helped set up the Hague Group of 12 countries aimed at pressuring Israel to end its war on Gaza and the occupation of the Palestinian territory.
Spain’s left-wing coalition government in June cancelled a contract for antitank missiles from Israeli company Rafael over the war atrocities in Gaza. The decision will affect a deal worth an estimated 285 million euros ($325m).
Few months earlier, Spain halted a controversial $7.5m deal to buy ammunition from an Israeli company, following criticism from far-left allies within the coalition government.
Madrid has also called for sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel over its Gaza war.
Several Western countries have sanctioned Israeli settlers in the West Bank amid record violence against Palestinians.
In July 2024, Australia sanctioned Israeli settlers, joining France, the UK.
The sanction came after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a nonbinding opinion that all Israeli settlement activity on Palestinian land is illegal and must stop as soon as possible.
In June, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom formally sanctioned far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for “incitement of violence” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
In the same month, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia called for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Sweden has also asked the European Council to adopt sanctions “against Israeli ministers who promote illegal settlement activities and actively work against a negotiated two-state solution”.
The EU provides millions of dollars in funds to Israel as part of its Horizon Europe research projects, while Western leaders have defended Israel for its war atrocities in Gaza and also shielded it from the United Nations resolutions critical of its abuses.
Western countries have also been criticised for failing to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who face warrants from the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Gaza.
Last month, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, released a new report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law.
To Governments, International Organisations, Media Institutions, and Civil Society:
We, the undersigned press freedom organisations, media organisations, journalists’ unions, and advocates of truth and transparency, demand an end to the forced starvation and targeting of journalists in Gaza by Israel.
Journalists in Gaza are being starved to death.
Not metaphorically. Not slowly. But deliberately, and in real time, while the world watches.
One in three people in Gaza now goes days without food. Among the starving are journalists, the last independent voices still reporting from inside Gaza. These are the individuals whose courage keeps the world informed of the sheer humanitarian impact of Israel’s war on Gaza. Now, they are being forced to die from hunger.
This is not incidental. This is a tactic.
The suffering of journalists is not an accident; Israel is employing deliberate tactics to silence the truth by starving them.
Since October 2023, over 230 journalists and media workers in Gaza have been killed. Those who remain, and their families, are subjected to constant targeting, intimidation, and denied their basic needs, and are now forced to choose between death by air strike or starvation. Their situation is dire and worsening day by day. Without immediate intervention by the international community, their lives are under serious threat, and they may not be able to continue reporting; their voices may fall silent.
The journalistic community and the world bear an immense responsibility; it is our duty to raise our voices and mobilise all available means to support our colleagues in this noble profession.
If the international community fails to act, the death of these journalists will not only be a moral catastrophe, but it will also be the death of truth itself in Gaza. Our inaction will be recorded in history as a monumental failure to protect our fellow journalists and a betrayal of the principles that every journalist strives to uphold.
We, the undersigned, demand:
Immediate Food and Medical access: Urgent delivery of food, clean water and medical supplies to all journalists in Gaza through protected humanitarian corridors.
International Media Access: End the blockade on foreign press entry into Gaza and allow global journalists to operate freely and independently.
Accountability: Investigate and prosecute those responsible for the starvation and killing of journalists in accordance with international law.
Sustained Protection and Aid: Commit to long-term protection mechanisms for journalists operating in conflict zones, with specific support for those reporting under siege.
We refuse to stand by while truth dies. We refuse to let our colleagues perish from hunger.
Signed:
Al Jazeera Media Network
Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK
Aidan White, Founder, Ethical Journalism Network
Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
Federation of African Journalists
Geneva Global Media Center (GGMC)
International Press Institute (IPI)
International Media Support (IMS)
Index on Censorship
James Foley Foundation
John Williams, Executive Director, The Rory Peck Trust
National Press Club (NPC) & NPC Media Freedom Center
National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ)
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
We call for immediate action. Now.
#justice4journalists
The families are demanding that military action not be taken in areas of Gaza where their relatives may be held.
Physical confrontations have taken place outside Israel’s Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv between security forces and family members of captives held in Gaza during a rally calling for their release, as the Israeli government appears on the verge of escalating its genocidal war to full occupation of the besieged enclave.
Protesters surrounding the Kirya, Israel’s central military headquarters, demanded on Wednesday that the Israeli government not go ahead with its plan, as they were pushed back by police.
“Time is running out – our loved ones can’t wait any longer,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. “We either bring them home now, or we lose them for good. There are moments in history when we must stand up and do what’s right – this is that moment.”
The families of Israeli captives have intensified their criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent months amid large protests across the country, as the expanded military ground offensive and deadly bombardment in the Palestinian territory continue to put the release of their loved ones at risk.
Protesters, including the father of captive Guy Illouz, tried to force their way into the entrance of military headquarters as seen in this video verified by Al Jazeera.
שוטרים תוקפים באלימות מחוץ לשערי הקריה מפגינים למען שחרור החטופים
📌*חדר מלחמה* • עדכונים שוטפים בווטסאפ 🪖 > https://t.co/QYJBOcgAKq מלחמת אחים pic.twitter.com/dqJYxPyf43
— ישפנסיון לכלבים (@sari12222) August 6, 2025
Translation: Police violently attack protesters outside the Kirya gates demonstrating for the release of the hostages.
An estimated 1,139 people were killed during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel, and more than 200 were taken captive. Some 50 captives remain in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to still be alive. In Israel’s ensuing war on Gaza, at least 61,158 Palestinians have been killed and 151,442 wounded.
The families also addressed a message directly to Israeli army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir on Wednesday: “You know this war has run its course, and the only path to real victory is a single deal that brings everyone home.”
The local police chief requested that family members of captives speak to him, saying, “We understand your frustration.” He acknowledged they could protest, but asked that they leave the police alone.
Protesters were attempting to enter the headquarters, demanding that military action not be taken in areas where the captives are suspected to be located in Gaza.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Wednesday that Itzik Horn, the father of Israeli captive Eitan Horn, said the families of the captives being held in Gaza were against the expansion of the war on Gaza.
He reportedly questioned Netanyahu’s motives, as Israel’s defence establishment said an expansion would endanger the lives of the captives.
“I expect the prime minister to speak to the public, to explain the implications of this idea to the country and the price we’ll pay,” Itzik Horn said, according to Haaretz. “We are the people. I want the prime minister to explain why he wants to kill my son.”
Meanwhile, there were minor clashes at the anti-war demonstration organised by Standing Together, the largest Arab-Israeli grassroots movement in Israel, in the Gaza Envelope, situated 7km (4.3 miles) from the Gaza border. A protester was arrested and flour was scattered on the police from the display brought by the protesters.
An earlier video recorded from the Yad Mordechai Junction, a kibbutz in southern Israel, showed Standing Together activists gathering to march to the Gaza border.
Israeli authorities are moving forward with plans to dramatically expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite growing international condemnation and warnings that the move would destroy already moribund prospects for a two-state solution.
The Israeli government has set Wednesday as the date to discuss building thousands of new housing units in the E1 area, east of occupied East Jerusalem. The proposed expansion would link the large and illegal Ma’ale Adumim settlement with Jerusalem, effectively bisecting the West Bank and isolating Palestinian communities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government also appears on the cusp of announcing its intention to occupy all of Gaza as its genocidal war on the besieged enclave rages on.
The E1 plan in the West Bank has long been criticised by the international community, including the European Union and successive United States administrations. In 2022, Israel postponed the plan following US pressure, but in recent months, the government approved road-widening projects in the area and began restricting Palestinian access – a move rights groups say indicates a renewed push to entrench control.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. The International Court of Justice, the top United Nations tribunal, reaffirmed that position last year, saying that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible”.
On Monday, Germany reiterated its strong opposition to the E1 project.
“We, as the federal government, strongly reject the E1 settlement project,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kathrin Deschauer said. “What we are concerned about is that a two-state solution is possible in the long term.”
The plan would see nearly 1,214 hectares (3,000 acres) of Palestinian land stolen to build more than 4,000 settlement units, as well as hotels and roads connecting Ma’ale Adumim to West Jerusalem.
Palestinians say the project is part of broader efforts to “Judaise” East Jerusalem and entrench Israeli control over occupied territories in violation of international law.
Palestinian leaders seek the entirety of the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip, and as a capital, East Jerusalem – areas Israel captured in the 1967 war – for their future state.
Currently, more than 500,000 settlers are living in the West Bank, and some 220,000 others in East Jerusalem.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim said the plan has been in the works since “the early 90s”.
“The plan has been described by US officials … as devastating and a disastrous plan,” Ibrahim said, as it threatens “the unity” of a potential Palestinian state.
According to Ibrahim, the Israeli objective is to ensure there is “no Palestinian state on the ground” by the time Western and European countries recognise Palestine as a state.
Israel would be “cutting the West Bank into so many different sections, fragmenting them, creating what Palestinians have been calling as cantons,” she said, predicting that his would push Palestinians into “very small, caged communities”.
The move comes amid a broader Israeli crackdown in the occupied West Bank. At least 30 Palestinians were arrested overnight across multiple cities including Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Tulkarem, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.
Among those detained were two women, a female journalist, and several former prisoners. The commission said more than 18,500 Palestinians have been arrested in the West Bank since Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza in October 2023.
In Bethlehem, residents of Beit Iskaria village received forced displacement notices this week as Israeli forces moved to seize more land for settlement expansion in the Gush Etzion bloc. According to village council head Muhammad Atallah, soldiers ordered him and his family to vacate grapevine-covered farmland within 10 days.
Separately, Israeli forces carried out demolitions in the agricultural suburb near Jalazone refugee camp north of Ramallah, with reports that soldiers were accompanied by settlers. In Dar Salah, east of Bethlehem, a building under construction was demolished by Israeli military vehicles.
According to rights groups, July alone saw 75 demolitions in the West Bank targeting 122 structures, including 60 homes and dozens of agricultural and livelihood facilities.
Along with arrests and demolitions, Palestinians have also seen a rise in settler attacks in recent months. Armed settlers, often backed by Israeli soldiers, have rampaged through Palestinian villages, torched crops, vandalised homes, and assaulted residents with impunity, resulting in several Palestinian deaths.
Rights groups and United Nations officials have warned that settler violence has reached record levels, part of what they describe as a coordinated campaign to forcibly displace Palestinians from key areas of the West Bank.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities issued a six-month ban on Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territory, from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque.
According to the Wafa news agency, the Jerusalem governorate, quoting lawyer Khaldoun Najm, said the ban on Hussein follows the expiration of his eight-day ban.
This most recent ban was imposed after his Friday sermon, where he condemned Israel’s starvation policy against Palestinians in Gaza.
Last week, Hussein was handed an initial eight-day expulsion order from the mosque.
Vehicle overturned after Israeli forces directed it down an ‘unsafe road’, local officials tell WAFA news agency.
At least 20 Palestinians have been killed and many injured after a truck carrying humanitarian aid overturned onto a crowd of people in central Gaza, according to the Government Media Office in the enclave.
The incident occurred on Wednesday as large numbers of Palestinians gathered in central Gaza in search of food and basic supplies, amid an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis.
Local officials quoted by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the vehicle overturned after Israeli forces directed it down what they described as an “unsafe road”.
Gaza Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that 20 people were killed and dozens were wounded in the incident while hundreds of civilians were waiting for aid, the AFP news agency reported.
“Despite the recent limited allowance of a few aid trucks, the occupation deliberately obstructs the safe passage and distribution of this aid,” the Gaza Government Media Office said in a statement.
“It forces drivers to navigate routes overcrowded with starving civilians who have been waiting for weeks for the most basic necessities. This often results in desperate crowds swarming the trucks and forcibly seizing their contents.”
The incident comes as humanitarian organisations warn of famine and disease spreading across the enclave, while deaths from starvation and malnutrition continue to rise.
At least three people died from malnutrition on Wednesday, medical sources told Al Jazeera. A source at al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza confirmed that Hiba Yasser Abu Naji, a child, died from malnutrition. An infant also died from malnutrition, according to the source. An adult from Jabalia was also reported to have died as a result of malnutrition.
On Monday, the Israeli military permitted 95 aid trucks to enter Gaza – a figure far below the 600 trucks a day needed to meet basic requirements, according to UNRWA. The current daily average is 85 trucks.
Meanwhile, Palestinians approaching aid distribution sites run by the notorious GHF have frequently come under Israeli fire since the organisation launched operations in late May. Such shootings have become near-daily occurrences near its sites in central and southern Gaza.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for OCHA, said that while some aid was entering the enclave, “there should be hundreds and hundreds of trucks entering Gaza every day for months or years to come.
“People are dying every day. This is a crisis on the brink of famine,” he said, adding that tonnes of life-saving aid remain stuck at border crossings due to bureaucratic delays and a lack of safe access.
Elsewhere in Gaza, several Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave.
Al-Awda Hospital reported that five people – including a woman and two children – were killed, and others wounded, in an Israeli raid on a house north of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Four more people were killed in an Israeli raid on two homes in the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City.
US president’s comments come amid warnings that expanding Israeli operations would be ‘catastrophic’ for Palestinians.
Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has suggested that he will not block possible Israeli plans to take over Gaza.
When asked on Tuesday about reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to occupy the entire Palestinian territory, Trump said he is focused on getting “people fed” in Gaza.
“As far as the rest of it, I really can’t say. That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel,” the US president told reporters.
Washington provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid annually, assistance that significantly increased following the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.
Israel has used forced displacement orders to squeeze Palestinians into ever-shrinking pockets in Gaza, turning 86 percent of the territory into militarised zones.
But increased military operations in the remaining part of the territory would further endanger the lives of Palestinians, who already endure daily bombardment and Israeli-imposed starvation.
Netanyahu’s purported plans to conquer Gaza have also raises concerns about the safety of the remaining Israeli captives held in the enclave by Hamas and other Palestinian groups.
Top United Nations official Miroslav Jenca said on Tuesday that a complete occupation of Gaza would “risk catastrophic consequences”.
“International law is clear in the regard. Gaza is and must remain an integral part of the future Palestinian state,” Jenca told the UN Security Council.
Israel withdrew its forces and settlements from the Palestinian territory in 2005, but legal experts have said that the enclave remained technically under occupation, since the Israeli military continued to control Gaza’s airspace, territorial waters and ports of entry.
Since the start of the war in 2023, right-wing Israeli officials have called for the re-establishment of Israel’s military presence and settlements inside Gaza.
Netanyahu has also suggested that Israel aims to remove all Palestinians from the enclave, in what would amount to ethnic cleansing, a plan that Trump himself echoed in February.
Trump, at the time, proposed clearing Gaza of its people to construct a “riviera of the Middle East” in its stead.
The recent reports about Israel’s intention to expand its ground operations in Gaza come amid growing international outcry over the deadly hunger spreading across the territory.
Israel has blocked nearly all aid from entering Gaza since March, making US-backed GHF sites almost the only places for Palestinians to get food.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been shot by the Israeli military while trying to reach GHF facilities deep inside Israel’s lines of control. Nevertheless, the US has continued to support the organisation, despite international pleas to allow the UN to distribute the aid.
In recent days, Israel has allowed some food trucks and air drops to distribute aid to Gaza, but the assistance is still far from meeting the needs of the population.
The Israeli military has also been accused of targeting aid seekers trying to reach assistance trucks away from GHF sites in northern Gaza.
On Tuesday, Trump reiterated his often-repeated claim that the US has provided $60m in aid to Gaza. His administration had provided $30m to GHF.
“As you know, $60m was given by the United States fairly recently to supply food – a lot of food, frankly – for the people of Gaza that are obviously not doing too well with the food,” he told reporters.
“And I know Israel is going to help us with that, in terms of distribution and also money. We also have the Arab states [which] are going to help us with that in terms of the money and possibly distribution.”
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 61,000 people and flattened most of the territory in what rights groups and UN experts have called a genocide.
Impact of war’s consequences to be felt beyond this generation.
Israel’s war on Gaza has injured more than 150,000 Palestinians.
Many with life-changing injuries need specialist long-term care, but face devastation and blockade by Israel.
What’s the impact of all this on Gaza’s people now – and into the future?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Dr Khamis Elessi – Neurorehabilitation and pain medicine consultant at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza
Dr Samah Jabr – Palestinian psychiatrist and psychotherapist and former head of the Mental Health Unit at the Ministry of Health in Palestine; author of the book Radiance in Pain and Resilience: The global reverberation of Palestinian historical trauma
Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah – Served as a war surgeon in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East; professor of Conflict Medicine at the American University of Beirut
Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong has told the country’s media that “there is a risk there will be no Palestine left to recognise”, amid Israel’s devastating war on Gaza and increasing violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Wong, who did not indicate that Australia plans to change its stance and recognise Palestinian statehood, made her comments in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ( ABC) on Tuesday morning, where she responded to questions about a mass protest in Sydney attended by hundreds of thousands of people rallying against Israel’s war on Gaza.
Organisers said that between 200,000 and 300,000 people joined the protest across the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday. Police had initially estimated that about 90,000 people took part.
Wong said the Australian government shared the protesters “desire for peace and a ceasefire”, and that the huge turnout reflected “the broad Australian community’s horror” and the “distress of Australians, on what we are seeing unfolding in Gaza, the catastrophic humanitarian situation, the deaths of women and children, the withholding of aid”.
However, asked if Australia was considering taking any more concrete actions, such as imposing sanctions on Israel, Wong said: “We don’t speculate on sanctions for the obvious reason that they have more effect if they are not flagged.”
She noted that Australia had already imposed sanctions on two far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s government, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, in June this year, as well as “extremist” Israeli settlers.
On Australia’s position regarding Palestinian statehood, Wong said: “In relation to recognition, I’ve said for over a year now, it’s a matter of when, not if.”
Wong’s interview came as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is reportedly seeking to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of Sunday’s protest.
Responding to questions about what he plans to discuss with Netanyahu, Albanese said he would again express his support for a two-state solution.
Rawan Arraf, the executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, said that the “only business” that Albanese should be discussing with Netanyahu is cancelling the “two-way arms trade between Australia and and Israel, new sanctions measures, and Netanyahu’s one-way trip to the [International Criminal Court] to face war crimes and crimes against humanity charges“.
Albanese “must not give legitimacy to an accused war criminal”, Arraf wrote in a post on X.
While both Albanese and Wong have continued to emphasise the importance of a two-state solution, Australia has yet to follow other countries, including France and Canada, that have recently announced their plans to recognise Palestinian statehood, and join the vast majority of countries which already do so.
Albanese also had a phone call with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday, the first publicly recorded call between the pair since November 2023, according to the ABC.
Responding to questions about the Sydney protest rally, Albanese said: “It’s not surprising that so many Australians have been affected in order to want to show their concern at people being deprived of food and water and essential services.”
But the state government in New South Wales, which is led by Albanese’s Labor Party, had sought to prevent the march from crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the week leading up to the protest.
The protest only went ahead after State Supreme Court Justice Belinda Rigg ruled that “the march at this location is motivated by the belief that the horror and urgency of the situation in Gaza demands an urgent and extraordinary response from the people of the world”.
“The evidence indicates there is significant support for the march,” Rigg added.
A number of state and federal Labor ministers also took part in the march, in an indication of a growing divide within Albanese’s party.
Independent journalist Antony Loewenstein told Al Jazeera that Sunday’s march showed that Australians are “frustrated that our government is doing little more than talk at this point”.
“People are so outraged, not just by what Israel is doing in Gaza, but also the Australian government’s complicity,” said Loewenstein, who spoke at the march on Sunday.
Australia “is part of the global supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, which Israel is using over Gaza every day, and the parts that are amongst those parts in the plane are probably coming from Australia”, he said.
As Israel’s forced starvation tightens its grip on Gaza’s entire population, an increasing number of Palestinian families are frantically searching for news of relatives who undertook perilous journeys to get food from aid distribution points, never to return.
Khaled Obaid has been searching for his beloved son, Ahmed, for two months, scanning every passing vehicle on the coastal road in Deir-el-Balah, hoping against all odds that one of them might bring him home.
The boy had left the displaced family’s tent in the central town to find food for his parents and sister, who had lost her husband during the war, and headed to the Zikim crossing point, where aid trucks enter northern Gaza.
“He hasn’t returned until now. He went because he was hungry. We have nothing to eat,” the distraught father told Al Jazeera, breaking down in tears with his wife under the blue tarpaulin where they are sheltering.
Khaled reported his son’s disappearance to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and every official body he could reach, to radio silence. To this day, he has received no answers on Ahmed’s whereabouts.
Khaled’s story is all too common under Israel’s ongoing punishing blockade of Gaza, where the largely displaced population faces a stark choice between starvation and braving the bullets fired by Israeli soldiers and United States security contractors in a bid to get food from Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites. These distribution points have been dubbed “death traps” and “human slaughterhouses” by the United Nations and rights groups.
It is a life-or-death gamble that has taken the lives of nearly 1,400 people, shot dead mainly by the Israeli army, at the aid sites since they started operations in late May and along food convoy routes, according to figures released by the UN last week. That is, without counting the untold numbers of missing aid seekers, like Ahmed.
Human rights monitors have been collecting harrowing firsthand accounts of people who have gone missing in Gaza, only to be found later, killed by Israeli forces.
“In many cases, those who went missing are apparently killed near the aid distribution points, but due to the Israeli targeting, their bodies remained unreachable,” Maha Hussaini, the head of media at the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, told Al Jazeera.
“Many Palestinians left home with empty hands, hoping to return with a bag of flour. But many never came back,” said Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir-el-Balah. “In Gaza, the line between survival and disappearance is now heartbreakingly thin.”
As the number of missing aid seekers mounts, famine stalks the enclave, with more than 80 adults reportedly dying of starvation over the past five weeks alone, and 93 children succumbing to man-made malnutrition since the war began.
Authorities in Gaza say an average of 84 trucks have entered the besieged enclave each day since Israel eased restrictions on July 27. But aid organisations say at least 600 aid trucks are needed per day to meet the territory’s basic needs.
On Monday, amid growing international condemnation over the mass starvation, seen by many as being deliberately engineered by Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to double down on his war goals.
Netanyahu announced that he would convene a meeting of his cabinet on Tuesday to ensure that “Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel”. Israel’s Channel 12 cited an official as saying that Netanyahu was tending towards expanding the offensive.
The announcement came on another bloody day in the Strip, with at least 74 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks since dawn on Monday, including 36 aid seekers, according to medical sources.
Among the attacks, at least three people were killed by an Israeli strike on a house in Deir el-Balah, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
A source at al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City reported that seven people were killed in Israeli shelling on multiple areas in the Shujayea neighbourhood, east of Gaza City.
Emergency services said that two were killed in an Israeli bombing of Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza.
It also emerged on Monday that a nurse at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah was killed when he was hit by an airdropped box of aid.
This week, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, described the dangerous airdrops as a “distraction” and smokescreen.
On Monday, UNICEF warned that 28 children – essentially an entire “classroom” – are dying each day from Israeli bombardment and lack of aid.
“Gaza’s children need food, water, medicine and protection. More than anything, they need a ceasefire, NOW,” said the UN agency on X.
Death by bombardments.
Death by malnutrition and starvation.
Death by lack of aid and vital services.
In Gaza, an average of 28 children a day – the size of a classroom – have been killed.Gaza’s children need food, water, medicine and protection. More than anything, they need a… pic.twitter.com/7QIQQ6IAoG
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) August 4, 2025
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the UN Security Council to “assume its responsibilities” by enforcing an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, conducting an official visit to the territory and implementing calls at a recent UN conference in New York for a two-state solution.
In a statement posted on social media on Monday, the ministry warned that more than two million Palestinians in Gaza are “living in a tight death circle of killing, starvation, thirst, and deprivation of medicine, treatment, and all basic human rights”.
Mike Johnson, the top legislator in the United States Congress, has visited an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, drawing condemnation from Palestinians.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called the trip by the speaker of the US House of Representatives on Monday a “blatant violation of international law”.
Johnson, who is next in line for the US presidency after the president and vice president, is the highest-ranking US official to visit a West Bank Israeli settlement.
His trip comes amid escalating settler violence against Palestinian communities that killed two US citizens in July.
The Israeli military has also been intensifying its deadly raids, home demolitions and displacement campaigns in the West Bank as it carries out its brutal assault and blockade on Gaza.
Johnson’s visit contradicts Arab and US efforts to “end the cycle of violence” as well as Washington’s public stance against settlers’ “aggressions”, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said.
“The ministry affirms that all settlement activity is invalid and illegal and undermines the opportunity to implement the two-state solution and achieve peace,” it added.
According to Israeli media reports, Johnson visited the settlement of Ariel, north of Ramallah, on Monday.
“Judea and Samaria are the front lines of the state of Israel and must remain an integral part of it,” Johnson was quoted as saying by the Jerusalem Post newspaper, using a biblical name for the West Bank.
“Even if the world thinks otherwise, we stand with you.”
The House speaker’s comments appear to be in reference to recent moves by some Western countries – including close allies of the US and Israel – to recognise a Palestinian state.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. The International Court of Justice, the top United Nations tribunal, reaffirmed that position last year, saying that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible”.
Asked about Johnson’s visit, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters on Monday: “Our standpoint on the settlements, as you know, is that they are illegal under international law.”
Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967, and annexed the entire holy city in 1980.
Successive Israeli governments have been building Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank on land that would be the home of a Palestinian state if a two-state solution were to materialise.
Hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers now live in the occupied West Bank.
The Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory, bans the occupying power from transferring “parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.
While the Oslo Accords granted the Palestinian Authority some municipal powers over parts of the West Bank, the entire area remains under full Israeli security control.
Israel also controls the airspace and ports of entry in the territory.
Israeli settlers in the West Bank have full citizenship rights, while Palestinians live under Israel’s military rule, where they can be detained indefinitely without charges.
Leading rights groups have accused Israel of imposing a system of apartheid on Palestinians.
For decades, the US has publicly rejected West Bank settlements and called for a two-state solution despite providing Israel with billions of dollars in military aid.
However, US President Donald Trump has taken US policy further in favour of Israel, refusing to criticise settlement expansion or commit to backing a Palestinian state.
Many Republicans, meanwhile, have long expressed support for Israel from a theological perspective, arguing that it is a Christian religious duty to back the US ally.
“Our prayer is that America will always stand with Israel. We pray for the preservation and the peace of Jerusalem. That’s what scripture tells us to do. It’s a matter of faith for us,” Johnson said on Sunday during a visit to the Western Wall.
In a social media post, Marc Zell, chair of the US Republicans Overseas Israel, cited Johnson as saying on Monday that the mountains of the West Bank are “the rightful property of the Jewish People”.
On July 17, I was in a market in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza looking for any affordable food item to buy when I saw a crowd of people gather in front of some shops. The people were angry about the exorbitant prices that the shop owners were charging for goods that had clearly been looted from aid convoys.
Two weeks later, I was at the same market and witnessed another angry protest. People were chanting, “You thieves!” and cursing the merchants.
Having no fear of God, shop owners are exploiting the famine without mercy, selling aid as if it were rare luxury items when in fact it is supposed to be distributed for free. The greed and exploitation have gone too far, and the people are taking things into their own hands. Across Gaza, there are protests against price speculation. In some places, shops are being forcibly closed.
Indeed, the prices of essential goods have soared to unimaginable levels, beyond anything dictated by the forces of supply and demand. People cannot understand why goods cost so much despite their minimal purchasing power. The prices I saw while walking at the market were insane: a kilo (2.2lb) of flour – 40 shekels ($12), a kilo of rice – 60 shekels ($18), a kilo of lentils – 40 shekels ($12), a kilo of sugar – 250 shekels ($73), a litre (1 quart) of cooking oil – 200 shekels ($58).
Since Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza in March, the normal aid distribution through the United Nations – something that has to happen unabated in any warzone – has ceased.
To stave off global criticism, Israel set up humanitarian hubs to supposedly distribute aid. But they have been nothing more than death traps. Many of those who come to collect aid are shot at, and thousands have been killed or wounded.
In parallel, the Israeli government started allowing in a very small quantity of aid trucks, but a large portion of those are looted once they enter Gaza. The goods are then resold at outrageous prices.
Those who control this supply of looted food are powerful merchants and brokers, often protected by local influential actors or benefitting from indirect coordination with Israel. These actions are not spontaneous. They take place within a deliberately created atmosphere of chaos. With the collapse of state institutions and absence of legal accountability, exploitation has become the rule, not the exception.
It is clear to the Palestinians that the occupation doesn’t merely aim to show that Gaza is weak. It actively seeks to prove that it is ungovernable. To achieve this, closing the borders isn’t enough. The people of Gaza must be pushed into a state of constant chaos and friction.
Starvation is a key instrument here. Hunger doesn’t only kill. It also changes human nature. A starving person, stripped of the bare minimum needed to survive and subjected to daily humiliation, slowly loses the ability to think clearly, to judge or to restrain themselves from turning against those they perceive – rightly or wrongly – as contributing to their suffering.
There are black markets and war profiteers in every conflict. But in this one, the occupying power is encouraging these criminal activities, not because it is earning money from them, but because it serves its overall goal. The Palestinians who choose to participate in this form of extortion are motivated by greed, blackmail or survival.
This slow unravelling is exactly what the occupation has aimed for. It wants chaos in the streets of Gaza so Israeli and international media can be quick to point a finger at the Palestinians and declare: “Look, the Palestinian people are imploding. They can’t govern themselves. They don’t deserve a state.” But the truth is, this is not a sign of a failed nation. It is evidence of the occupation’s success in dragging it to the brink.
It is not the people who have lost control. Control has been forcibly stripped from them – through starvation, the systematic destruction of healthcare and sanitary infrastructure, the dismantling of state institutions and the empowerment of criminals.
Yet Gaza will not break. People may grow angry and desperate, cry out and protest, but they still retain a moral compass. This collective outcry is not infighting. It is a clear warning that society will no longer tolerate betrayal. Those who raise prices mercilessly in times of siege are traitors, and they will be held accountable before institutions of justice when Gaza rebuilds.
The occupation may be revelling now in the unfolding collapse, but it would be wrong to think it has defeated the Palestinians. Every crisis breeds new awareness. Every betrayal gives birth to new resistance. The vast majority of Palestinians refuse to become tools in the hands of their torturers. They refuse subjugation and erasure. They refuse to exploit and harm their fellow citizens.
Palestinian national solidarity is still alive.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Right-wing Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir sparked outrage from nations across the Middle East when he led a Jewish prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound. His actions broke a 1967 agreement that only Muslims are allowed to pray at the site.
Published On 4 Aug 20254 Aug 2025
The vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced multiple times, and many are dying from Israeli-induced starvation. An unprecedented water crisis is also unfolding across the enclave, heaping further misery on its residents.
Gaza was already suffering a water crisis before nearly 22 months of Israeli bombardment and ground operations damaged more than 80 percent of the territory’s water infrastructure.
“Sometimes, I feel as though my body is drying from the inside. Thirst is stealing all my energy and that of my children,” said Um Nidal Abu Nahl, a mother of four living in Gaza City.
Water trucks occasionally reach residents, and NGOs install taps in camps for a fortunate few, but it is far from sufficient.
Israel reconnected some water mains in northern Gaza to the Israeli water company Mekorot after cutting off supplies early in the war, but residents said water still is not flowing.
Local authorities said this is due to war damage to Gaza’s water distribution network with many main pipes destroyed.
Gaza City spokesman Asem Alnabih said the municipality’s section of the network supplied by Mekorot has not functioned for nearly two weeks.
Wells that provided water for some needs before the war have also been damaged, and some are contaminated by sewage that is going untreated because of the conflict.
Many wells in Gaza are simply inaccessible because they are located within combat zones, too close to Israeli military installations or in areas subject to forced evacuation.
Wells usually run on electric pumps, and energy has been scarce since Israel cut Gaza’s power.
Generators could power the pumps, but hospitals are prioritised for the limited fuel deliveries.
Gaza’s desalination plants are out of operation except for a single site that reopened last week after Israel restored its electricity supply.
Alnabih said the situation with infrastructure was bleak.
More than 75 percent of wells are out of service, 85 percent of public works equipment has been destroyed, 100,000 metres (62 miles) of water mains have been damaged and 200,000 metres (124 miles) of sewage lines are unusable.
Pumping stations are out of action, and 250,000 tonnes of rubbish are clogging the streets.
To find water, hundreds of thousands of people are still trying to extract groundwater directly from wells.
However, coastal Gaza’s aquifer is naturally brackish and far exceeds salinity standards for potable water.
In 2021, UNICEF warned that nearly 100 percent of Gaza’s groundwater was unfit for consumption.
With clean water almost impossible to find, some Palestinians mistakenly believe brackish water to be free of bacteria.
Aid workers in Gaza have had to warn repeatedly that even if residents can become accustomed to the taste, their kidneys will inevitably suffer.
Although Gaza’s water crisis has received less media attention than the ongoing hunger crisis, its effects are just as deadly.
“Just like food, water should never be used for political ends,” UNICEF spokeswoman Rosalia Bollen said. While it is very difficult to quantify the water shortage, she said, “there is a severe lack of drinking water.”
“It is extremely hot, diseases are spreading, and water is truly the issue we are not talking about enough,” she added.
Hamas has said it is open to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delivering aid to Israeli captives in Gaza after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he requested the Geneva-based international organisation to step in.
The statements from Hamas and Netanyahu came after Palestinian groups last week released videos showing two emaciated Israeli captives held in Gaza, where some 2 million Palestinians are struggling to survive the Israeli-induced starvation crisis.
Netanyahu said on Sunday he had spoken to Julian Larson, the head of the ICRC delegation to Israel, requesting the group’s “immediate involvement” in providing food and medical treatment to captives still held in Gaza.
In a post on X, Netanyahu wrote in Hebrew that he told Larson that Hamas was propagating a “lie of starvation” in the enclave, but the reality was that “systematic starvation is being carried out against our hostages”.
Later on Sunday, the spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said in a statement that Israeli captives held in Gaza “eat what our fighters and all our people eat”.
“They will not receive any special privilege amid the crime of starvation and siege,” the spokesman, known as Abu Obeida, said.
But, he added, the group is “ready to act positively and respond to any request from the Red Cross to deliver food and medicine to enemy prisoners”.
In order for requests to aid captives to be accepted, “humanitarian corridors must be opened in a normal and permanent manner for the passage of food and medicine to all our people in all areas of the Gaza Strip”, Abu Obeida said.
Israeli attacks “of all forms must cease during the receipt of packages for the prisoners”, he added.
The ICRC said in a statement on Sunday that it was “appalled by the harrowing videos” of the captives held in Gaza and reiterated its call to be “granted access to the hostages.”
“These videos are stark evidence of the life-threatening conditions in which the hostages are being held,” the ICRC said in the statement shared on X.
“We know families watching these videos are horrified and heartbroken by the conditions they see their loved ones held in,” the ICRC added.
On its website, the ICRC says that “securing access requires the cooperation of all parties involved”. The ICRC also says on its website that it “has not been able to visit any Palestinian detainees held in Israeli places of detention since 7 October 2023.”
In a separate statement on Sunday, the ICRC said it was also “appalled” that a Palestine Red Crescent Society staff member had been killed in a “clearly marked Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) building” in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
The PRCS had earlier said the attack was perpetrated by Israeli forces, but the ICRC statement did not refer to who was responsible.
Meanwhile, the families of Israeli captives held in Gaza said on Sunday that Netanyahu’s continued insistence that a “military resolution” was the only solution was “a direct danger to the lives of our sons, who live in the hell of tunnels and are threatened by starvation and immediate death”.
“For 22 months, the public has been sold the illusion that military pressure will bring back the hostages, and today, even before reaching a comprehensive draft agreement, it is said that an agreement is futile,” the families said in a statement.
There are about 50 captives still in Gaza. Fewer than half are believed to be still alive.
The latest developments come as the Government Media Office in Gaza said that Israeli authorities allowed just 36 aid trucks to enter the Gaza Strip on Saturday, while 22,000 aid trucks continue to sit outside the Strip waiting to bring much-needed food to Palestinians there.
The United Nations office in Geneva on Sunday also warned that 1 million women and girls in Gaza are now starving.
In a post on X, the UN said: “One million. That’s how many women and girls are starving in Gaza. This horrific situation is unacceptable and must end.
We continue to demand the delivery of lifesaving aid for all women and girls, an immediate ceasefire, and the release of all hostages.”
At least 175 people, including 93 children, have now been confirmed dead from forced starvation, according to the territory’s Ministry of Health, including 17-year-old Atef Abu Khater, whose weight had dropped to just 25kg (55lbs) before he died on Saturday.
Australia may join more than a dozen other nations in recognising the state of Palestine.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators have marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia, calling for peace and aid deliveries in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where a humanitarian crisis of man-made starvation has been worsening as a result of Israel’s punishing blockade.
Pro-Palestinian protesters braved heavy winds and rain on Sunday to march across the bridge, chanting “Ceasefire Now” and “Free Palestine”. Some of those attending the march, which the organisers dubbed the “March for Humanity”, carried pots and pans as symbols of the forced starvation wracking Gaza.
The protest came less than a week after a joint statement by Australia and more than a dozen other nations expressed the “willingness or the positive consideration … to recognise the state of Palestine as an essential step towards the two-State solution”.
France, Britain and Canada have in recent weeks voiced, and in some cases qualified, intentions to diplomatically recognise a Palestinian state as international concern and criticism have grown over the hunger crisis in Gaza.
At least 175 people, including 93 children, have died of starvation and malnutrition across the territory since Israel launched its war on Gaza after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in October 2023, according to the latest Gaza Health Ministry figures.
Australia has called for an end to the war in Gaza, but has so far stopped short of a decision to recognise a Palestinian state.
Police said that up to 90,000 people had attended the protest while the organiser, Palestine Action Group Sydney, said in a Facebook post that as many as 300,000 people may have marched.
Marchers ranged from the elderly to families with young children. Among them was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who did not address the crowd or speak to the media.
Mehreen Faruqi, the New South Wales senator for the left-wing Greens party, addressed the crowd gathered at central Sydney’s Lang Park, calling for the “harshest sanctions on Israel”, accusing its forces of “massacring” Palestinians.
Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, a book on the Israeli arms and surveillance industry, who spoke at the rally, told Al Jazeera that protesters are “outraged” not just by what Israel is doing in Gaza, but also by the Australian government’s “complicity”.
Loewenstein said that Australia has, for many years, including since the start of the war, been part of the global supply chain for the F-35 fighter jets that Israel has been using in attacking the besieged territory.
“A lot of Australians are aware of this,” he said. “We are deeply complicit, and people are angry that their government is doing little more than talk at this point.”
A Palestinian teenager, shot in the eye by Israeli forces while desperately seeking food for his family near a United States and Israeli-backed GHF site in Gaza, is unlikely to regain sight in his left eye, doctors treating him have said, as the population of the besieged and bombarded enclave suffers from forced starvation.
Fifteen-year-old Abdul Rahman Abu Jazar told Al Jazeera that Israeli soldiers kept shooting at him even after he was struck by a bullet, making him think “this was the end” and “death was near”.
Relaying the harrowing chain of events from a hospital bed with a white bandage covering one eye, Abu Jazar said he went to the site around 2am (23:00 GMT).
“It was my first time going to the distribution point,” he said. “I went there because my siblings and I had no food. We couldn’t find anything to eat.”
He says he moved forward with the crowd until he reached al-Muntazah Park in the Gaza City environs about five hours later.
“We were running when they began shooting at us. I was with three others; three of them were hit. As soon as we started running, they opened fire. Then I felt something like electricity shoot through my body. I collapsed to the ground. I felt as though I had been electrocuted … I didn’t know where I was, I just blacked out. When I woke up, I asked people ‘Where am I?’”
Others near Abu Jazar told him he had been shot in the head. “They were still firing. I got scared and started reciting prayers.”
A doctor at the hospital held a phone light near the boy’s wounded eye and asked him if he could see any light. He could not. The doctor diagnosed a perforating eye injury caused by a gunshot wound.
Abu Jazar underwent surgery and said, “I hope my eyesight will return, God willing.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported on Sunday that 119 bodies, including 15 recovered from under the rubble of destroyed buildings or other places, and 866 wounded Palestinians have arrived at the enclave’s hospitals over the past 24-hour reporting period.
At least 65 Palestinians were killed while seeking aid, and 511 more were wounded.
Israeli forces have routinely fired on Palestinians trying to get food at GHF-run distribution sites in Gaza, and the United Nations reported this week that more than 1,300 aid seekers have been killed since the group began operating in May.
Gaza’s famine and malnutrition crisis has been worsening by the day, with at least 175 people, including 93 children, now confirmed dead from the man-made starvation of Israel’s punishing blockade, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
More than 6,000 Palestinian children are being treated for malnutrition resulting from the blockade, according to the Global Nutrition Cluster, which includes the UN health and food agencies.
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah, says, “There’s a very, very small amount of trucks coming into Gaza – about maybe 80 to 100 trucks every single day – despite the fact that this “humanitarian pause” was for more aid to enter the Gaza Strip.
“Palestinians are struggling to get a bag of wheat flour. They’re struggling to find a food parcel. And this shows the fact that this pause and all the Israeli claims are not true because on the ground, Palestinians are starving, ” she added.
Khoudary noted that the entire population had been relyiant on UN agencies and other partners to distribute food.
“More Palestinians die every single day due to the forced starvation and malnutrition … Since the blockade started, those distribution points have not been operating, and now nothing’s back to normal. Palestinians are still struggling, and not only that, they’re being killed now for the fact that they’re approaching trucks, the GHF, because they want to eat,” she said.
On June 25, Mutawakil al-Mohamad and his family woke up to the sound of Israeli soldiers pounding on their door with their rifles.
It would be the last time they woke up in their family home in occupied East Jerusalem.
The Israeli forces arrived at 7am in military convoys with two heavy bulldozers, and al-Mohamad was terrified the soldiers would raid his house and arrest him or his loved ones.
Instead, the soldiers told the family their home was in a designated “military zone” and ordered them to vacate immediately so they could bulldoze it to the ground.
“When I opened the door, I told the soldiers: ‘My young children are scared.’ I asked them to give me 10 minutes, then we will all be out of the house,” al-Mohamed said. The soldiers obliged, he recalled from Ramallah, the administrative capital of the occupied West Bank, where he now lives.
Israel is demolishing more Palestinian homes across the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, at a higher rate in 2025 than any previous year since the occupation began in 1967.
Israeli authorities have already destroyed 783 structures – a figure that does not include the large-scale destruction in refugee camps – leading to the forced displacement of 1,119 people, according to the United Nations.
In the Palestinian refugee camps, Israel has destroyed about 600 structures in the Jenin camp and a combined 300 structures in the Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps as part of military raids it launched at the start of this year, according to figures that Al Jazeera obtained from the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq.
Human rights groups, civilians and analysts said the real aim of Israel’s tactics – systematic home demolitions and forced displacement – is to make life unbearable for Palestinians so more will consider leaving if they can.
“Israel’s goal in the West Bank is the same as its goal in Gaza. … It wants to target all Palestinians,” said Murad Jadallah, a human rights researcher with Al-Haq.
Jadallah argued that Israel’s war in Gaza, which many experts have called a genocide, has shocked the world and distracted many from its unprecedented destruction in the West Bank.
“Israel is benefiting from the images of destruction it has created in Gaza in order to push its agenda in the West Bank,” he told Al Jazeera.
Since the start of this year, about 40,000 Palestinians have fled Israeli military operations in West Bank refugee camps.
Many have struggled to find affordable replacement accommodations, renting instead in whatever villages where they find room, staying with relatives in overcrowded homes or languishing in public buildings converted into shelters for displaced people, Jadallah said.
Ahmed Gaeem, 60, recalled Israeli soldiers evicting him, his wife, five children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews from their building in the Tulkarem refugee camp in March.
The family was also told by Israeli soldiers that Tulkarem had been designated a “military zone” and they would not be allowed to return for some time.
“We left with the clothes on our backs and nothing else. We didn’t have time to pack anything,” Gaeem told Al Jazeera.
A few weeks into Israel’s military campaign, one of Gaeem’s sons managed to return briefly to assess the damage to their home from a distance.
Their home – like countless others – was destroyed. Its windows were shattered, the door hinges blown off and walls caved in.
Gaeem’s family is currently renting three homes in Iktaba village, a few kilometres from Tulkarem city, for a combined rent of about $1,300 – a fortune for a family surviving on meagre savings.
Gaeem noted that while his salary as a Palestinian Authority (PA) civil servant is $500 a month, he hasn’t been paid in months because of the PA’s ongoing economic crisis.
Over the past several years, the PA has cut salaries and struggled to pay its staff as a result of dwindling donor support and Israel’s refusal to hand over tax revenue it collects on the PA’s behalf, an arrangement laid out in the Oslo Accords.
The PA itself was born out of the Oslo peace agreements of 1993 and 1995, which were signed by the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. The accords ostensibly aimed to bring about a Palestinian state in the years that followed.
The Oslo Accords split the West Bank into three zones.
The PA was tasked with overseeing security and executive functions in Area A and executive functions in Area B while Israel remained in total control of Area C.
This control allowed Israel to quietly and gradually expand illegal settlements – after encircling and then demolishing Palestinian homes and communities – in Area C, a largely agricultural region that makes up about 60 percent of the West Bank.
In July, the Israeli army issued two orders that gave it an additional legal pretext to demolish homes in Area B – a power previously held only by the PA under the Oslo Accords. The orders enabled Israel to assume control over building and planning laws and laws pertaining to agricultural sites.
Before these measures, most demolitions in Areas A and B were carried out during military operations or as reprisals against Palestinians who resisted the occupation. Israel now has an additional legal basis to destroy Palestinian homes by claiming the owners do not have building permits.
Israel systematically denies building permits to Palestinians as part of a broader policy of confiscating Palestinian homes and land, according to human rights groups.
Among the record number of demolitions carried out across the West Bank this year, the UN documented the destruction of 49 structures in Areas A and B.
Under international law, Israel is prohibited from destroying private property anywhere in occupied Palestinian territory and from establishing settlements or outposts.
“The extension of demolitions in Area A and B and the way Israel is changing the legal status in Area B are unprecedented,” said Tahani Mustafa, an expert on the West Bank with the International Crisis Group think tank.
She added that Israel appears to be trying to confine Palestinians to ever smaller pockets of land in Area A. Israel’s ultimate plan, she fears, is to make life increasingly unbearable for Palestinians in urban centres, likely by imposing more checkpoints and barriers to restrict movement and carrying out more raids
Israel’s intensifying assault on Palestinians across the West Bank already has people like al-Mohamed fearing that his family could be evicted again.
He said most Palestinians predict that Israel will turn its attention to the West Bank’s cities after it finishes its military raids in the nearby camps.
“It’s hard for us to go anywhere else other than the West Bank,” he told Al Jazeera.
“This is our land. It’s where we want to live and where we want to die.”