Middle East

Khamis Ayyad, 40, died of smoke inhalation after settlers set fire to vehicles in town of Silwad, Health Ministry says.

A Palestinian man has been killed after Israeli settlers set fire to vehicles and homes in a town in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health says.

The ministry said on Thursday that Khamis Ayyad, 40, died due to smoke inhalation after settlers attacked Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, around dawn. Ayyad and others had been trying to extinguish the fires, local residents said.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the settlers also attacked the nearby villages of Khirbet Abu Falah and Rammun, setting fire to more vehicles.

A relative of Ayyad’s, and a resident of Silwad, said they woke up at 2am (23:00 GMT) to see “flames devouring vehicles across the neighbourhood”.

“The townspeople panicked and rushed to extinguish the fires engulfing the cars and buildings,” they said, explaining that Ayyad had been trying to put out a fire burning his brother’s car.

Ayyad’s death comes amid burgeoning Israeli settler and military violence across the West Bank in tandem with Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.

Settlers have been attacking Palestinians and their property with impunity, backed by the Israeli army.

Earlier this week, Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian from Masafer Yatta, the community whose resistance to Israeli settler violence was documented in the Oscar-winning film No Other Land, with which he helped, was killed by an Israeli settler.

The suspect, identified as Yinon Levi, was placed under house arrest on Tuesday after a Magistrate Court in Jerusalem declined to keep him in custody.

According to the latest data from the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA), at least 159 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank between January 1 and July 21 of this year.

Hundreds of Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians have also been reported so far in 2025, including at least 27 incidents that resulted in casualties, property damage, or both, between July 15 and 21, OCHA said.

Observers have warned that the uptick in Israeli violence aims to forcibly displace Palestinians and pave the way for Israel to formally annex the territory, as tens of thousands have been forced out of their homes in recent months across the West Bank.

Earlier this month, the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – overwhelmingly voted in favour of a symbolic motion calling for Israel to annex the West Bank.

On Thursday, Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that “there is a moment of opportunity that must not be missed” to exert Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, according to a Times of Israel report.

“Ministers Katz and Levin have been working for many years to implement Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” the statement said, using a term used by Israeli settlers and their supporters to refer to the occupied Palestinian territory.

Back in Silwad, Raafat Hussein Hamed, a resident whose house was torched in Thursday’s attack, said that the settlers “burned whatever they could and then ran away”.

Hamed told the AFP news agency that the attackers “come from an outpost”, referring to an Israeli settlement that, in addition to violating international law, is also illegal under Israeli law.

The Israeli military told AFP that “several suspects … set fire to property and vehicles in the Silwad area”, but forces dispatched to the scene were unable to identify them. It added that Israeli police had launched an investigation.

Gaza City, Gaza Strip – Hani Abu Rizq walks through Gaza City’s wrecked streets with two bricks tied against his stomach as the rope cuts into his clothes, which hang loose from the weight he has lost.

The 31-year-old searches desperately for food to feed his mother and seven siblings with the bricks pressed against his belly – an ancient technique he never imagined he would need.

“We’re starved,” he says, his voice hollow with exhaustion.

“Even starvation as a word falls short of what we’re all feeling,” he adds, his eyes following people walking past.

He adjusts the rope around his waist, a gesture that has become as routine as breathing.

“I went back to what people did in ancient times, tying stones around my belly to try to quiet my hunger. This isn’t just war. It’s an intentional famine.”

The fading of Gaza’s heartbeat

Before October 7, 2023, and the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, food was the heartbeat of daily life in Gaza.

The days in Gaza were built around communal meals – breakfasts of zaatar and glistening olive oil, lunches of layered maqlooba and musakhan that filled homes with warmth, and evenings spent around trays of rice, tender meat and seasonal salads sparkling with herbs from gardens.

Abu Rizq remembers those days with the ache of someone mourning the dead.

The unmarried man used to love dining and gathering with family and friends. He speaks of comfortable dining rooms where home-cooked feasts were displayed like art and evenings were filled with desserts and spiced drinks that lingered on tongues and in memory.

“Now, we buy sugar and salt by the gram,” he says, his hands gesturing towards empty market stalls that once overflowed with produce.

“A tomato or cucumber is a luxury – a dream. Gaza has become more expensive than world capitals, and we have nothing.”

Over nearly 22 months of the war, the amount of food in Gaza has been drastically reduced. The besieged enclave has been under the complete mercy of Israel, which has curtailed access to everything from flour to cooking gas.

But since March 2, the humanitarian and essential items allowed in have plummeted to a frightening low. Israel completely blocked all food from March to May and has since permitted only minimal aid deliveries, prompting widespread international condemnation.

Watching children suffer

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 159 Palestinians – 90 of whom are children and infants – have died of malnutrition and dehydration during the war as of Thursday.

The World Food Programme warns of a “full-blown famine” spreading across the enclave while UNICEF reports that one in three children under five in northern Gaza suffers acute malnutrition.

Fidaa Hassan, a former nurse and mother of three from Jabalia refugee camp, knows the signs of malnutrition.

“I studied them,” she tells Al Jazeera from her displaced family’s shelter in western Gaza. “Now I see them in my own kids.”

Her youngest child, two-year-old Hassan, wakes up every morning crying for food, asking for bread that doesn’t exist.

“We celebrated each of my children’s birthdays with nice parties [before the war] – except for … Hassan. He turned two several months ago, and I couldn’t even give him a proper meal,” she says.

Her 10-year-old, Firas, she adds, shows visible signs of severe malnutrition that she recognises with painful clarity.

Before the war, her home buzzed with life around mealtimes. “We used to eat three or four times a day,” she recalls.

“Lunch was a time to gather. Winter evenings were filled with the aroma of lentil soup. We spent spring afternoons preparing stuffed vine leaves with such care.

“Now we … sleep hungry.”

“There’s no flour, no bread, nothing to fill our stomachs,” she says, holding Hassan as his small body trembles.

“We haven’t had a bite of bread in over two weeks. A kilo of flour costs 150 shekels [$40], and we can’t afford that.”

Hassan was six months old when the bombing began. Now, at two years old, he bears little resemblance to a healthy child his age.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned that Israel’s siege and restrictions on humanitarian aid are creating man-made famine conditions.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, only a fraction of the 600 truckloads of food and supplies required in Gaza daily, under normal circumstances, are coming through. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system has placed northern Gaza in Phase 5: catastrophe/famine.

Amid a lack of security, the trickle of humanitarian aid allowed to enter Gaza is subject to gangs and looting, preventing people in need from accessing scarce supplies.

Furthermore, hundreds of desperate aid seekers have been shot dead by Israeli soldiers while trying to get humanitarian aid provided by the United States- and Israeli-backed GHF since May.

Abundance as a distant memory

Hala Mohammed, 32, cradles three-year-old Qusai in a relative’s overcrowded shelter in Remal, a neighbourhood of Gaza City, as she describes how she has to watch him cry in hunger every morning, his little voice breaking.

“There’s no flour, no sugar, no milk,” she says, her arms wrapped protectively around the child, who has known only war for most of his life.

“We bake lentils like dough and cook plain pasta just to fill our stomachs. But hunger is stronger.”

This is devastating for someone who grew up in Gaza’s rich culture of hospitality and generosity and had a comfortable life in the Tuffah neighbourhood.

Before displacement forced her and her husband to flee west with Qusai, every milestone called for nice meals – New Year’s feasts, Mother’s Day gatherings, birthday parties for her husband, her mother-in-law and Qusai.

“Many of our memories were created around shared meals. Now meals [have become the] memory,” she says.

“My son asks for food and I just hold him,” she continues, her voice cracking. “The famine spreads like cancer – slowly, silently and mercilessly. Children are wasting away before our eyes. And we can do nothing.”

This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.

Despite US pressure, Hezbollah has rejected calls for its disarmament, saying that to do so would be ‘serving the Israeli project’.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has reiterated calls for Hezbollah to hand over its weapons to the army, a move rejected by the group despite growing pressure from Israel’s main ally, the United States.

In a televised speech on Thursday at the Defence Ministry’s headquarters, Aoun said authorities were demanding “the extension of the Lebanese state’s authority over all its territory, the removal of weapons from all armed groups, including Hezbollah and their handover to the Lebanese army”.

He added it was every party’s duty “to seize this historic opportunity and push without hesitation towards affirming the army and security forces’ monopoly on weapons over all Lebanese territory … in order to regain the world’s confidence”.

Aoun’s comments came a day after Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem dismissed calls for the group’s disarmament, saying that “anyone calling today for the surrender of weapons, whether internally or externally, on the Arab or the international stage, is serving the Israeli project”.

Hezbollah officials have said they will not discuss giving up the group’s remaining arsenal until Israel, with which it fought an all-out war recently, withdraws from all of Lebanon and ends its strikes.

“For the thousandth time, I assure you that my concern in having a [state] weapons monopoly comes from my concern to defend Lebanon’s sovereignty and borders, to liberate the occupied Lebanese territories and build a state that welcomes all its citizens”, said Aoun on Thursday, addressing Hezbollah’s supporters as an “essential pillar” of society.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began on October 8, 2023, as the Lebanese group launched strikes in solidarity with the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza, which was coming under Israeli attack. Although a ceasefire was reached last November, Israel has kept up its air attacks on Lebanon and has threatened to continue until Hezbollah has been disarmed.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hezbollah was to withdraw its fighters north of the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the Israeli border. Israel, meanwhile, was meant to pull all of its troops out of Lebanon, but has kept them in five areas it deems strategic.

Aoun in his speech also demanded the withdrawal of Israeli troops, the release of Lebanese prisoners and “an immediate cessation of Israeli hostilities”.

“Today, we must choose between collapse and stability,” he said.

Lebanon presents proposal for Hezbollah disarmament

The ceasefire was based on a previous United Nations Security Council resolution that said only the Lebanese military and UN peacekeepers should possess weapons in the country’s south, and that all non-state groups should be disarmed.

However, that resolution went unfulfilled for years, with the Iran-backed political party and armed group’s arsenal before the latest war seen as far superior to the army’s, and the group wielding extensive political influence.

The US has been pushing Lebanon to issue a formal cabinet decision committing to disarm Hezbollah before talks can resume on a halt to Israeli military operations in the country, five sources familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency.

Lebanon has proposed modifications to “ideas” submitted by the US on Hezbollah’s disarmament, Aoun said in his speech, and a plan would be discussed at a cabinet meeting next week to “establish a timetable for implementation”.

Under the Lebanese proposal, there would be an “immediate cessation of Israeli hostilities” in Lebanon, including air strikes and targeted killing, a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and the release of Lebanese prisoners held in Israel, the president added.

Aoun said Lebanon’s proposal also calls for international donors to contribute $1bn annually for 10 years to beef up the Lebanese army’s capabilities and for an international donor conference to raise funds in the autumn for reconstruction of Lebanese areas damaged and destroyed during last year’s war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Lebanon, for its part, would implement the “withdrawal of the weapons of all armed forces, including Hezbollah, and their surrender to the Lebanese Army”, he said.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the United Kingdom will recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel takes more steps to end the “appalling situation” in Gaza, including agreeing to a ceasefire.

Washington, DC – A new poll from the research firm Gallup suggests that only 32 percent of Americans approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza, a 10-point drop from September 2024, as anger over atrocities against Palestinians continues to rise.

The survey, released on Tuesday, also showed an enormous partisan divide over the issue. Seventy-one percent of respondents who identified as members of the Republican Party said they approve of Israel’s conduct, compared with 8 percent of Democrats.

Overall, 60 percent of respondents said they disapprove of Israel’s military action in Gaza.

Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland and the director of the Critical Issues Poll, said the latest survey shows a trend of growing discontent with Israel that goes beyond the war on Gaza.

“What we’re seeing here is an entrenchment of a generational paradigm among particularly young Americans – mostly Democrats and independents, but even some young Republicans – who now perceive the horror in Gaza in a way of describing the character of Israel itself,” Telhami told Al Jazeera.

In Tuesday’s survey, only 9 percent of respondents under the age of 35 said they approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza, and 6 percent said they have a favourable opinion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The study follows an April poll from the Pew Research Center, which found a majority of respondents – including 50 percent of Republicans under 50 years old – said they had unfavourable views of Israel.

But even as public opinion in the US continues to shift, Washington’s policy of unconditional support for Israel has been unwavering. Since the start of the war on Gaza, the US has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, as well as diplomatic backing at the United Nations.

Both President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have been uncompromising backers of the Israeli assault on Gaza, which human rights groups have described as a genocide.

Israel has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, imposed a suffocating siege and flattened most of the enclave, reducing its buildings to rubble. The siege is credited with prompting deadly hunger: The UN on Tuesday said there was “mounting evidence of famine and widespread starvation”.

Nevertheless, the US Congress also remains staunchly pro-Israel on a bipartisan basis. Earlier this month, a legislative push to block $500m in missile defence support for Israel failed in a 422-to-six vote in the House of Representatives.

So, what explains the schism between the views of average Americans and the policies of their elected representatives?

Telhami cited voter “priorities”. He explained that foreign policy traditionally has not been a driving factor in elections. For example, domestic issues like abortion, the economy and gun control usually dominate the electoral agenda for Democrats.

He also noted the influence of pro-Israel groups, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which have spent millions of dollars to defeat critics of the Israeli government, particularly progressives in Democratic primaries.

But things are changing, according to the professor.

Palestine is rising in public importance, he said, with US voters looking at the issue through the lens of “soul-searching”, as a way of questioning what they stand for.

“It’s not just Gaza. It’s that we are enabling the horror in Gaza as a country – in terms of our aid or support or, even in some cases, direct collaboration,” Telhami said.

“That it is actually creating a paradigmatic shift about who we are, not just about: ‘Do we support Israel? Do we support the Palestinians?’”

He said the victory of Palestinian rights advocate Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary last month underscores that movement.

“The rise of Zohran Mamdani in New York is giving people pause because he’s been able to generate excitement, not, as some people thought, despite his views on Israel-Palestine, but actually because of his views on Israel-Palestine.”

Washington, DC – A spokesperson for the State Department in the United States has been questioned about the killing of Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen, allegedly at the hands of an Israeli settler previously sanctioned by the US government.

At a news briefing on Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce demurred when asked whether the suspect in Hathaleen’s death, Yinon Levi, would be held accountable.

“Israel has investigations that it’s implementing regarding situations of this sort,” Bruce said. “I don’t know the end result of what that’s going to be, nor will I comment or speculate on what should happen.”

Bruce’s tense exchange with reporters came one day after video circulated showing Levi opening fire on Hathaleen in the village of Umm al-Kheir in the occupied West Bank.

The 31-year-old Palestinian activist later died from a gunshot wound to his chest.

Levi is among several Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank who were previously sanctioned under the former administration of US President Joe Biden for perpetrating violence against Palestinians.

But President Donald Trump reversed those sanctions in an executive order shortly after taking office for a second term in January. The United Kingdom and the European Union, however, maintain sanctions against Levi.

Hathaleen, a resident of Masafer Yatta, had helped create the Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land, which captured the effects of Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law, and attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.

In Tuesday’s news briefing, Bruce appeared to suggest that Hathaleen’s shooting happened in the “war zone” of Gaza, before being corrected.

Still, she maintained that the Trump administration sought to address violence wherever it occurred.

“It’s the same argument. We see this in the West Bank. We know when there’s violence in general. We saw something unfold in New York City as well, with a shooting in New York City yesterday,” she said, in an apparent reference to an unrelated shooting in a Manhattan skyscraper.

The State Department did not respond to a subsequent request from Al Jazeera about whether the Trump administration would revisit its sanctions policy in light of the killing.

On Tuesday, Israeli media reported that Levi had been placed on house arrest after being charged with manslaughter and unlawful firearm use.

Illegal settlements and Trump

Hathaleen was a father of three who coordinated with several influential advocacy and lobbying groups in the US, and his death has renewed scrutiny of Trump’s policies towards illegal Israeli settlements in occupied territories like the West Bank.

During his first term, Trump reversed a longstanding policy recognising such settlements as illegal. Such settlements are in violation of international law and widely seen as a means of displacing Palestinians and seizing their lands.

But Israeli settlements have continued to spread rapidly in recent years and are seen as a major roadblock to future peace agreements with Palestinian leaders.

Upon taking office earlier this year, Trump revoked many Biden-era executive orders, including the sanctions against Israeli settlers. The move reportedly came amid pressure from the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

During his term, Biden had been criticised for continuing to funnel aid to Israel amid its war in Gaza, but his administration showed a willingness to take a harder line when it came to settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“The situation in the West Bank — in particular high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction — has reached intolerable levels,” Biden’s executive order, dated February 2024, said.

It added that Israeli actions in the West Bank constitute “a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region”.

Violence on the part of Israeli settlers and military forces has surged since Israel’s war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, with at least 1,000 Palestinians killed in the West Bank.

Rights observers say violent settlers are often protected by the military as they attack Palestinians.

Those killed have included US citizens, most recently Sayfollah Musallet, a 20-year-old resident of Florida, beaten to death while visiting his family’s land in the village of Sinjil.

In a rare statement condemning Musallet’s killing, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a vocal supporter of Israeli settlements, called on the country to “aggressively investigate” what he called a “criminal and terrorist act”.

To date, no one has been arrested or charged in the killing.

In a statement following Monday’s attack, J Street, a left-leaning pro-Israel lobbying group, called on US lawmakers to support legislation that would codify the Biden-era sanctions against settlers like Levi.

The group explained that its members had “deep, personal ties” to Hathaleen, and said they were “heartbroken and horrified” by his killing.

In a post on the social media platform X on Tuesday, Congress member Delia Ramirez called Hathaleen’s killing “a painful reminder that our government and Israel continue to enable and condone violence in the West Bank”.

“We must reinstate the sanctions on West Bank settlers perpetrating violence and hold accountable all those whose extreme and escalating violence continues to rob us of our neighbors — including Trump and Netanyahu,” she wrote.

Witnesses say the Israeli settler arrested in the fatal shooting of Palestinian activist Odeh Hadalin said he was “glad about it.” The shooting happened during a confrontation over an Israeli bulldozer that damaged infrastructure in a Palestinian village.

Greek riot police clashed with demonstrators in Rhodes who were protesting the docking of an Israeli cruise ship. The Crown Iris had previously bypassed Syros after Gaza-related protests. The incidents mark a growing pattern of anti-Israel demonstrations at Greek ports.

Masafer Yatta, occupied West Bank – Awdah Hathaleen was standing by a fence in the Umm al-Kheir community centre when he was shot in the chest by an Israeli settler on Monday.

The beloved 31-year-old activist and father of three fell to the ground as people rushed over to try to help him. Then an ambulance came out of the nearby illegal settlement of Carmel and took him away.

Israeli authorities have refused to release his body for burial, simply telling his family on Monday night that he had died, depriving them of the closure of laying him to rest immediately, as Islam dictates.

Mourning

Under the scorching sun of the South Hebron Hills, the people of Umm al-Kheir were joined by anti-occupation activists from all over the world – gathered in silence to mourn Awdah, who was a key figure in non-violent resistance against settler violence in Masafer Yatta.

They came together in the same yard where Awdah was standing when he was shot to death by Israeli settler Yinon Levi, who later said, “I’m glad I did it,” according to witnesses.

Rocks had been laid in a circle around Awdah’s blood on the ground, mourners stopping there as if paying their respects.

Around the circle, the elders sat in silence, waiting for news that didn’t arrive on whether Awdah’s body would be returned by the Israeli army.

There is a feeling of shock that Awdah, out of all people, was the one murdered in cold blood, his cousin Eid Hathaleen, 41, told Al Jazeera about his “truly beloved” relative.

“There was [nobody] who contributed as much to the community in Umm al-Kheir as Awdah,” Alaa Hathaleen, 26, Awdah’s cousin and brother-in-law, said.

“I can’t believe that tomorrow I will wake up and Awdah won’t be here.”

Awdah had three children – five-year-old Watan, four-year-old Muhammad, and seven-month-old Kinan – and he loved them above everything else in the world, several of his friends and relatives told Al Jazeera.

“He was a great father,” Alaa said. “The children would go to him more than to their mother.”

Awdah got married in 2019, Jewish Italian activist Micol Hassan told Al Jazeera over the phone. “His wedding was a beautiful occasion in 2019. We organised cars that came from all over Palestine [for it].

“He loved his children so much,” she continued. “Every time he put them to sleep, they cried and asked where their daddy was.”

Hassan, who has been barred from returning to the occupied West Bank by Israeli authorities, also fondly recalled how much Awdah loved coffee and how she would bring him packs of Italian coffee whenever she was able to get to Umm al-Kheir.

Awdah also loved football, playing it every chance he got, even though Umm al-Kheir’s facilities are badly degraded and all the villagers have is a paved yard with dilapidated goalposts.

In fact, Awdah’s last breaths were on that same battered football pitch, possibly the one place in the village where he spent the most time.

No matter how bad settler attacks were, Alaa said, Awdah would sit down with him and discuss their projections and hopes for his favourite team, Spanish side Real Madrid.

“His love for Real Madrid ran in his veins,” Alaa added. “Maybe if they knew how much he loved them, Real Madrid would speak about Masafer Yatta.”

Peaceful activist and ‘radical humanist’

Awdah has been an activist since he was 17 years old, working to stop the Israeli attempts to expel the villagers of Masafer Yatta from their homes and lands.

He hosted countless visiting activists who came to the occupied West Bank to support Palestinian activists and villagers, helping them understand the situation on the ground and embracing their presence with his trademark hospitality.

Perhaps his most famous such collaboration was his work with Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, who co-directed No Other Land, a documentary film that won an Oscar award this year.

Everyone who spoke to Al Jazeera remembers him as the kindest person, with a brave, peaceful heart.

He was “tayyeb, salim”, they said, using the Arabic words for “kind” and “peaceful”.

Awdah would tell anyone who came to Umm al-Kheir that he didn’t choose to be an activist; it just happened, Hassan told Al Jazeera, adding that he welcomed everyone, regardless of faith or citizenship.

“He was a radical humanist,” she said.

“He wanted the occupation to end without suffering,” said Alaa, adding that Awdah always thought about what the future would bring for his children and others.

He chose to become an English teacher because of that, Eid told Al Jazeera. He wanted the village children to grow up educated and able to tell the world their story in English, so they could reach more people.

“He taught all his students to love and welcome everyone regardless of their faith and origin,” said Eid.

A group of his students – he taught English from grades one through nine in the local school – huddled together in the community centre yard among the mourners, remembering their teacher.

“He would always try to make classes fun,” said Mosab, nine years old.

“He made us laugh,” added his classmate Mohammed, 11.

Murdered by a raging settler

Umm al-Kheir is one of more than 30 villages and hamlets in the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta, a region that, more than any, has seen the consequences of the expansion of settlements and violence linked to it.

The incident that led up to Awdah’s killing began the day before, recounted activist Mattan Berner-Kadish, who had been in Umm al-Kheir providing protective presence to the Palestinian community.

A digger was to be delivered to the illegal settlement, and the villagers had agreed to coordinate the passage of the machinery with the settlers, to prevent any damage to village infrastructure.

But the settler driving the machinery ran over a water pipe and began rolling over other infrastructure, threatening to roll into the town and cause more damage.

When villagers gathered to try to stop the machinery, the operator used the digger’s claw to hit one of them in the head, dropping him to the ground, semi-conscious.

Awdah was 10-15 metres (30-50 feet) away from the altercation, standing in the community centre yard, looking on.

In the chaos, gunshots started ringing out, and Berner-Kadish saw Yinon Levi shooting at people. Amid the screams and panic, he realised that Awdah had been shot.

An Israeli settler just shot Odeh Hadalin in the lungs, a remarkable activist who helped us film No Other Land in Masafer Yatta. Residents identified Yinon Levi, sanctioned by the EU and US, as the shooter. This is him in the video firing like crazy. pic.twitter.com/xH1Uo6L1wN

— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) July 28, 2025

He tried to calm Levi down, telling him that he had directly shot someone and likely killed him. To which Levi responded: “I’m glad I did it.”

Berner-Kadish also tried to talk to the Israeli soldiers who arrived on the scene, only to hear from three of them that they wished they had been the ones to shoot Awdah.

Following the murder, the Israeli army arrested five men from the Hathaleen family. On Tuesday, the Israeli army closed the area around Umm al-Kheir, restricting any access to it.

Also on Tuesday, Levi was released to house arrest by Israeli courts, which charged him with negligent homicide.

Levi was sanctioned by Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States for violent attacks on Palestinians.

The five Hathaleen men arrested after Awdah was killed are still in Israeli custody, Alaa told Al Jazeera.

Weeping, he fretted: “What if [the Israelis] return [Awdah’s] body and they can’t pay their last tribute to them?”

Israeli TV personalities are making fun of children dying of starvation in Gaza, with one even claiming a mother ate her baby. It is part of a right-wing media campaign that is promoting the famine as a hoax.

‘All the kids are hungry. We are hungry.’

This is a day in the life of a Palestinian family in Gaza, living through Israel’s policy of starvation. Video shows the challenges they face as they try to find a meal from a charity kitchen during a widespread famine.

At least 60,034 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the war on Gaza erupted in October 2023, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health.

The grim milestone was reached on Tuesday, with medical sources telling Al Jazeera that at least 62 Palestinians, including 19 aid seekers, have been killed since dawn, despite “pauses” in fighting to deliver essential humanitarian aid.

Local accounts indicate that Israel used booby-trapped robots, as well as tanks and drones, in what residents describe as one of the bloodiest nights in recent weeks, said Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

“This is a sign of a possible imminent Israeli ground manoeuvre, although Israel has not yet confirmed the objectives of the attack,” he said.

The latest attacks come as the “worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in Gaza, according to a new report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global hunger monitoring system.

“Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City,” it said in the report.

“Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point,” the IPC document added.

Food consumption has sharply deteriorated, with one in three individuals going without food for days at a time, it said.

Malnutrition rose rapidly in the first half of July, with more than 20,000 children being admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July. More than 3,000 of them are severely malnourished.

The IPC alert comes against the backdrop of its latest analysis released in May, which projected that by September, the entire population of Gaza would face high levels of acute food shortages, with more than 500,000 people expected to be in a state of extreme food deprivation, starvation, and destitution, unless Israel lifts its blockade and stops its military campaign.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and humanitarian blockade, which it lifted partially in March, continues to plunge the Palestinian territory into an increasingly dire malnutrition crisis as at least 147 people, including 88 children, have died from malnutrition since the start of the war, the Health Ministry said on Monday.

Starvation is affecting all sectors of the population, with Sima Bahous, the executive director of UN Women, saying one million women and girls in Gaza face the “unthinkable choice” of starving or risking their lives while searching for food.

“This horror must end,” Bahous said in a social media post, calling for unhindered access of humanitarian aid into the Strip, the release of captives and a permanent ceasefire.

Babies particularly affected

Medical staff at Gaza’s hospitals are seeing babies severely malnourished “without muscles and fat tissue, just the skin over the bone”, the director of paediatrics and maternity at Nasser Hospital, Ahmed al-Farra, told Al Jazeera.

The long-term consequences of malnutrition for babies, infants and children are severe as they are still developing their central nervous system during the first three years of their lives, said al-Farra.

Babies who have been malnourished will not have the required folic acid, B1 complex and polyunsaturated fatty acids that are essential for the composition of the central nervous system.

Al-Farrah said malnutrition can affect cognitive development in the future, make it hard for a child to read and write, and lead to depression and anxiety.

Tanya Haj Hassan, a doctor with the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF), explains that serious health risks remain even after food becomes available again.

“The reality is the problem doesn’t end when the food arrives … malnutrition impacts all aspects of the body’s function,” Hassan told Al Jazeera.

“All of the cells in your body are altered by this. In the intestines, the cells die. That results in issues with absorption, with bacteria. Your pancreas struggles; absorbing fats is difficult.

“Your heart cells become weak and thinned. The connections are impacted, the heart rate slows. These children often die of heart failure, even when they’re being refed,” she added.

“They also have life-threatening shifts in salts; these can also lead to fatal heart rhythms. They’re more prone to sepsis and shock,” the doctor said, in reference to oral rehydration salt solutions, which are usually administered to people suffering from malnutrition.

“[Patients can face] low blood pressure, skin lesions, hypothermia, fluid overload, infection, vitamin deficiencies that can affect vision and bone.”

Odeh Hadalin, an activist, football player and participant in the Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land, has been shot in the chest and killed by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank. The suspect, Yinon Levi, has been under sanctions by the EU and the US.

US President Donald Trump appeared to obliquely reject Israeli claims that no starvation is taking place in Gaza, saying images of hungry children show “real starvation” that one can’t “fake”. He also said the US would assist in setting up new food centres.

Israel’s government seems able to act however it pleases with few consequences. But will short-term military gains outweigh regional and international isolation? Al Jazeera’s Abubakr Al-Shamahi explains.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is warning that an Israel-Palestinian two-state solution is “farther than ever”. Speaking at a high-level UN conference to promote a two-state solution, he said the destruction of Gaza and the illegal annexation of the West Bank must come to an end.