Middle East

At least 15 people, including a six-week-old baby, have starved to death in the last 24 hours in the besieged Gaza Strip, according to health officials, who say a wave of hunger that has loomed over the bombarded enclave for months is now finally crashing down.

Six-week-old Yousef’s family could not find baby formula to feed him, said his uncle, Adham al-Safadi.

“You can’t get milk anywhere, and if you do find any, it’s $100 for a tub,” he told the Reuters news agency.

Three other children were among the 15 people who died from starvation on Tuesday, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 101 people, including 80 children, have died from hunger and malnutrition since Israel launched its assault on Gaza in October 2023. Most of the deaths have come in the last few weeks.

Gaza has seen its food stocks run out since Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March. Israel then partially lifted the blockade in May, allowing a trickle of aid supplies to enter the territory and be distributed by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), largely bypassing the United Nations.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since May while trying to get aid, mostly near the GHF distribution sites, according to the UN rights office.

The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, Phillipe Lazzarini, said the aid distribution scheme was a “sadistic death trap”.

“The so called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill,” Lazzarini said on Tuesday on X.

Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid, without providing evidence of widespread diversion, and blames UN agencies for failing to deliver food it has allowed in.

The GHF has rejected what it said were “false and exaggerated statistics” from the UN.

‘Horror show’

Lazzarini also warned that the UN agency’s staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, were fainting on duty in Gaza due to hunger and exhaustion.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the situation for the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza facing bombardment, malnutrition and starvation a “horror show”, with “a level of death and destruction without parallel in recent times.

“We are seeing the last gasp of a humanitarian system built on humanitarian principles,” Guterres told the UN Security Council. “That system is being denied the conditions to function.”

Speaking to reporters, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, said malnourished Palestinians were arriving at Gaza’s remaining functioning hospitals “every moment”, and warned that there could be “alarming numbers” of deaths due to starvation.

“Hospitals are already overwhelmed by the number of casualties from gunfire. They can’t provide much more help for hunger-related symptoms because of food and medicine shortages,” said Khalil al-Daqran, the spokesperson for Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Deqran said some 600,000 people were suffering from malnutrition, including at least 60,000 pregnant women. Symptoms among those going hungry include dehydration and anaemia, he said.

While Gaza has widespread shortages of goods due to the Israeli restrictions, baby formula, in particular, is in critically short supply, according to aid groups, doctors and residents.

In a statement, Hamas said it was time to “break the restrictions” and allow for more aid to enter Gaza, adding that it was surprised by the “silence” of Arab and Islamic countries in light of the “systematic genocide and criminal starvation” in the enclave.

Deadly attacks continue

Medical sources told Al Jazeera that at least 81 other Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Tuesday, including 31 people who were seeking aid.

Mahmoud Bassal, the spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defence, said Israeli strikes on the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City killed at least 13 people and wounded more than 50.

In Gaza City, an Israeli attack on a building housing displaced Palestinians killed 15 people, including six children, according to a source at al-Shifa Hospital.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said Israeli air strikes hit residential clusters in the eastern part of the city, particularly the Zeitoun neighbourhood. A “group of people” was hit, he said.

The attacks come a day after Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern parts of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza for the first time since the deadly assault began.

According to Mahmoud, “many Palestinians are unable to go back to their homes as they are in the firing line of heavy artillery”, despite claims by the Israeli army that it has concluded its assault in Deir el-Balah.

“Quadcopters and surveillance drones also hover over the area, creating an atmosphere of intimidation and fear,” Mahmoud said.

The Civil Defence agency’s Bassal said two people were killed in Deir el-Balah on Tuesday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that between 50,000 and 80,000 people were living in the area, which, until the Israeli offensive this week, had been considered the only relatively safe area in the tiny Strip.

Some 30,000 were living in displacement camps.

OCHA said that nearly 88 percent of the entire Gaza Strip was now either under evacuation threats or within Israeli militarised zones, forcing the population into an ever-shrinking space.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, meanwhile, accused Israeli troops of entering its staff residence and forcing women and children to evacuate, as they handcuffed, stripped and interrogated male staff at gunpoint.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to health officials.

UN chief Antonio Guterres says ‘the fossil fuel age is flailing and failing’ as renewable energy becomes cheaper.

The global switch to renewable energy has passed a “positive tipping point”, and solar and wind power will become even cheaper and more widespread, according to two reports.

Last year, 74 percent of the growth in electricity generated worldwide was from wind, solar and other green sources, according to a report compiled by multiple United Nations agencies called Seizing the Moment of Opportunity. It was published on Tuesday.

It found that 92.5 percent of all new electricity capacity added to the grid worldwide in 2024 came from renewables. Meanwhile, sales of electric vehicles were up from 500,000 in 2015 to more than 17 million in 2024.

The three cheapest electricity sources globally last year were onshore wind, solar panels and new hydropower, according to an energy cost report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an intergovernmental organisation. Solar power now is 41 percent cheaper and wind power is 53 percent cheaper globally than the lowest-cost fossil fuel, the reports said.

“The fossil fuel age is flailing and failing,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a speech at the UN headquarters in New York City.

“We are in the dawn of a new energy era. An era where cheap, clean, abundant energy powers a world rich in economic opportunity.”

“Just follow the money,” Guterres said, quoting the reports, which showed last year there was $2 trillion in investment in green energy, which is about $800bn more than in fossil fuels.

Renewables are booming despite fossil fuels getting nearly nine times the government consumption subsidies as they do, Guterres and the reports said.

In 2023, global fossil fuel subsidies amounted to $620bn, compared with $70bn for renewables, the UN report said.

Still, the UN warned that the switch to renewable energy is not happening fast enough.

Despite the boom in renewables, fossil fuel production globally is still increasing instead of going down in response. UN officials said that’s because power demand is increasing overall, spurred by developing countries, artificial intelligence data centres and the need for cooling in an ever warmer world.

Guterres warned nations that are hanging on to fossil fuels that they were heading down a dangerous path that would make them poorer not richer.

“Countries that cling to fossil fuels are not protecting their economies. They [are] sabotaging them – driving up costs, undermining competitiveness, locking in stranded assets,” Guterres said.

The global renewables growth has been mostly in countries like China – where one-tenth of the economy is tied up in green energy – as well as countries such as India and Brazil.

Africa represented less than 2 percent of the new green energy capacity installed last year despite having great electrification needs, the reports said.

“The Global South must be empowered to generate its own electricity without adding to already unsustainable level of debts,” Bahamian climate scientist Adelle Thomas of the Natural Resources Defense Council, who did not work on the reports, told The Associated Press news agency.

Guterres called on major technology firms to power data centres completely with renewables by 2030.

“A typical AI data centre eats up as much electricity as 100,000 homes,” Guterres said. “By 2030, data centres could consume as much electricity as all of Japan does today.”

“The future is being built in the cloud,” the UN chief said.

“It must be powered by the sun, the wind and the promise of a better world.”

Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III condemned Israel’s bombardment and blockade of Gaza as “morally unacceptable” after a rare visit to the besieged territory on July 18. Their trip followed an Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church, which killed three people.

More than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed in several days of sectarian violence in Syria’s coastal regions earlier this year, a government committee tasked with investigating the attacks has found.

The committee said it had identified 298 suspects implicated in serious violations during the violence in the country’s Alawite heartland that left at least 1,426 members of the minority community dead in March.

Tuesday’s findings come after a new wave of violence involving the country’s Druze community, raising further questions over the new government’s ability to manage sectarian tensions and maintain security after the December overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad – himself an Alawite.

The March violence took place in a predominantly Alawite region of Syria’s coast, where government forces and allied groups were accused of carrying out summary executions, mostly targeting Alawite civilians, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights saying more than 1,700 people were killed.

The committee’s report said there was no evidence that Syria’s military leadership ordered attacks on the Alawite community.

The committee’s investigation documented “serious violations against civilians on March 7, 8 and 9, including murder, premeditated murder, looting, destruction and burning of homes, torture and sectarian insults”, spokesman Yasser al-Farhan told a news conference in Damascus.

The committee confirmed “the names of 1,426 dead, including 90 women, with most of the rest being civilians” from the Alawite community, he said, adding that an unspecified number of further dead had not been verified.

The investigation also “identified 298 individuals by name” who were suspected of involvement in the violations, al-Farhan continued, describing the figure as provisional.

These have been referred for prosecution, and 37 people have been arrested, officials told journalists.

They didn’t say how many suspects were members of security forces.

‘Bigger than just violations’    

Authorities have accused gunmen loyal to al-Assad of instigating the violence, launching deadly attacks that killed dozens of security personnel.

The committee said 238 members of the army and security forces were killed in the attacks in the provinces of Tartous, Latakia and Hama.

About 200,000 pro-government military reinforcements then converged on the area, according to al-Farhan.

Jana Mustafa, a 24-year-old student from Baniyas whose father was killed during the violence, said she had not been waiting for the report “because the truth was clear to me”.

“The number of bodies, the mass graves and the screams of the victims were enough to clarify what happened,” she said, expressing disappointment that the committee’s announcements appeared to include “justifications for everything that happened”.

“The issue is bigger than just violations. It was directed against an entire sect,” she added.

The committee said it based its report on more than 30 on-site visits, meetings with dozens of people in the towns and villages where violations occurred, and testimonies from hundreds of witnesses and victims. It also heard from government officials.

Al-Farhan said the committee had identified people “linked to certain military groups and factions” among those involved in the violence, adding it believed they “violated military orders and are suspected of committing violations against civilians”.

‘Disappointed and frustrated’

Rama Hussein, 22, whose three sisters, two cousins and grandfather were killed in the Jableh region, said she was “sad, disappointed and frustrated” with the committee.

“No one listened to my testimony, no one visited us – I don’t know who this committee met or who they saw,” she said.

“I hope we see real accountability, not just reports and press conferences,” she said, calling for compensation for the families of those killed.

Human rights groups and international organisations have said entire families were killed, including women, children and the elderly.

Gunmen stormed homes and asked residents whether they were Alawite or Sunni before killing or sparing them, they said.

Committee chairman Jumaa al-Anzi said authorities had been consulted to identify individuals who appeared in videos on social media documenting violations, and that some of them were included among the suspects.

The body said two lists of people “suspected of involvement in attacks or violations” had been referred to the judiciary.

Al-Anzi, the committee’s chair, said that “we have no evidence that the [military] leaders gave orders to commit violations”.

The presidency had said new Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa had received the committee’s report on July 13, the same day that sectarian violence erupted in the Druze-majority province of Suwayda.

Those clashes broke out between Sunni Muslim Bedouin clans and Druze armed groups, and government security forces who intervened to restore order.

Druze armed groups launched revenge attacks on Bedouin communities.

Hundreds have been killed, and the United Nations says more than 128,500 people have been displaced. The violence has largely stopped as a ceasefire takes hold.

The committee chair said the violence in Suwayda is “painful for all Syrians” but “beyond the jurisdiction” of his committee.

“Time will reveal what happened and who is responsible for it,” he said.

Sebastia, occupied West Bank – When Israeli military vehicles approach, news of the latest incursion begins cascading through Sebastia from one person to another, and the young people run home as fast as possible.

They try to get back before invading soldiers reach their street, knowing all too well the potentially grave consequences if they don’t.

The warning cries often originate from those walking near the vantage point of Sebastia archaeological park’s scenic summit.

From here, people can spot army vehicles on the roads below before they reach the town and its ancient ruins, giving people a chance to hide their young.

Soon after, walking prevention warnings are often circulated on social media, and the residents of Sebastia – once a religious pilgrimage site and a tourism hotspot – have the choice of hunkering down at home or facing soldiers who no longer show any restraint.

‘He celebrated killing my son’

In January this year, an Israeli soldier shot dead 14-year-old Ahmed Jazar and then raised his rifle in the air triumphantly after hitting the unarmed boy in the chest, piercing his heart.

Witnesses saw the soldier “celebrating” as Ahmed slowly bled to death on the ground, his father, Rashid, aged 57, told Al Jazeera.

Ahmed was mature beyond his years, his parents say, and made caring for his poverty-stricken family his vocation.

He was also a talented painter and wanted to train as a decorator. He aspired to open a shop so he could make enough money to buy his family a permanent home – something better than the overcrowded rental apartment they lived in.

“They shot Ahmed and killed all his dreams, right there and then,” his mother, Wafaa, said.

“The army treats us like we’re in a state of war – but we’ve done nothing.

“Soldiers are here every day, and no one feels their children are safe unless they are at home.”

Ahmed woke up in the early afternoon on the Sunday he was killed, Wafaa and Rashid say, having stayed up late playing with his friends in the neighbourhood the night before. He liked to play football in the schoolyard, cycle near the archaeological park, and eat at the town’s once-busy cafes.

He came back after seeing his friends and spent some time with his family, unaware that they would be sharing their final moments.

Then, as the dinner hour neared, his parents sent Ahmed out to buy bread.

“It was always a habit of his to come and go in this way,” Rashid said. “He was very sociable … everyone loved him.

“But this time, he left and never came back.”

The Israeli soldiers’ frequent raids on occupied West Bank towns prompt some children and young people into acts of defiance, like throwing stones towards the heavily armed soldiers or their armoured vehicles, or shining laser pointers at them.

According to some neighbours, Ahmed and his friends did shine laser pens on the fatal January day, hiding behind a wall near a nursery as some soldiers walked towards them.

His family denies Ahmed’s part in this. Rashid and Wafaa said they were awaiting his return from the shops so they could eat dinner together.

“He was just a child,” Rashid said. “The Israeli soldier knew he was a young boy – and that he was no threat to the army in any way.

“He was hundreds of metres away from them when they shot him!”

The bullet-dented door and facade of the nursery, established by charity Save The Children, still stand as a reminder of what happened when Ahmed was shot dead.

Speaking to Israeli newspaper Haaretz in March, a military spokesperson said: “In the wake of the incident, an investigation was launched by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division. Naturally, we cannot elaborate on an ongoing investigation.”

Palestinians, including residents of Sebastia, say they are used to what they call “sham” investigations that usually have no result, and almost certainly no punishment for perpetrators.

Rashid was contacted by the military to provide information for the investigation into Ahmed’s killing, but he refused.

“They killed my son and then call me to talk about justice?” he said.

Al Jazeera sent written inquiries to Israeli authorities, asking for comment on the investigation into Ahmed’s shooting but no response had been received by time of publication.

The Israeli army often raids cities and towns in the West Bank, but few are targeted like Sebastia, where it has stepped up attacks since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu established his far-right ultranationalist government in late 2022.

Since then, the military killed Fawzi Makhalfeh, aged 19, in July 2023, and Ahmed on January 19 this year.

There have been at least 25 gunshot injuries in Sebastia since Netanyahu’s coalition government came to power, a handful of which involved children. A 22-year-old man from the nearby town of Attil was shot in the chest while driving through Sebastia earlier this month.

Violent settlers also wreak havoc on Palestinian landowners around the town, which is dependent on agriculture and tourism, and yet more settlements, official and unofficial, are set to be built around Sebastia.

Soldiers attack anyone who fights back and circulate threatening messages using residents’ mobile phones. One recording, heard by Al Jazeera, by what is ostensibly an Israeli soldier, accuses townspeople of being “involved in terrorism”, and warns they will “pay the price”.

Justice

Wafaa and her husband sat on either side of a memorial to their slain son in the humble living room of the rented home they can barely afford. Ahmed left behind four brothers and three sisters aged between seven and 20.

Rashid used to work as a painter in Israel, but, like thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, he has been unable to go to work across the border since October 7, contributing to the family’s perilous financial situation.

The eldest son, Rushdi, 19, works as a carpenter intermittently, and, other than Rashid, is the only family member in employment.

Ahmed had dropped out of school, they said, to help his father by doing odd jobs such as painting and olive picking to generate money for the family. Wafaa, who used to make dresses, is also unable to find work and still has five young children dependent on her care.

Two of Ahmed’s remaining siblings, Amir, aged six, and Adam, 11, clung on to their mother as she spoke.

“I sit by Ahmed’s grave and cry for hours,” Wafaa told Al Jazeera, weeks after her son’s killing. “I cry there as much as I can, so that my children don’t see me – I have to be strong for them.”

The 40-year-old was incapable of keeping eye contact, as if tears would overcome her at any moment. She held up Ahmed’s blood-stained clothes, torn by bullets.

After the soldiers left that day, Rashid recalled rushing to the scene and pushing his way through a crowd, only to find Ahmed collapsed in a pool of blood, metres away from where he was shot.

Rashid then drove with Ahmed to An-Najah Hospital in Nablus, but his son did not survive the journey. He was pronounced dead on arrival.

His mother fell unconscious after hearing of Ahmed’s killing, and says she awoke feeling “defeated”, as if her life was over.

She says Israel wants Sebastia residents to feel this way, so they resist no longer and leave.

Rashid, with a vacant expression, said his son’s killing had terrorised his family into staying indoors – and when invasions take place, they lock their doors, hide in a back room, and turn off the lights.

He says similar precautions are taken by many in Sebastia, who are “living in fear” after his son’s killing sent out a chilling message to those who call the ancient town home.

“The army comes here daily – and now we fear to go out,” Wafaa added. “Soldiers are prepared to shoot children now.

“I let my son go to the shops, but I got him back [covered] in blood.”

My brother recently sent me a copy of an Israeli military order that was found by farmers on our land and nearby plots in the occupied West Bank. The document, accompanied by a map, states that the land is being seized for military purposes.

It does not specify how long the land will be held and offers the landowners and users only seven days from an upcoming field visit – coordinated between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority (PA) liaison office – to file an objection with the Israeli army’s legal adviser. This field visit typically serves to demarcate the boundaries of the confiscated land.

From our family’s past experience, confiscation under the guise of “security reasons” often precedes the establishment of a colonial settlement. This happened in 1973 when our family received a similar military order for land along the Jerusalem-Hebron Road. Within a week, a military post was established. Months later, a civilian settlement, Elazar, was erected in the same location.

What’s shocking this time is that this new order has barely made headlines despite the size of the land being slated for confiscation. According to the military order, it amounts to 5,758 dunums, or more than 5.7sq km (2.2sq miles). The confiscation is not arbitrary. At the centre of this particular area is the outpost of Sde Boaz, which was illegally established on private Palestinian land in 2002. The residents – about 50 families – are not fringe extremists. They’re middle-class professionals, including doctors, engineers and accountants.

This confiscation is one of many that have taken place in the past 21 months. Under the shadow of the genocidal war in Gaza, Israel has accelerated its annexation drive in the West Bank. The objective is to formally annex parts of what the Oslo Peace Accords designated as Area B, which is 21 percent of the West Bank, and the whole of Area C, which constitutes 60 percent of the West Bank and includes the whole of the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem countryside as well as other areas.

Most Palestinian farmland and pastures fall within this area as do a large number of Israel’s illegal settlements. My town, al-Khader (St George), owns more than 22,000 dunums (22sq km/8.5sq miles) of land, of which more than 20,500 (20.5sq km/7.9sq miles) are classified as Area C, 500 (half a square kilometre/0.2sq miles) as Area B, and less than 1,000 dunums (1sq km/0.4sq miles) as Area A.

Israeli settlers play an active role in advancing this annexation plan. This is not limited to seizing strategic hilltops but also includes systematic violence against Palestinians. The settler attacks on Palestinian property, the torture and killings of Palestinians are all part of an organised campaign intended to uproot Palestinians from Areas B and C to facilitate annexation. This strategy aligns with what Israeli policymakers refer to as “voluntary transfer”, a euphemism for ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their homeland.

All of this is illegal, according to international law, and goes against repeated resolutions by the United Nations and a 2024 ruling of the International Court of Justice. So who will stop Israel?

The PA, which nominally administers Area A in the occupied West Bank, will certainly not. Since its establishment as part of the Oslo peace process, the PA has not only failed to resist Israeli moves towards annexation, but it has also arguably facilitated them by working with Israel to stem out armed and even peaceful resistance that does not support its political agenda.

The international community is also unlikely to take decisive action. For decades, Western governments, in particular, have offered rhetorical condemnations while simultaneously providing security and economic support to Israel. These same actors who have failed to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza are unlikely to object if Israel formalises its de facto annexation.

This was most recently evident during a diplomatic visit to Taybeh, a Palestinian village located northeast of Jerusalem and Ramallah. The visit, which included more than 20 diplomats from around the world, including European and American representatives, came in response to repeated attacks by Jewish settlers, who burned parts of the village’s land, including property belonging to the local church. That was all these countries were willing to do – send representatives to the area for a couple of hours to utter a few words of condemnation. Beyond that, it is business as usual in their relations with Israel.

What remains then is the resilience and agency of the Palestinian people and their principled political movements. In the current context, the mere presence of Palestinians on their land is an act of resistance.

To sustain this presence and strengthen their struggle, Palestinians must continue to mobilise global progressive and freedom-oriented movements to support their cause – not only in solidarity but also as part of a broader global fight against the far-right, racist, anti-justice forces that support Israel and simultaneously threaten civil rights and social justice in their own countries.

Solidarity activities at the global level should be strategic and impactful. They should focus on disrupting all components of the supply chain that benefit the Israeli occupation in general and settler colonialism in particular. This means citizens around the world in different sectors of society can contribute to the struggle for Palestine as both producers and consumers by heeding the call to boycott and divest from Israel.

Direct actions from the working class are crucial. Workers can integrate the Palestinian cause into their demands for better working conditions. For instance, public strikes in solidarity with Palestine, such as those organised by rail workers in European countries, might pressure governments to reconsider their support for Israel.

Similarly, port workers could strike to disrupt shipping linked to Israel, pushing governments to reassess their positions. Employees in high-tech industries can play a critical role in supporting Palestinians by demanding their companies align products, services and partnerships with international law, refusing to support technologies complicit in the Israeli occupation or settler violence. If companies refuse, workers can escalate to protest action, such as disrupting supply chains and whistleblowing.

In addition to expanding and strengthening Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) activities, there are other solidarity actions that could be carried out. In Palestine, individuals and groups can organise to accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, serving as witnesses to settler and soldier attacks while helping to protect communities.

They can also help Palestinian farmers and other communities by assisting them in selling their products. This challenges the dominant business model that exploits small-scale producers. I can attest to the importance of such initiatives as I have begun facilitating the connection of local Palestinian producers with the European market through the Palestine General Cooperatives Union and Cooperatives UK.

With governments abrogating their legal obligations to stop genocide and colonisation, grassroots mobilisation for impactful actions is the only way to disrupt Israeli colonial activities. An active global movement can force Israeli citizens to confront and relinquish the racist, apartheid, and colonialist foundations of their society, prompting them to seek real change.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Deir el-Balah, Gaza – “There is no voice louder than hunger,” the Arabic proverb goes.

Now it has become a painful truth surrounding us, drawing closer with each passing day.

I never imagined that hunger could be more terrifying than the bombs and killing. This weapon caught us off-guard, something we never thought would be more brutal than anything else we’ve faced in this endless war.

It’s been four months without a single full meal for my family, nothing that meets even the basic needs on Maslow’s hierarchy.

My days revolve around hunger. One sister calls to ask about flour, and the other sends a message saying all they have is lentils.

My brother returns empty-handed from his long search for food for his two kids.

We woke up one day to the sound of our neighbour screaming in frustration.

“I’m going mad. What’s happening? I have money, but there’s nothing to buy,” she said when I came out to calm her down.

My phone doesn’t stop ringing. The calls are from crying women I met during fieldwork in displacement camps: “Ms Maram? Can you help with anything? A kilo of flour or something? … We haven’t eaten in days.”

This sentence echoes in my ears: “We haven’t eaten in days.” It is no longer shocking.

Famine is marching forwards in broad daylight, shamelessly in a world so proud of its “humanity”.

A second birthday amid scarcity

Iyas has woken up asking for a cup of milk today, his birthday.

He has turned two in the middle of a war. I wrote him a piece on his birthday last year, but now I look back and think: “At least there was food!”

A simple request from a child for some milk spins me into a whirlwind.

I’d already held a quiet funeral inside me weeks ago for the last of the milk, then rice, sugar, bulgur, beans – the list goes on.

Only four bags of pasta, five of lentils and 10 precious kilos (22lb) of flour remain – enough for two weeks if I ration tightly, and even that makes me luckier than most in Gaza.

Flour means bread – white gold people are dying for every single day.

Every cup I add to the dough feels heavy. I whisper to myself: “Just two cups”. Then I add a little more, then a bit more, hoping to somehow stretch these little bits into enough bread to last the day.

But I know I’m fooling myself. My mind knows this won’t be enough to quell hunger; it keeps warning me how little flour we have left.

I don’t know what I’m writing any more. But this is just what I’m living, what I wake up and fall asleep to.

What horrors remain?

I now think back on the morning bread-making routine I used to resent.

As a working mother, I once hated that long process imposed by war, which made me miss being able to buy bread from the bakery.

But now, that routine is sacred. Thousands of people across Gaza wish they could knead bread without end. I am one of them.

Now I handle flour with reverence, knead gently, cut the loaves carefully, roll them out and send them off to bake in the public clay oven with my husband, who lovingly balances the tray on his head.

A full hour under the sun at the oven just to get a warm loaf of bread, and we’re among the “lucky” ones. We are kings, the wealthy.

These “miserable” daily routines have become unattainable dreams for hundreds of thousands in Gaza.

Everyone is starving. Is it possible that this war still has more horrors in store?

We complained about displacement. Then our homes were bombed. We never returned.

We complained about the burdens of cooking over a fire, making bread, handwashing clothes and hauling water.

Now those “burdens” feel like luxuries. There’s no water. No soap. No supplies.

Iyas’s latest challenge

Two weeks ago, while being consumed by thoughts of how to stretch out the last handfuls of flour, another challenge appeared: potty training Iyas.

We ran out of diapers. My husband searched everywhere, returning empty-handed.

“No diapers, no baby formula, nothing at all.”

Just like that.

My God, how strange and harsh this child’s early years have been. War has imposed so many changes that we could not protect him from.

His first year was an endless hunt for baby formula, clean water and diapers.

Then came famine, and he grew up without eggs, fresh milk, vegetables, fruit or any of the basic nutrients a toddler needs.

I fought on, sacrificing what little health I had to continue breastfeeding until now.

It was difficult, especially while undernourished myself and trying to keep working, but what else could I do? The thought of raising a child with no nutrients at this critical stage is unbearable.

And so my little hero woke up one morning to the challenge of ditching diapers. I pitied him, staring in fear at the toilet seat, which looked to him like a deep tunnel or cave he might fall into. It took us two whole days to find a child’s seat for the toilet.

Every day was filled with training accidents, signs he wasn’t ready.

The hours I spent sitting by the toilet, encouraging him, were exhausting and frustrating. Potty training is a natural phase that should come when the child is ready.

Why am I and so many other mothers here forced to go through it like this, under mental strain, with a child who I haven’t had a chance to prepare?

So I fall asleep thinking about how much food we have left and wake up to rush my child to the toilet.

Rage and anxiety build up as I try to manage our precious water supply as soiled clothes pile up from the daily accidents.

Then came the expulsion orders in Deir el-Balah.

A fresh slap. The danger is growing as Israeli tanks creep closer.

And here I am: hungry, out of diapers, raising my voice at a child who can’t understand while the shelling booms around us.

Why must we live like this, spirits disintegrating every day as we wait for the next disaster?

Many have resorted to begging. Some have chosen death for a piece of bread or a handful of flour.

Others stay home, waiting for the tanks to arrive.

Many, like me, are simply waiting their turn to join the ranks of the starving without knowing what the end will look like.

They used to say time in Gaza is made of blood. But now, it’s blood, tears and hunger.

The famine we’re seeing in Gaza now is the most horrific stage of Israel’s starvation campaign, a UN expert on food has told Al Jazeera. He’s calling on countries to stop Israel starving Palestinians to death.

Qatar signaled its interest as an Olympic Games host with established infrastructure from 2022 FIFA World Cup a key selling point.

The Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) said it was taking part in “ongoing discussions” with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over the election process for the host city of the 2036 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the organisation said in a media release on its website.

The country, which hosted football’s World Cup in 2022 and the Asian Cup in 2024, is the latest to join the race to stage the 2036 Games after confirmed bids from Indonesia, Turkiye, India and Chile.

Other Asian countries considering a bid include Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Egypt, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Denmark and Canada have also shown interest.

“We currently have 95% of the required sports infrastructure in place to host the Games, and we have a comprehensive national plan to ensure 100% readiness of all facilities,” Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al Thani, the president of QOC, told the state-run Qatar News Agency on Tuesday.

“This plan is rooted in a long-term vision aimed at building a socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable legacy.”

Qatar’s capital Doha is set to host the Asian Games in 2030, having staged the event in 2006.

A successful bid would make Qatar the first country in the Middle East to host the Olympics amid the region’s growing influence over major sporting events. Saudi Arabia is set to hold the football World Cup in 2034.

Starvation or bullets. That’s the grim choice facing many in Gaza today. Since late May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has led aid distribution, operating just four centres, compared with the UN’s former network of more than 400. At least 900 Palestinians have been killed in attacks at these GHF sites. Critics say GHF is nothing but a front for genocide, offering a deadly illusion of help. As Gaza’s people scrape for food, they face an impossible question: Risk the “death trap” for a few sacks of flour, or watch loved ones starve?

Presenter: Stefanie Dekker

Guests:
Tamara Al Rifai – UNRWA director of external relations and communications
Eman Hillis – Fact-checker and writer
Afeef Nessouli – Journalist

On Monday, 28 countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan, and numerous European nations, issued a joint statement calling on Israel that the war on Gaza “must end now”, marking the latest example of intensifying criticism from Israel’s allies.

The joint statement, signed by the foreign ministers of these countries, condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food”.

The statement comes as global pressure mounts on Israel over civilian casualties at aid sites, obstruction of humanitarian aid, and violations of international humanitarian law – as the occupied Palestinian territory simmers with starvation.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 59,000 people and wounded 140,000 since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, in which 1,139 people were killed and more than 200 were taken captive.

So, what does the joint statement say? Who are these countries? And how have Israel and its closest ally, the United States, reacted?

What did the statement say?

The joint statement said the countries are coming together “with a simple, urgent message: The war in Gaza must end now.”

The statement underlined that the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached “new depths” and that the Israeli government’s aid delivery model is “dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity”.

They called on the Israeli government to “comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law” and immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid.

The group of countries also noted that the captives “cruelly held” by Hamas continue to “suffer terribly” and called for their immediate and unconditional release.

They said in the statement that a negotiated ceasefire offers “the best hope of bringing [the captives] home and ending the agony of their families”.

Demographic change, settler violence: What else did the countries say?

The countries criticised Israel’s plan to establish a concentration zone – Israel’s vision of relocating the entire Palestinian population into a fenced, heavily controlled zone built on the ruins of Rafah – as “completely unacceptable”.

“Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law,” the joint statement said.

The group of countries also marked its opposition to “any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” and noted that the E1 settlement plan announced would divide a Palestinian state in two, “marking a flagrant breach of international law and critically [undermining] the two-state solution”.

They also called out that the “settlement building across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has accelerated while settler violence against Palestinians has soared. This must stop.”

Which countries signed the joint statement?

The joint statement was signed by the foreign ministers of a total of 28 countries:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

These governments, many of them allies of Israel, issued some of their strongest language yet, condemning the obstruction of aid in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Which of those countries recognise Palestine?

Out of these 28 countries from the joint statement, nine recognise the State of Palestine as a sovereign state.

Cyprus, Malta, and Poland recognised Palestine shortly after the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988.

Iceland followed in 2011, and Sweden in 2014. Ireland, Norway, Slovenia, and Spain recognised Palestine in 2024.

How did Israel respond?

Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on X that Israel rejects the joint statement published by the group of countries, “as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas”.

Israel further claimed that instead of agreeing to a ceasefire, “Hamas is busy running a campaign to spread lies about Israel” and deliberately acting to increase friction and harm to civilians who come to receive humanitarian aid.

The statement further said there is a “concrete proposal for a ceasefire deal” and Hamas “stubbornly refuses to accept it”.

What does Hamas say about the ceasefire?

The spokesperson of the military wing of Hamas said Israel was the one that rejected a ceasefire agreement to release all captives held in Gaza.

Qassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Obeida said in a prerecorded video, released on Friday, that the group had in recent months offered a “comprehensive deal” that would release all captives at once – but it was rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right ministers.

“It has become clear to us that the government of the criminal Netanyahu has no real interest in the captives because they are soldiers,” he said, adding that Hamas favours a deal that guarantees an end to the war, a withdrawal of Israeli forces, and entry of humanitarian aid for besieged Palestinians.

Hamas is still holding 50 people in Gaza, about 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

What is Israel blocking from entering Gaza, claiming that Hamas can use it?

Israel continues to block the entry of essential humanitarian supplies into Gaza, claiming that Hamas could divert or repurpose them for military use.

Among the items withheld are: Baby formula, food, water filters, and medicines.

Medicine and medical supplies face blocks as part of Israel’s “dual-use” restrictions, where items like painkillers and dialysis equipment are held back, ostensibly for possible Hamas exploitation in military contexts.

Other medical equipment, such as oxygen cylinders, anaesthetics, and cancer medications, has been restricted.

Israeli authorities argue that some items, like certain chemicals or electronics, could have dual-use potential.

Aid groups report that the blanket denial of crucial medical items is pushing Gaza’s health system towards total collapse, and say that these restrictions are collective punishment and violations of international humanitarian law.

Tehran, Iran – The wave of Afghan refugees and migrants being sent back from Iran has not stopped, with more than 410,000 being pushed out since the end of the 12-day war with Israel on June 24.

More than 1.5 million Afghan refugees and migrants have been sent back in 2025, according to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM), while the Red Cross says more than one million people more could be sent back by the end of the year.

Iran has been hosting Afghans for decades. While it has periodically expelled irregular arrivals, it has now taken its efforts to unprecedented levels after the war with Israel that killed more than 1,000 people in Iran, many of them civilians.

Iran has also been building a wall along its massive eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan to stem the flow of irregular migration, and smuggled drugs and fuel.

The parliament is also planning for a national migration organisation that would take over its efforts to crack down on irregular migration.

‘I’m afraid’

“I feel like we’re being singled out because we’re easy targets and don’t have many options,” said Ahmad*, a 27-year-old undocumented Afghan migrant who came to Iran four years ago.

Like others, he had to work construction and manual labour jobs before managing to get hired as the custodian of an old residential building in the western part of the capital, Tehran.

At the current rate of Iran’s heavily devalued currency, he gets paid the equivalent of about $80 a month, which is wired to the bank card of an Iranian citizen because he cannot have an account in his name.

He has a small spot where he can sleep in the building and tries to send money to his family in Afghanistan whenever possible.

“I don’t really leave the building that much because I’m afraid I’ll be sent back. I don’t know how much longer I can live like this,” he told Al Jazeera.

Vahid Golikani, who heads the foreign nationals’ department of the governor’s office in Tehran, told state media last week that undocumented migrants must not be employed to protect local labour.

Daily returns, which include expulsions and voluntary returns, climbed steeply after the start of the war, with average daily returns exceeding 29,600 in the week starting July 10, said Mai Sato, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran.

She was among four special rapporteurs who decried the mass returns on Thursday, adding their voice to rights organisations such as Amnesty International.

“Afghanistan remains unsafe under Taliban rule. These mass returns violate international law and put vulnerable people, especially women, children, and minorities, at severe risk of persecution and violence,” Sato said.

Alleged security risks

Authorities and state media have said undocumented immigrants may pose a security risk, alleging that some of them were paid by Israel to carry out tasks inside Iran.

While state television has aired confessions from a handful of unidentified imprisoned Afghans, but their numbers do not seem to match the scale of the expulsions.

The televised confessions featured men with covered eyes and blurred-out faces saying they had sent photographs and information online to anonymous handlers linked with Mossad.

Hundreds of Iranians have also been arrested on suspicion of working for Israel, and several Iranians have been executed over the past weeks as the government works to increase legal punishments for spying.

Mohammad Mannan Raeesi, a member of parliament from the ultraconservative city of Qom, said during a state television interview last week, “We don’t have a single migrant from Afghanistan among the Israeli spies.”

He pointed out that some Afghans have fought and died for Iran, and that attempts to expel irregular arrivals should avoid xenophobia.

Economic pressures

Before the latest wave of forced returns, Iranian authorities reported the official number of Afghan refugees and migrants at a whopping 6.1 million, with many speculating the real number was much higher.

Only about 780,000 have been given official refugee status by the government.

Supporting millions of refugees and migrants, regular and irregular, takes a toll on a government that spends billions annually on hidden subsidies on essentials like fuel, electricity and bread for everyone in the country.

Since 2021, there have been complaints among some Iranians about the economic impact of hosting millions who poured into Iran unchecked in the aftermath of the Taliban’s chaotic takeover of Afghanistan.

Amid increasing hostility towards the Afghan arrivals over the past years, local newspapers and social media have increasingly highlighted reports of crimes like theft and rape allegedly committed by Afghan migrants. However, no official statistics on such crimes have been released.

That has not stopped some Iranians, along with a large number of anonymous accounts online, from cheering on the mass returns, with popular hashtags in Farsi on X and other social media portraying the returns as a “national demand”.

Again, there are no reliable statistics or surveys that show what portion of the Iranian population backs the move, or under what conditions.

Some tearful migrants told Afghan media after being returned from Iran that security forces beat or humiliated them while putting them on buses to the border.

Others said they were abruptly deported with only the clothes on their back, and were unable to get their last paycheques, savings, or downpayments made for their rented homes.

Some of those with legal documentation have not been spared, as reports emerged in recent weeks of Afghan refugees and migrants being deported after having their documents shredded by police.

Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani and Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni have separately said the government is only seeking undocumented migrants.

“In cases where legal residents have been deported, those instances have been investigated,” Momeni said last week, adding that over 70 percent of those returned came forward voluntarily after the government set a deadline to leave for early July.

‘I sense a lot of anger among the people’

For those Afghans who remain in Iran, a host of other restrictions make life difficult.

They are barred from entering dozens of Iranian cities. Their work permits may not be renewed every year, or the renewal fees could be hiked suddenly. They are unable to buy property, cars or even SIM cards for their mobile phones.

They are seldom given citizenship and face difficulties in getting their children into Iranian schools.

Zahra Aazim, a 22-year-old teacher and video editor of Afghan origin based in Tehran, said she did not truly feel the extent of the restrictions associated with living in Iran for Afghans until a few years ago.

Her family migrated to Iran about 45 years ago, shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution that brought the incumbent theocratic establishment to power.

“What really bugs me is the fact that I was born in Iran, and my family has been living here for over four decades, but I’m still unable to get something as basic as a driver’s licence.

“That’s not to mention fundamental documents like a national ID card or an Iran-issued birth certificate,” she told Al Jazeera.

By law, those documents are reserved for Iranian nationals. Afghan-origin people can apply if their mother is Iranian or if they are a woman married to an Iranian man.

Aazim said Iran’s rules have only gotten stricter over the years. But things took a sharp turn after the war, and she has received hundreds of threatening or insulting messages online since.

“I’ve been hearing from other Afghan-origin friends in Iran … that this is no longer a place where we can live,” she said.

“A friend called me with the same message after the war. I thought she meant she’s thinking about moving to another country or going back to Afghanistan. I never thought her last resort would be [taking her own life].”

Aazim also said her 23-year-old brother was taken by police from a Tehran cafe – and later released – on suspicion of espionage.

The incident, along with videos of violence against Afghans that are circulating on social media, has made her feel unsafe.

“I sense a lot of anger among the Iranian people, even in some of my Iranian friends. When you can’t lash out against those in power above, you start to look for people at lower levels to blame,” she said.

“I’m not saying don’t take any action if you have security concerns about Afghan migrants … I just wish they would treat us respectfully.

“Respect has nothing to do with nationality, ethnicity or geography.”

*Name has been changed for the individual’s protection.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi has said that Tehran cannot give up on its uranium enrichment programme, which was severely damaged by waves of US and Israeli air strikes last month.

“It is now stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe, but obviously, we cannot give up our enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists, and now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” Araghchi told the US broadcaster Fox News in an interview aired on Monday.

Araghchi said at the beginning of the interview that Iran is “open to talks” with the United States, but that they would not be direct talks “for the time being”.

“If they [the US] are coming for a win-win solution, I am ready to engage with them,” he said.

“We are ready to do any confidence-building measure needed to prove that Iran’s nuclear programme is peaceful and would remain peaceful forever, and Iran would never go for nuclear weapons, and in return, we expect them to lift their sanctions,” the foreign minister added.

“So, my message to the United States is that let’s go for a negotiated solution for Iran’s nuclear programme.”

Araghchi’s comments were part of a 16-minute interview aired on Fox News, a broadcaster known to be closely watched by US President Donald Trump.

“There is a negotiated solution for our nuclear programme. We have done it once in the past. We are ready to do it once again,” Araghchi said.

Tehran and Washington had been holding talks on the nuclear programme earlier this year, seven years after Trump pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Tehran signed with several world powers in 2015. Under the pact, Iran opened the country’s nuclear sites to comprehensive international inspection in return for the lifting of sanctions.

Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the deal came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran of pursuing a “secret nuclear programme“.

Iran has long maintained that its nuclear enrichment programme is strictly for civilian purposes.

The US and Iran engaged in talks as recently as May to reach a new deal, but those negotiations broke down when Israel launched surprise bombing raids across Iran on June 13, targeting military and nuclear sites.

More than 900 people were killed in Iran, and at least 28 people were killed in Israel before a ceasefire took hold on June 24.

The US also joined Israel in attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, with the Pentagon later claiming it had set back the country’s nuclear programme by one to two years.

Araghchi said on Monday that Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation is still evaluating how the attacks had affected Iran’s enriched material, adding that they will “soon inform” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its findings.

He said any request for the IAEA to send inspectors would be “carefully considered”.

“We have not stopped our cooperation with the agency,” he claimed.

IAEA inspectors left Iran after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a law suspending cooperation with the IAEA earlier this month.

Tehran had sharply criticised the IAEA and its chief, Rafael Grossi, over a June 12 resolution passed by the IAEA board accusing Tehran of non-compliance with its nuclear obligations.

Iranian officials said the resolution was among the “excuses” that Israel used as a pretext to launch its attacks, which began on June 13 and lasted for 12 days.

Speaking to journalists earlier on Monday, Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the United Nations secretary-general, said that the UN welcomed renewed “dialogue between the Europeans and the Iranians”, referring to talks set to take place between Iran, France, Germany and the United Kingdom in Turkiye on Friday.

The three European parties to the former JCPOA agreement have said that Tehran’s failure to resume negotiations would lead to international sanctions being reimposed on Iran.

The countries also denounced Israel’s aid delivery model in Gaza, saying it ‘deprives Palestinians of human dignity’.

More than two dozen countries have called for an immediate end to the war on Gaza, saying that suffering there had “reached new depths” in the latest sign of allies’ sharpening language as Israel’s international isolation deepens.

The statement on Monday came after more than 21 months of fighting that have triggered catastrophic humanitarian conditions for Gaza’s more than two million residents.

Israeli allies the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada and 21 other countries, plus the European Union, said in a joint statement that the war “must end now”.

“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths,” the signatories added, urging a negotiated ceasefire, the release of captives held by Palestinian fighters and the free flow of much-needed aid.

They condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food”.

The UN and the Gaza Health Ministry have recorded 875 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food since late May, when Israel began easing a more than two-month total blockade.

“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the countries said. “The Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.”

Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego, reporting from London, said that the statement was a significant escalation from Israel’s allies over its war on Gaza.

“This also reflects a broader consensus beyond Europe,” she said.

“European nations have condemned the situation in Gaza, and now you have foreign ministries – such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan – that put their names in this statement,” our correspondent said.

The new joint statement called for an immediate ceasefire, saying countries are prepared to take action to support a political pathway to peace in the region.

Israel and Hamas have been engaged in ceasefire talks, but there appears to be no breakthrough, and it is not clear whether any truce would bring the war to a lasting halt. Netanyahu has repeatedly asserted that expanding Israel’s military operations in Gaza will pressure Hamas in negotiations.

Speaking to Parliament, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy thanked the United States, Qatar and Egypt for their diplomatic efforts to try to end the war.

“There is no military solution,” Lammy said. “The next ceasefire must be the last ceasefire.”

Israel launched the war on Gaza after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing at least 1,129 people and taking 251 others captive. Fifty captives remain in Gaza, but fewer than half are thought to be alive.

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, mostly women and children.

Houthis promise more attacks unless Israel ends its offensive on Gaza and lifts the siege.

Israel’s military has launched new air raids on Yemen’s Hodeidah port, targeting what it described as Houthi-linked sites used to stage drone and missile attacks against Israel and its allies.

Minister of Defence Israel Katz on Monday said the military was “forcefully countering any attempt to restore the terror infrastructure previously attacked”.

The Israeli military claimed that the “port serves as a channel for weapons used by the Houthis to carry out terrorist operations against Israel and its allies”.

The Houthi movement, which controls large parts of northern Yemen, later claimed responsibility for drone and missile attacks on locations in Israel, including Ben Gurion airport, Ashdod and Jaffa.

In a statement, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the strikes were a direct response to the attacks on Hodeidah and Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza.

“The drone attack successfully achieved its objectives,” he said, adding that operations would continue until Israel ends its offensive on Gaza and lifts the siege.

Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis have carried out several attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has responded with repeated strikes on Houthi targets, particularly in Hodeidah, a key entry point for goods and aid into Yemen.

“The Houthis will pay a heavy price for launching missiles toward the State of Israel,” Katz said.

Earlier this month, the Houthis claimed responsibility for an attack on the Greek-owned vessel Eternity C, which maritime officials said had killed four people.

In May, the United States brokered a deal with the Houthis to halt their bombing campaign in exchange for reduced attacks on international shipping. However, the Houthis clarified that the agreement did not extend to operations involving Israel.

A group of over two dozen mostly European foreign ministers denounced Israeli attacks on Palestinian aid seekers in a joint statement condemning the “drip feeding” of aid and saying “the war in Gaza must end now.”

Belgian authorities have interrogated two members of the Israeli military following allegations of serious breaches of international humanitarian law committed in Gaza, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Brussels said.

The two people were questioned after legal complaints were filed by the Hind Rajab Foundation and the Global Legal Action Network. The complaints were submitted on Friday and Saturday as the soldiers attended the Tomorrowland music festival in Belgium.

“In light of this potential jurisdiction, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office requested the police to locate and interrogate the two individuals named in the complaint,” said the prosecutor’s office in a written statement on Monday. “Following these interrogations, they were released.”

The questioning was carried out under a new provision in Belgium’s Code of Criminal Procedure, which came into effect last year. It allows Belgian courts to investigate alleged violations abroad if the acts fall under international treaties ratified by Belgium – including the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture.

The prosecutor’s office said it would not release further information at this stage of the investigation.

The Hind Rajab Foundation, based in Belgium, has been campaigning for legal action against Israeli soldiers over alleged war crimes in Gaza. It is named after a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli fire while fleeing Gaza City with her family early in Israel’s war on Gaza.

Since its formation last year, the foundation has filed dozens of complaints in more than 10 countries, targeting both low- and high-ranking Israeli military personnel.

The group hailed Monday’s developments as “a turning point in the global pursuit of accountability”.

“We will continue to support the ongoing proceedings and call on Belgian authorities to pursue the investigation fully and independently,” the foundation said in a statement. “Justice must not stop here – and we are committed to seeing it through.”

“At a time when far too many governments remain silent, this action sends a clear message: credible evidence of international crimes must be met with legal response – not political indifference,” the statement added.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the incident, saying that one Israeli citizen and one soldier were interrogated and later released. “Israeli authorities dealt with this issue and are in touch with the two,” the ministry said in a statement cited by The Associated Press news agency.

The incident comes amid growing international outrage over Israel’s conduct in its war on Gaza. More than two dozen Western countries called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza on Monday, saying that suffering there had “reached new depths”.

After more than 21 months of fighting that have triggered catastrophic humanitarian conditions for Gaza’s more than two million people, Israeli allies Britain, France, Australia, Canada and 21 other countries, plus the European Union, said in a joint statement that the war “must end now”.

“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths,” the signatories added, urging a negotiated ceasefire, the release of captives held by Palestinian armed groups and the free flow of much-needed aid.

On Sunday, the World Food Programme accused Israel of using tanks, snipers and other weapons to fire on a crowd of Palestinians seeking food aid.

It said that shortly after crossing through the northern Zikim crossing into Gaza, its 25-truck convoy encountered large crowds of civilians waiting for food supplies, who were attacked.

“As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire,” it said on X, adding that the incident resulted in the loss of “countless lives” with many more suffering critical injuries.

“These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation. This terrible incident underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which humanitarian operations are forced to be conducted in Gaza.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry described the Israeli attack, which killed at least 92 people, as one of the war’s deadliest days for civilians seeking humanitarian assistance.

More than 59,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its war on Gaza in October 2023, according to local health officials. Much of the territory lies in ruins, with severe shortages of food, medicine and other essentials due to Israel’s ongoing blockade.

At least 49 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza, medical sources say, as the Israeli military has sent tanks into areas of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza for the first time since Israel began its assault on the besieged territory in October 2023.

Israel on Monday launched the ground offensive on southern and eastern areas of the city that is packed with displaced Palestinians, a day after its military issued a forced displacement order for residents in the areas, forcing thousands of people to flee west towards the Mediterranean coast and south to Khan Younis.

Tank shelling in the area hit houses and mosques, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding several, the Reuters news agency reported, quoting local medics.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said gunfire was audible as Israeli tanks rolled into the area on Monday morning.

“We can see that the entire city is under Israeli attack,” he said. “We did not manage to sleep last night.”

“There has been an ongoing Israeli bombardment. Israeli jets, tanks and naval gunboats continue to strike multiple residential areas. Three more squares were destroyed in the city, and then residential houses were flattened.”

He said many Deir el-Balah residents fled using donkey carts and other modes of transport.

Israel intensifies attacks

In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, an Israeli air strike killed at least five people, including a husband and wife and their two children, in a tent, medics said.

Among those reported killed since dawn on Monday were four aid seekers waiting for food near a distribution centre operated by the United States- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Five other Palestinians were killed in a separate Israeli bombardment in Jabalia al-Balad in the north.

Earlier, the Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that its teams had recovered the body of one person and evacuated three wounded after an Israeli artillery strike on the nearby Jabalia al-Nazla area.

Drone strikes were reported in Gaza City, resulting in casualties, a source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera Arabic.

The previous day, at least 134 people were killed and 1,155 injured by Israeli forces, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. At least 59,029 people in Gaza have been killed since the war began.

On Sunday, Gaza health authorities reported at least 19 people had starved to death in one day, highlighting the desperate situation under the Israeli aid blockade.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, the World Food Programme’s Palestine representative, Antoine Renard, said the United Nations agency has warned for “weeks” that Palestinians in Gaza are facing starvation.

“You have a level of despair that people are ready to risk their lives just to reach any of the assistance actually coming into Gaza,” Renard said from occupied East Jerusalem.

“[There’s a] soaring number of people facing malnutrition, and we can really see that the situation is really getting to levels that we’ve never seen ever before.”

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said it is receiving “desperate messages of starvation” from inside Gaza, including from its staff, as humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate.

“The suffering in Gaza is manmade and must be stopped. Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale,” UNRWA said in a statement posted on X.

Amjad Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGO Network, told Al Jazeera on Monday that 900,000 children are experiencing varying degrees of malnutrition in Gaza.

Twenty-five countries, including the United Kingdom, France and other European nations, issued a joint statement saying the war in Gaza “must end now” and Israel must comply with international law.

The foreign ministers of the 25 countries, including Australia, Canada and Japan, said “the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths”, and they condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food”.

“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the statement said.

“The Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law,” it said.