A new Freedom Flotilla ship, the Handala, has departed from Italy for an attempt to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza and deliver essential aid. The last vessel to make the journey, the Madleen, was seized by Israeli forces in international waters in June.
Published On 14 Jul 202514 Jul 2025
Here are the key events on day 1,236 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Monday, July 14:
The death toll in Israel’s war on Gaza passed the grim milestone of 58,000 on Sunday as relentless attacks killed nearly 100 Palestinians since dawn.
An Israeli air raid hit a bustling market in Gaza City, killing 12 people. Among the victims was prominent medical consultant Ahmad Qandil, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported. The Israeli military has not commented on the strike.
Gaza’s Government Media Office also accused Israel and security contractors working at aid distribution points of intentionally attacking civilians. In a statement, it called United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites “death traps” and described the situation as “genocide engineering under US sponsorship”.
At least 805 people have been killed and 5,250 wounded while attempting to collect aid since the GHF started operating in May.
One of Israel’s deadliest attacks on desperate Palestinians occurred in the Nuseirat refugee camp, where a missile strike killed at least 10 people, most of them children, as they queued to collect drinking water. Seventeen others were wounded, according to Dr Ahmed Abu Saifan at al-Awda Hospital.
Israel’s military said it had targeted a Palestinian fighter, but the missile veered off course because of a technical failure. The Israeli claim could not be independently verified.
Gaza has suffered from chronic water shortages, worsened in recent weeks as desalination and sanitation plants shut down due to the ongoing Israeli blockade of fuel. Many residents now rely on dangerous journeys to limited water collection points.
Since Israel launched its war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, the number of people killed has risen to at least 58,026, with more than 138,500 wounded. More than half of those killed have been women and children.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said hundreds have died while attempting to access humanitarian aid from GHF-controlled points.
“People travel up to 15km [9 miles] from the north to Rafah – many on foot, some overnight – just to get one food parcel,” he said. “But even then, they’re met with live fire from Israeli forces.”
Eight United Nations agencies – including UNICEF, WHO, WFP and UNRWA – warned on Sunday that without immediate fuel access, critical services in Gaza could collapse. Hospitals, sanitation centres and food distribution operations face imminent shutdown.
“Without fuel, these lifelines will vanish for 2.1 million people,” the agencies said in a joint statement. “Fuel must be allowed into Gaza in sufficient quantities and consistently to sustain life-saving operations.”
Attempts to end the fighting received a cautious boost on Sunday when US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said he remained “hopeful” about the ceasefire talks. He was expected to meet Qatari officials on the margins of the FIFA Club World Cup Final.
But optimism appears to be fading. A US-backed proposal for a 60-day ceasefire remains bogged down in disagreements, with both sides blaming each other for delays.
An Israeli official confirmed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned to convene cabinet ministers late on Sunday to discuss the talks, which are focused on ending hostilities, a troop withdrawal and the release of captives held in Gaza.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s deputy leader Muhammad al-Hindi said Israel has resisted committing to key conditions before moving on to the topic of prisoners.
“We’re discussing a framework agreement. It includes three points: ending aggression, withdrawal from Gaza and safe aid distribution,” he said. “Israel wants to skip straight to the prisoners’ file without guarantees on the main issues.”
Al-Hindi accused Israel of seeking to control southern Rafah and force civilians into overcrowded, bombed-out areas under the guise of aid distribution.
“We cannot legitimise these aid traps that are killing our people. The resistance will not sign any agreement that amounts to surrender.”
Meanwhile, in Israel, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara said that Netanyahu’s close adviser, Jonatan Urich, is facing possible indictment over allegations he leaked classified military information to the German newspaper Bild.
Urich and another aide are accused of passing on secret intelligence to influence public opinion after six Israeli captives died in Gaza last August. The deaths sparked mass protests in Israel and deepened public anger at the government’s handling of ceasefire efforts.
Netanyahu has dismissed the investigation as politically motivated, calling it a “witch-hunt”. Urich has denied any wrongdoing.
The Bild article, published shortly after the captives’ bodies were discovered, aligned closely with Netanyahu’s narrative of blaming Hamas for the collapse of earlier ceasefire talks.
A previous two-month truce, which began in January, saw the release of 38 captives before Israel broke the ceasefire and resumed its devastating military assault.
Israeli columnist Gideon Levy says Israel has ‘no clue’ about dealing with Gaza, besides ongoing death and destruction.
Israeli columnist Gideon Levy tells host Steve Clemons that almost all Israelis believe their country “has the right to do whatever it wants”. This includes war crimes and plans to create concentration camps for Palestinians in Gaza, in preparation for expulsion.
Levy argues that it makes no difference if a Republican or Democratic administration were in power in the United States or if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or a different politician were in power in Israel.
“The same war might have taken place, and the same crimes of war would have been committed,” he said.
Authorities send troops to de-escalate the situation after fighting breaks out between Bedouins and Druze.
Fighting between Bedouin tribes and local fighters in the predominantly Druze city of Sweida in southern Syria has killed several people.
Sunday’s clashes are the first outbreak of deadly violence in the area since fighting between members of the Druze community and security forces killed dozens of people in April and May.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said at least eight people were killed, six Druze and two Bedouin.
Citing medical sources, local outlet Sweida 24 gave a preliminary toll of seven people killed, “including a child, and about 32 others wounded as a result of armed clashes and mutual shelling in the Maqus neighbourhood”, east of Sweida city.
It also reported the closure of the Damascus-Sweida highway because of the violence.
A Syrian government source, speaking anonymously to AFP news agency, said authorities sent soldiers to de-escalate the situation.
Sweida Governor Mustapha al-Bakour called on people to “exercise self-restraint and respond to national calls for reform”.
Syria’s Druze population numbers about 700,000, with Sweida home to the sect’s largest community.
Bedouin and Druze factions have a longstanding feud in Sweida, with violence occasionally erupting.
Since the overthrow of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, concerns have been raised over the rights and safety of minorities under the new authorities, who have also struggled to re-establish security more broadly.
Clashes between troops and Druze fighters in April and May killed dozens of people, with local leaders and religious figures signing agreements to contain the escalation and better integrate Druze fighters into the new government.
‘Syria possesses valuable assets,’ says DP World’s CEO, highlighting the country’s economic potential.
Syria has finalised an $800m agreement with Dubai-based DP World to redevelop its Tartous port in a bid to speed up post-war reconstruction.
State news agency SANA said the deal was signed in Damascus on Sunday between DP World and the General Authority for Land and Sea Ports, in the presence of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Syrian officials described the deal as a key step towards modernising the country’s logistics infrastructure.
“This strategic move will bolster our port operations and logistics services,” SANA quoted an unnamed official as saying.
Since the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad in December, Syria’s new leadership has been pushing to re-establish economic ties with international companies and bring the war-torn country back into the global market.
Speaking after the signing, DP World CEO Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem said Syria’s economic potential remained strong, noting the Tartous port could play a central role in reviving local industry.
“Syria possesses valuable assets,” he said, “and Tartous is an essential hub for trade and exports. We aim to transform it into one of the world’s leading ports.”
DP World manages dozens of port facilities across Europe, Africa and Asia and has been expanding its reach in the Middle East.
Qutaiba Badawi, who heads Syria’s port authority, said the agreement marked more than just a commercial venture.
“We are laying the groundwork for a new era of maritime development, positioning Syria again on the international economic stage,” he said.
The Tartous deal follows several high-profile contracts signed in recent months.
In May, Damascus entered a 30-year agreement with French shipping company CMA CGM to operate Latakia port. That same month, Syria inked a $7bn energy deal with a coalition of Qatari, Turkish, and US firms to revive the country’s power sector.
Earlier this month, the United States said it will revoke its designation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham as a “foreign terrorist organization” as Washington softens its approach to post-war Syria.
Last month, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order lifting several longstanding sanctions on Syria, which Washington said would support the country’s reconstruction. The US Treasury noted the decision would ease restrictions on companies considered vital to Syria’s rebuilding and governance.
Western sanctions had hampered reconstruction efforts for years, further crippling an economy already shattered by more than a decade of civil war and human rights abuses under al-Assad’s rule.
More details emerge on June assassination attempt on President Masoud Pezeshkian and other officials by Israel.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian suffered minor injuries in an Israeli air strike on a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council in Tehran on June 15, a senior Iranian official said.
The assassination attempt targeted the heads of the three branches of government in an effort to overthrow it, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“This attempt will not pass without Israel paying a price,” he told Al Jazeera.
The strike was carried out shortly before noon during a meeting attended by the heads of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government along with other senior officials.
The semiofficial Fars news agency also reported new details on the assassination attempt during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran, which was first announced by the Iranian president in an interview released on Monday.
The session was taking place in the lower level of a government facility in western Tehran when the attack started, Fars reported. The building’s entrances and exits were hit by six missiles to block escape routes and cut off air flow.
Electricity was severed following the explosions, but Iranian officials managed to escape through a pre-designated emergency hatch, including the president, who is said to have sustained minor leg injuries while evacuating.
The news agency said authorities launched an investigation into the possible presence of Israeli spies given the accuracy of the intelligence the “enemy” possessed.
Last week, Pezeshkian said in an interview with US media figure Tucker Carlson that Israel attempted to assassinate him. “They did try, yes … but they failed,” he said.
“It was not the United States that was behind the attempt on my life. It was Israel. I was in a meeting… They tried to bombard the area in which we were holding that meeting.”
The comments come less than a month after Israel launched its unprecedented June 13 bombing campaign against Iran, killing top military commanders and nuclear scientists.
The Israeli attacks took place two days before Tehran and Washington were set to meet for a new round of nuclear talks, stalling negotiations aimed at reaching a deal over Iran’s atomic programme.
At least 1,060 people were killed in Iran during the conflict, according to Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs.
The Israeli attacks drew waves of retaliatory drone and missile fire, killing 28 people in Israel, according to authorities.
Iran targeted Israeli military and intelligence headquarters with ballistic missiles and drones before the US brokered a ceasefire.
“Universities worldwide, under the guise of research neutrality, continue to profit from an [Israeli] economy now operating in genocidal mode. Indeed, they are structurally dependent on settler-colonial collaborations and funding.”
This is what United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese wrote in her latest report “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide”, which documents the financial tentacles of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and beyond. Its release prompted the United States’ governing regime to issue sanctions against Albanese in a move the Italian legal scholar rightly described as “obscene” and “mafia intimidation tactics”.
The report reveals how universities not only invest their endowments in corporations linked to Israel’s war machine, but also engage in directly or support research initiatives that contribute to it. It is not only a damning indictment of the complicity of academia in genocide, but also a warning to university administrations and academics that they hold legal responsibility.
In Israel, Albanese observes, traditional humanities disciplines such as law, archaeology, and Middle Eastern studies essentially launder the history of the Nakba, reframing it through colonial narratives that erase Palestinian histories and legitimise an apartheid state that has transitioned into what she describes as a “genocidal machine”. Likewise, STEM disciplines engage in open collaborations with military industrial corporations, such as Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries, IBM, and Lockheed Martin, to facilitate their research and development.
In the United States, Albanese writes, research is funded by the Israeli Defence Ministry and conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with various military applications, including drone swarm control.
In the United Kingdom, she highlights, the University of Edinburgh has 2.5 percent of its endowment invested in companies that participate in the Israeli military industrial complex. It also has partnerships with Ben-Gurion University and with companies supporting Israeli military operations.
While Canadian institutions do not appear in Albanese’s report, they very easily could and, indeed, we argue, should.
Canada’s flagship school, the University of Toronto (UofT), where one of us teaches and another is an alumnus, is a particularly salient example.
Over the past 12 years, the UofT’s entanglements with Israeli institutions have snowballed, stretching across fields from the humanities to cybersecurity. They also involve Zionist donors (both individuals and groups), many of whom have ties with complicit corporations and Israeli institutions, and have actively interfered with university hiring practices to an extent that has drawn censure from the Canadian Association of University Teachers.
This phenomenon must be understood in the context of the defunding of public higher education, which forces universities to seek private sources of funding and opens up universities to donor interference.
After calls for cutting such ties intensified amid the genocide, the UofT doubled down on them over the past year, advertising artificial intelligence-related partnerships with Technion University in Haifa, joint calls for proposals with various Israeli universities, and student exchange programmes in Israel.
The UofT also continues to fundraise for its “Archaeology of Israel Trust”, which was set up to make a “significant contribution to the archaeology of Israel” – a discipline that has historically focused on legitimising the Israeli dispossession of the Palestinian people. It also inaugurated a new lab for the study of global anti-Semitism, which is funded by the University of Toronto-Hebrew University of Jerusalem Research & Innovation Alliance.
In addition to institutional partnerships, UofT’s Asset Management Corporation (UTAM), which manages the university’s endowment, has direct connections with many companies that are, as per Albanese’s report, complicit in the genocide in Palestine, including Airbnb, Alphabet Inc, Booking Holdings, Caterpillar, Elbit Systems, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir Technologies.
A 2024 report found that 55 of these companies operate “in the military-affiliated defence, arms, and aerospace sectors” and at least 12 of UTAM’s 44 contracted investment managers have made investments totalling at least $3.95 billion Canadian dollars ($2.88bn) in 11 companies listed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as supporters of the construction and expansion of illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories.
Furthermore, 17 of UTAM’s 44 contracted investment managers are responsible for managing around $15.79 billion Canadian dollars ($11.53bn) in assets invested in 34 companies identified by The American Friends Service Committee as benefiting from the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
UofT is not unique among Canadian universities in this regard. According to a report on university divestment, Western University, too, promotes ongoing partnerships with Ben-Gurion University and invests more than $16m Canadian dollars ($11.6m) in military contractors and nearly $50 million Canadian dollars ($36.5) in companies directly complicit in the occupation of Palestine and the genocide of Palestinians. The list of complicit companies again includes Lockheed Martin, as well others listed by Albanese like Chevron, Booking Holdings, Airbnb, and Microsoft.
McGill University, another top Canadian university, has also invested in Lockheed Martin, as well as notable military industrial companies like Airbus, BAE Systems, Safran, and Thales, which have also been accused of providing weapons and components to Israel.
In the context of the ongoing genocide, students, staff, and faculty at such complicit universities – including at each of our respective institutions – have been demanding that their universities boycott and divest from Israel and companies profiting from its warfare.
They are not only explicitly in the right according to international law, but are actually articulating the basic legal responsibility and requirement borne by all corporate entities.
And yet, for raising this demand, they have been subjected to all manner of discipline and punishment.
What Albanese’s report lays bare is that university administrators – like other corporate executives – are subject to and, frankly, should fear censure under international law.
She writes, “Corporations must respect human rights even if a State where they operate does not, and they may be held accountable even if they have complied with the domestic laws where they operate. In other words, compliance with domestic laws does not preclude/is not a defence to responsibility or liability.”
This means that those administrating universities in Canada and around the world who have refused to divest and disentangle from Israel and instead have focused their attention on regulating students fighting for that end are themselves personally liable for their complicity in genocide, according to international law.
We could not possibly put it more powerfully or succinctly than Albanese herself does: “The corporate sector, including its executives, must be held to account, as a necessary step towards ending the genocide and disassembling the global system of racialized capitalism that underpins it.”
It is our collective responsibility to make sure that happens at universities as well.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
The fires were contained with help from Turkish, Jordanian, Lebanese, Qatari and Iraqi firefighting teams.
Wildfires in northwestern Syria, which have burned vast tracts of forest and farmland and forced evacuations, have been brought under control after 10 days.
In a statement posted on Facebook on Sunday, the civil defence agency said, “with the spread of the fires halted and the fire hotspots brought under control on all fronts”, teams on the ground are working to cool down the affected areas while monitoring any signs of reignition.
The blazes in the coastal province of Latakia broke out on July 3 amid an intense heatwave across the region, which also affected the Dortyol district and neighbouring Turkiye.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it destroyed about 100 square kilometres (40 square miles) of forest and farmland.
As the fires raged, Syrian emergency workers not only had to use outdated equipment but also contend with high temperatures, strong winds, rugged mountainous terrain and the danger of explosive war remnants.
This all comes in a country worn down by years of conflict and economic crisis, nearly seven months after the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad and the installation of a transitional government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the now-disbanded armed group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
In a post on X, Raed al-Saleh, Syria’s minister for emergencies and disaster management, said civil defence and firefighting teams “managed to halt the spread of the fire on all fronts” with help from Turkish, Jordanian, Lebanese, Qatari and Iraqi teams.
Turkiye earlier sent two firefighting aircraft to help battle the blazes. Eleven fire trucks and water support vehicles were also dispatched, according to al-Saleh.
“Firefighting teams are intensively working to extinguish remaining hotspots and cool the areas already put out. The situation is moving toward containment followed by comprehensive cooling operations,” said al-Saleh.
“There are still threats due to wind activity, but we are working to prevent any renewed fire expansion.”
Authorities have not reported any casualties, but several towns in Latakia province were evacuated as a precaution.
With human-induced climate change increasing the likelihood and intensity of droughts and wildfires worldwide, Syria has also been battered by heatwaves and low rainfall.
In June, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said Syria has “not seen such bad climate conditions in 60 years”.
Funerals have been held for the two Palestinians, including a US citizen, who were killed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Friday. The family of Sayfollah Musallet, who was beaten to death, is calling on the US State Department to investigate and hold the perpetrators to account.
Published On 13 Jul 202513 Jul 2025
As Israel’s unrelenting war on Gaza continues, deadly attacks by Israeli settlers and forces against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have also soared to near-daily killings.
According to Shireen.ps, a database compiled by Palestinian journalists, 177 Palestinians have been killed there this year alone.
On Friday, Israeli settlers beat to death 20-year-old American Palestinian Sayfollah Musallet, his family stating that the mob surrounded him for three hours during the assault and attacked medics attempting to reach him.
Eight other Palestinians were also slain this past week – including one child – as a result of settler attacks, as well as targeted assassinations and raids conducted by Israeli troops.
In four instances, the bodies of those killed have been detained by Israeli authorities.
Here are the eight other Palestinians killed in the past week:
Shtayyeh was killed on July 6 during an Israeli raid on the village of Salem, east of Nablus, according to Shireen.ps.
Israeli forces stormed the village and surrounded two houses during the operation, local sources reported.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health stated that Israeli authorities had held his body, refusing to release it to the family for burial.
The Israeli military confirmed the killing.
الشهيدان وسام غسان اشتية وقصي ناصر نصار، اللذان ارتقيا برصاص الاحتلال عقب حصار منزل في قرية سالم شرق نابلس، ولا يزال الاحتلال يحتجز جثمان الشهيد اشتية. pic.twitter.com/Pl2NY2rDHK
— القسطل الإخباري (@AlQastalps) July 6, 2025
Translation: The martyrs Wissam Ghassan Ishtiyeh and Qusay Nasser Nassar, who were killed by occupation forces’ gunfire following the siege of a house in the village of Salem, east of Nablus, and the occupation continues to detain the body of the martyr Ishtayeh.
Nassar was also killed on July 6 in Salem, caught in the crossfire as Israeli forces killed Shtayyeh.
Israeli forces had detained the young man’s body, but later the Palestine Red Crescent Society received it and rushed him to Rafidia Hospital, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Al-Awiwi died on July 8 in Hebron, succumbing to his injuries after being shot by Israeli forces during a raid on the city six months ago, according to Shireen.ps.
The young man was hospitalised a week ago for brain surgery related to his injuries; however, his health deteriorated, and his death was announced last week, local sources reported.
Painful farewells and prayers to the Palestinian youth, Ahmad Nafeth Al-Awiwi, who succumbed to his wounds following his injury by Israeli occupation fire nearly six months ago. pic.twitter.com/vkgqFwaqjM
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) July 9, 2025
Shalakhti died of critical wounds on July 9, after being shot by Israeli forces three days earlier in the Askar al-Jadid camp in Nablus, Wafa reported.
The boy was shot with live ammunition by an “Israeli soldier positioned inside a heavily armoured Israeli military vehicle” around 9:30pm on July 6, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine.
“My brother, my life, and friend,” his mother stated in an emotional address following his death, according to footage verified by Al Jazeera.
Al-Amour was shot at by Israeli forces on July 10 and then run over by an Israeli military vehicle in Rummana, west of Jenin, according to local sources.
Authorities in Israel claimed that he was attempting a suicide attack, Shireen.ps reported.
Israeli soldiers seized al-Amour’s body, Wafa reported. Local sources told the agency they also arrested his sons, claiming that a soldier had been moderately injured in a stabbing attack.
The man’s killing was part of a raid on the town, where Israeli forces raided a large number of homes and destroyed their contents, Wafa said. They also deployed sniper teams and launched a wide-scale arrest campaign in the town.
With al-Amour’s death, the number of those killed in the Jenin governorate since the start of Israeli military raids there on January 21 has risen to 41.
Palestinian Ministry of Health stated that the Israeli occupation forces held the body of Ahmad Ali Al-Amour (55 years old), who was killed this morning under the pretext of carrying out a stabbing attack in the town of Rummana, west of Jenin.#Israel pic.twitter.com/AOapzmCFVk
— Al-Jarmaq News (@Aljarmaqnetnews) July 10, 2025
The men were shot dead on July 10 in the Gush Etzion settlement, south of Bethlehem. Israeli police said they had carried out a stabbing and shooting attack there.
Abed was from the town of Halhul in the Hebron governorate, while Salem lived in Bazariya, west of Nablus, according to Wafa.
The agency reported that the attack by the young men resulted in the death of one Israeli settler. Their bodies were detained by Israeli authorities.
مصادر محلية: الشهيدان محمود يوسف محمد عابد (٢٣ عاماً) من حلحول ومالك إبراهيم عبد الجبار سالم (٢٣ عاماً) من بلدة بزاريا بنابلس منفذا عملية “غوش عتصيون” شمال الخليل. pic.twitter.com/CzHCP8kpIU
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) July 10, 2025
Translation: Local sources: The martyrs Mahmoud Youssef Mohamed Abed (23 years old) from Halhul and Malik Ismail Abdul Jabbar Salem (23 years old) from the town of Bazariya in Nablus, the perpetrators of the “Gush Etzion” operation north of Hebron.
Al-Shalabi was lost during a settler attack on the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, on July 11, and was later found dead after being shot and beaten by settlers there, according to local sources.
It was the same attack in which American citizen Musallet was killed.
The Palestinian Health Ministry, citing a medical report, stated that al-Shalabi was killed after being shot in the chest, which penetrated his back.
He was also left to bleed for several hours, the ministry said.
Activist Ayed Ghafri told Wafa that dozens of settlers armed with automatic rifles attacked residents who were protesting against the construction of a new settlement outpost in Khirbet al-Tal, accompanied by foreign solidarity activists.
The attack also resulted in the injury of 10 citizens from the villages and towns of Sinjil, al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, Abwein, and Jaljalia, north of Ramallah, with wounds and fractures, the agency added.
The municipality of Sinjil condemned the killings of the two men, saying it “will only increase our adherence to our land and our determination to defend it by all legitimate means”.
الشهيد محمد رزق شلبي الذي عثر عليه بعد ساعات من اختفاءه وتظهر على جسده علامات تعذيب وضرب مبرح على أيدي المستوطنين خلال تصديه للهجوم على سنجل شمال رام الله. pic.twitter.com/7D78pbVmq5
— القسطل الإخباري (@AlQastalps) July 11, 2025
Translation: Muhammad Rizq al-Shalabi, who was found hours after his disappearance, showing signs of torture and severe beating at the hands of settlers during his resistance to the attack on Sinjil, north of Ramallah.
At least 10 Palestinians have been killed at a water collection point in central Gaza, six of them children, as famine spreads in the besieged enclave and food and water supplies remain at critically low levels.
Israeli forces on Sunday killed at least 59 Palestinians, 28 of them in Gaza City, as they targeted residential areas and displacement camps across Gaza, medical and local sources told Al Jazeera.
The attack on the water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, which also wounded 16 people, came as the Israeli military steps up attacks as it prepares to force the entire population of Gaza into a concentration zone in the south.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said there is a water crisis across the Gaza Strip.
“Even though water is not suitable for drinking as most of the time it’s contaminated, thirst is pushing people to these areas,” he said, referring to Nuseirat.
“This is not the first time it’s happening. This is close to 10 times and just in the past few months when people were directly and deliberately targeted as they were trying to get water.”
Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza killed at least 110 Palestinians on Saturday, including 34 people waiting for food at the Israeli- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution site in Rafah.
Mahmoud said nearly 800 Palestinians have been killed since the GHF began distributing food parcels in Gaza at the end of May through its “monopoly of humanitarian aid distribution”, pushing aside other efficient, more organised and trusted organisations, including the United Nations.
“A person can pick up a food parcel for their family, but that is not nearly enough to feed hungry children and hungry family members, and that’s the tragedy,” he said.
“People are forced to make these dangerous trips from northern Gaza, from Gaza City, all the way to Rafah city. They walk for 12 to 15km [7.5 to 9 miles], and it takes them a whole day. Some do that at night, sleeping inside bombed-out buildings, to get there as early as possible. Despite all of these efforts to get there as early as possible, they are met with live ammunition and deliberate shooting by Israeli forces.”
At least 67 children have died of hunger in Gaza since October 2023, Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Saturday.
Furthermore, UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, warned of a sharp rise in malnutrition cases as Israel’s blockade of the coastal enclave entered its 103rd day.
In a statement, the agency said one of its clinics in Gaza has seen an increase in the number of malnutrition cases since March when the Israeli siege started. “UNRWA hasn’t been allowed to bring in any humanitarian aid since,” it said.
The warnings came as Israeli forces continued to target starving Palestinians.
On Sunday, an Israeli warplane struck a house in the al-Sawarkah area west of the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing 10 people.
In the northern Gaza Strip, six Palestinians were killed and others injured when an Israeli warplane bombed a house in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City.
Five others were killed and several more injured in a separate air strike that hit a house on Hamid Street in western Gaza City.
In the al-Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City, a girl and another person were killed and several injured when Israeli forces bombed a home there.
In southern Gaza, Nasser Medical Complex medics confirmed the deaths of three people after an Israeli strike on a displacement tent in the al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis city.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces blew up several residential buildings in the Tuffah neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City.
The strikes came amid an apparent deadlock in a week of indirect talks in Qatar between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas for a ceasefire to halt the 21-month war.
Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a genocidal offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023, killing more than 58,000 Palestinians so far, most of them women and children.
Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people in Gaza have been forcibly displaced at least once during the war, which has created dire humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian territory.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Demolition operations being conducted by Israel in Gaza’s southern Rafah Governorate have been stepped up sharply, an investigation by Al Jazeera’s Sanad investigations unit has found.
Israel’s defence ministry has announced a plan to relocate 600,000 people into what observers say would be “concentration camps” in the area in southern Gaza, with plans to expand this to the Strip’s entire population.
Sanad’s analysis of satellite imagery up to July 4, 2025, shows the number of demolished buildings in Rafah rising to about 28,600, up from 15,800 on April 4, 2025, according to data from the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT).
This means that approximately 12,800 buildings were destroyed between early April and early July alone – a marked acceleration in demolitions that has coincided with Israel’s new push into Rafah launched in late March 2025.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, told reporters on Monday that an initial 600,000 Palestinians living in the coastal al-Mawasi area would be transferred to Rafah, the location for what he called a new “humanitarian city” for Palestinians, within 60 days of any agreed ceasefire deal.
According to Katz, the entire civilian population of Gaza – more than 2 million people – will eventually be relocated to this southern city.
A proposal seen by Reuters carrying the name of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) detailed plans for a “Humanitarian Transit Area” in which Gaza residents would “temporarily reside, deradicalise, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so”.
The minister said Israel hopes to encourage Palestinians to “voluntarily emigrate” from the Gaza Strip to other countries, adding that this plan “should be fulfilled”.
He also stressed that the plan would not be run by the Israeli army, but by international bodies, without specifying which organisations would be implementing it.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) – which has been banned by Israel – warned against the latest mass forced displacement plan.
“This would de facto create massive concentration camps at the border with Egypt for the Palestinians, displaced over and over across generations,” he said, adding that it would “deprive Palestinians of any prospects of a better future in their homeland”.
Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg told Al Jazeera that the plan was “for all facts and purposes a concentration camp” for Palestinians in southern Gaza, meaning that Israel is committing “what is an overt crime against humanity under international humanitarian law”.
“It should be taken very seriously,” he said, and questioned the feasibility of the task of “concentrating the Palestinian population in a locked city where they would be let in but not let out”.
For now, Rafah, which was once home to an estimated 275,000 people, lies largely in ruins. The scale of Israeli destruction since April this year is particularly apparent when examining specific neighbourhoods of Rafah.
Since Israel breached the last ceasefire agreement with Hamas on March 19, its forces have directly targeted several institutions.
Sanad has identified six educational facilities that have been destroyed, including some located in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood, west of Rafah City.
However, satellite data shows that several key facilities have been spared; 40 educational institutions – 39 schools and one university – are intact. Eight medical centres also remain standing.
Sanad has concluded that this noticeable pattern of selective destruction strongly suggests that the preservation of these facilities in Rafah is unlikely to be a coincidence.
Rather, it indicates that Israel aims to use these sites in the next phase of its proposed plan to displace the entire population of Gaza to Rafah.
The spared educational and medical buildings already serve as critical humanitarian shelters for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians.
The war’s initial wave of displacement from northern to southern Gaza resulted in an overwhelming influx of people into the 154 UN facilities across all five governorates of the Gaza Strip, including schools, warehouses and health centres.
According to UNRWA’s Situation Report in January 2024, these facilities were by then sheltering approximately 1.4 million displaced people, an average of 9,000 people per facility, while an additional 500,000 people were receiving support from other services.
The report also notes that in some shelters, the number exceeds 12,000, four times their intended capacity.
According to UNRWA’s latest report on July 5 this year, 1.9 million people remain displaced in Gaza.
Satellite imagery analysis of the Rafah area from May 2024 to May 2025 reveals that Israeli forces carried out a two-phase operation in Rafah, including in areas which had been designated for humanitarian aid distribution.
Phase One began with the launch of a military offensive in May 2024, during which most buildings in targeted zones in most of eastern Rafah and parts of western Rafah were demolished.
Phase Two, which began in April this year, involves the continued demolition of remaining residential buildings. This phase also included land levelling and the construction of access roads to facilitate the operation of these aid centres.
British Israeli analyst Daniel Levy told Al Jazeera that Israel intends to use Rafah “as a staging post to ethnically cleanse, physically remove, as many Palestinians as possible from the landscape”.
The distribution of aid, which is now under the monopoly of the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is run by private US contractors guarded by Israeli troops, is also “a premeditated part of a plan of social-demographic engineering to move Palestinians – to relocate, displace and kettle them,” Levy said.
Katz’s announcement came a day after Netanyahu arrived in the US to meet US President Donald Trump, as the latter pushes for a deal to end the war in Gaza and bring back the remaining Hamas-held captives.
Netanyahu stressed his opposition to any deal that would ultimately leave Hamas in power in Gaza. “Twenty living hostages remain and 30 who are fallen. I am determined, we are determined, to bring back all of them,” he told reporters before boarding his plane. He added, however: “We are determined to ensure that Gaza will no longer constitute a threat to Israel.”
“That means one thing: eliminating Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. Hamas will not be there,” he said.
An Israeli negotiating team was in Doha this week for indirect talks with Hamas. Trump said on Tuesday that Israel had accepted the latest ceasefire proposal, which provides for the release, in five separate stages, of 10 living and 18 dead captives, in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire, an influx of humanitarian aid to the Strip and the release of many Palestinian detainees currently held in Israeli prisons.
Hamas gave what it called a “positive” response to the proposal, stressing its reservations about the temporary nature of the proposed truce and making some demands.
Netanyahu’s office called Hamas’s stipulations, concerning aid mechanisms and Israel’s military withdrawal, “unacceptable”.
A sticking point remains Israel’s control of the Morag Corridor, just north of Rafah, which would allow Israel to control and isolate Rafah, facilitating the implementation of the mass expulsion plan.
In his remarks on Monday, Katz said Israel would use a potential 60-day ceasefire to establish the new “humanitarian zone” south of the corridor, and that the army would hold nearly 70 percent of Gaza’s territory.
Gideon Levy, Israeli columnist for Haaretz, told Al Jazeera negotiations were unlikely to result in more than a temporary ceasefire, whith the release of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners, as “Netanyahu doesn’t want an end to the war.”
While Trump could pressure his ally into a permanent deal, the US president does not seem inclined to pull his weight, observers say.
“The end game is an ethnic cleansing,” Levy said. “Will it be implemented? I have my doubts.
“But they are already preparing the area, and if the world is passive and the US gives its green light, it might work.”
Israeli forces have been bombarding the northern half of the Gaza Strip.
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Washington, DC – The family of Sayfollah Musallet, a 20-year-old United States citizen from Florida who was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, is calling on Washington to launch its own probe into the incident and to hold the perpetrators accountable.
Musallet’s family said in a statement that Israeli settlers surrounded him for three hours during the assault on Friday and attacked medics who were attempting to reach him.
The slain young man, known as Saif, was a “kind, hard-working, and deeply-respected young man, working to build his dreams”, the family said.
“This is an unimaginable nightmare and injustice that no family should ever have to face,” the statement added.
“We demand the US State Department lead an immediate investigation and hold the Israeli settlers who killed Saif accountable for their crimes. We demand justice.”
Washington has previously resisted calls to investigate the killing of US citizens by Israeli forces. Instead, US officials say that Israel is capable of probing its own abuses.
But Israeli investigations rarely lead to criminal charges against settlers or soldiers, despite their well-documented violations against Palestinians.
The State Department said late on Friday that it “has no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas”.
“We are aware of reports of the death of a US citizen in the West Bank. When a US citizen dies overseas, we stand ready to provide consular services,” a department spokesperson told Al Jazeera, declining to provide further details, citing the privacy of the victim’s family.
Israeli settlers lynched 20-year-old Palestinian American Sayfollah Musallet, while U.S. officials stayed silent.
Sayfollah was born and raised in Florida. He was visiting family for the summer in the West Bank when settlers beat him to death while he protested illegal land… pic.twitter.com/W4zG8OFD9b
— ADC National (@adc) July 12, 2025
Israeli forces have killed at least nine US citizens since 2022, including veteran Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.
But none of the incidents have resulted in criminal charges.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) said the US “must stop treating Palestinian American lives as expendable”.
“Israeli settlers lynched 20-year-old Palestinian American Sayfollah Musallet, while US officials stayed silent,” the advocacy group said in a statement.
“Sayfollah was born and raised in Florida. He was visiting family for the summer in the West Bank when settlers beat him to death while he protested illegal land seizures.”
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) questioned whether Trump will stay true to his pledge to prioritise US interests.
“Will he uphold his ‘America First’ promise when it’s a Palestinian-American whose life was taken? Or will he once again bow his head to Israel, no matter the cost in blood?” AMP said in a statement.
But the group stressed that US citizenship should not be a condition for justice. Another Palestinian was killed in the same settler attack as Musallet on Saturday.
“And let’s be unequivocally clear: whether a Palestinian holds American citizenship or not, every single murder committed by this regime must be explicitly prohibited, punished, and condemned,” AMP said.
The US provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. It also protects its ally diplomatically at international forums, often using its veto power to block United Nations Security Council proposals critical of Israeli abuses.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on supporters on Saturday to contact their lawmakers and urge them to condemn the killing of Musallet.
“This was not an isolated incident. It was part of a long, unpunished pattern of violence against US citizens by Israeli soldiers and settlers,” the group said in a statement.
Sarah Leah Whitson, the head of rights group DAWN, said the US has tools to pursue accountability in the Musallet case, noting that Washington is pursuing criminal charges against Hamas officials for the killing of US citizens during the October 7, 2023 attack in Israel.
“What is really missing [in the current case] is the political will from the United States government to protect American citizens of Palestinian origin or Americans protesting Israeli actions in the West Bank,” Whitson told Al Jazeera in a TV interview.
“What it really does is it sets a precedent of encouragement and sets a precedent for open season on Americans just as there is open season on Palestinians.”
The blast occurred on Friday night in Taiz city which has been a battleground in Yemen’s civil war.
At least five children in southwestern Yemen have died after an explosive device detonated in a residential area where they were playing football, rights groups and witnesses said.
The circumstances surrounding the incident late on Friday in the al-Hashmah subdistrict of Taiz province remain unclear.
However, on Saturday, the Yemen Center for Human Rights and another rights group called Eye of Humanity, along with Houthi-controlled Al Masirah TV, said an artillery shell was fired by militias backed by the Islah party, which is allied to the internationally recognised government in south Yemen.
Two local residents who were witnesses, Ahmed al-Sharee and Khaled al-Areki, told The Associated Press news agency that the children were playing football when the explosion happened.
At least three people with minor to moderate injuries were also taken to the hospital, according to the witnesses. Meanwhile, Mahmoud al-Mansi, another witness, said the explosive was directed from an area where forces allied with the Islah party were present.
A spokesperson for the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, told The Associated Press that they are aware of reports about the incident but can’t verify the facts at the moment.
The Yemen Center for Human Rights condemned the incident in a report that included graphic photos of the children’s torn bodies. Citing healthcare sources at al-Rafai Hospital, where the victims arrived unresponsive, the group said they died from shrapnel injuries.
Two of the children were 12 years old, while two others were 14 years old, according to the group. The age of the fifth child is unknown.
Taiz city, the capital of the province of Taiz, has been a battleground, pitting the Houthis against other armed groups backed by the Islah party against each other and other factions in Yemen’s civil war.
The city was under Houthi blockade since 2016, restricting the freedom of movement and flow of essential goods to residents, but Houthis recently opened key roads.
Yemen’s ruinous civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen, forcing the internationally recognised government into exile.
A coalition led by Saudi Arabia and including the United Arab Emirates intervened in 2015 to try to restore the government to power.
Years of UN-brokered peace talks have also failed to break the deadlock. But the conflict has been largely frozen since the sides reached a ceasefire in 2022.
The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council controls much of the south, which has been fractured by the civil war. The council advocates for the south’s secession and has its own forces, allied to the internationally recognised government, fighting the Houthis.
Abbas Araghchi also says that Tehran is reviewing the details of a possible resumption of nuclear talks with the US.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has warned that any snapback of United Nations sanctions on the country “would signify the end of Europe’s role in the Iranian nuclear dossier“.
A clause in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and world powers, which United States President Donald Trump torpedoed in 2018 during his first term, allows for UN sanctions to be reimposed if Tehran breaches the deal.
Araghchi also said on Saturday that Tehran was reviewing the details of a possible resumption of nuclear talks with the US. “We are examining its timing, its location, its form, its ingredients, the assurances it requires” from Iran for possible negotiations.”
Separately, Araghchi said any talks with major powers would focus only on Iran’s nuclear activities, not its military capability.
“If negotiations are held … the subject of the negotiations will be only nuclear and creating confidence in Iran’s nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions,” Araghchi told diplomats in Tehran.
“No other issues will be subject to negotiation.”
Last month, Israel unleashed large-scale strikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites, its military leaders, nuclear scientists and residential areas, killing hundreds.
Israel claimed its assault on June 13 was undertaken to “roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But Iran said the war was an unprovoked aggression in violation of the UN Charter.
In the frenetic days that followed, Iran retaliated, and the two countries exchanged daily barrages of missiles.
The US later intervened on Israel’s behalf, deploying so-called “bunker buster” bombs and missiles to target the heavily fortified Fordow facility, as well as Natanz and Isfahan.
The final act in the 12-day conflict came when Iran responded by targeting a key US base in Qatar, with Trump announcing a ceasefire in the hours that followed.
After the conflict, Iran announced that it was suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, amid a deep distrust for the organisation.
Araghchi said on Saturday that cooperation with the nuclear agency “will take on a new form” after President Masoud Pezeshkian last week signed a law suspending Iran’s collaboration with the IAEA.
“Our cooperation with the agency has not stopped, but will take on a new form,” said Araghchi.
The new law outlines that any future inspection of Iran’s nuclear sites by the IAEA needs approval by the Supreme National Council.
On Thursday, Pezeshkian warned that the IAEA had to drop its “double standards” if it wanted to restore cooperation with Tehran.
The president added that “any repeated aggression against Iran will be met with a more decisive and regrettable response”.
I live near Nasser Hospital in the west of Khan Younis city. Almost every day, I hear desperate calls for blood donations made on loudspeakers out of the hospital. It has been like that for more than a year.
The hospital, like other barely functioning health facilities in Gaza, has been regularly overwhelmed with victims of continuing Israeli air attacks. Since the end of May, it has also received many victims shot by Israeli soldiers at aid distribution sites.
I had donated blood before, and I felt it was my duty to do it again. So one morning last month, I headed to Nasser Hospital.
While the blood was being drawn from my arm, I felt severe dizziness, and I thought I was going to faint. My friend, Nurse Hanan, who was one of the workers in the blood donation campaign, rushed to me and raised my legs to increase the blood flow to my brain until I felt better. She went to test my blood, and after 10 minutes returned to tell me that I was suffering from severe anaemia and malnutrition. My blood did not contain the minimum nutrients necessary for donation.
Hanan told me that my case was not an exception. She explained that most of the people who visited the hospital to donate blood suffer from anaemia and malnutrition as a result of the ongoing Israeli blockade and the absence of nutritious food, such as meat, milk, eggs and fruits. Two-thirds of the blood units donated at the hospital have extremely low haemoglobin and iron levels, which makes them unusable for blood transfusions.
In early June, Dr Sofia Za’arab, director of the Laboratory and Blood Bank, told the media that the severe shortage of donated blood units has reached “critical” levels, threatening the lives of patients, many of whom require urgent blood transfusions. The whole of Gaza needs 400 units daily.
“Despite contacting the Ministry of Health in the West Bank to transfer blood units, the occupation authorities prevented their entry [into Gaza],” Dr Za’arab said.
After the failed blood donation, I returned home crushed.
I knew the famine was affecting me. I have lost a lot of weight. I suffer from constant fatigue, chronic joint pain, headaches, and dizziness. Even when I write my journalistic articles or study, I need to take short breaks.
But the revelation of how bad my health condition is really struck me.
For months now, my family and I have been eating only pasta and rice, due to the astronomical cost of flour. We eat one meal a day, and sometimes even half a meal to give more food to my younger siblings. I worry about them being malnourished. They have also lost a lot of weight and are constantly asking for food.
We have not seen meat, eggs, or dairy products since Israel imposed the full blockade on March 2, and, even before that, we rarely did.
The Gaza health authorities have said at least 66 children have died from starvation since the start of the Israeli genocidal war. According to UNICEF, more than 5,000 children were admitted to health facilities across the Strip for treatment of acute malnutrition in May, alone.
Even if some of these children are miraculously saved, they will not have the opportunity to grow up healthy, to develop their full potential, and enjoy stable, secure lives.
But beyond the anxiety I felt about the toll starvation has taken on my body and on bodies of my family members, I also felt pain because I had failed to help the wounded.
I wanted to help those who are suffering from war injuries and fighting for their lives in the hospital because I am a human being.
After all, the urge to help another person is one of the most human instincts we have. Solidarity is what defines our humanity.
When you want to save a life but are prevented from doing it, it means a whole new horizon of despair has opened. When you want to help with whatever little you have – in this case, part of yourself – but are denied, this leaves a deep scar on the soul.
For 21 months now, we have been denied all our human rights inscribed in international law: The right to water and food, the right to healthcare and housing, the right to education, the right to free movement and asylum, the right to life.
Now, we have reached a point where even the urge to save others’ lives, the right to show human solidarity, is being denied to us.
All this is not by chance, but by design. The genocide is not only killing people; it is also targeting people’s humanity and solidarity. From charities and food kitchens being bombed, to people being encouraged to carry knives and form gangs to rob and steal food, the strong solidarity that has kept the Palestinian people going through this genocide – through 75 years of suffering and dispossession – is directly under attack.
Cracks may be appearing in our communal bonds, but we shall repair them. We are one big family in Gaza, and we know how to heal and support each other. The humanity of the Palestinian people has always stood victorious.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
At least 79 Palestinians have been killed since dawn in Israeli attacks across Gaza, with dozens of children dying from malnutrition during Israel’s punishing months-long blockade, as ceasefire talks reportedly stall.
Among the victims on Saturday, 14 were killed in Gaza City, four of them in an Israeli strike on a residence on Jaffa Street in the Tuffah area, which injured 10 others.
At least 30 aid seekers were killed by Israeli army fire north of Rafah, southern Gaza, near the one operating GHF site, which rights groups and the United Nations have slammed as “human slaughterhouses” and “death traps”.
According to Al Jazeera Mubasher, Israeli forces fired directly at Palestinians in front of the aid distribution centre in the al-Shakoush area of Rafah.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said the Israeli army opened fire indiscriminately on a large crowd during one of the attacks.
“Many desperate families in the north have been making dangerous journeys all the way to the south to reach the only operating distribution centre in Rafah,” he said.
“Many of the bodies are still on the ground,” Mahmoud said, adding that those who were wounded in the attack have been transferred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
Amid relentless daily carnage rained upon starving aid seekers and the ongoing Israeli blockade, Gaza’s Government Media Office said 67 children have now died due to malnutrition, and 650,000 children under the age of five are at “real and immediate risk of acute malnutrition in the coming weeks”.
“Over the past three days, we have recorded dozens of deaths due to shortages of food and essential medical supplies, in an extremely cruel humanitarian situation,” the statement read.
“This shocking reality reflects the scale of the unprecedented humanitarian tragedy in Gaza,” the statement added.
Israel is engineering a “cruel and Machiavellian scheme to kill” in Gaza, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Friday, as the world body reported that since May, when GHF began its operations, some 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid.
“Under our watch, Gaza has become the graveyard of children [and] starving people,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said.
As the Israeli military announced on Saturday that its forces attacked Gaza 250 times in the last 48 hours, Israeli officials have continued to push a plan to forcibly displace and eventually expel Palestinians.
Earlier this week, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” which will house 2.1 million Palestinians on the rubble of parts of the city of Rafah, which has been razed to the ground.
But Palestinians in Gaza have rejected the plan and reiterated that they would not leave the enclave. Rights groups, international organisations and several nations have slammed it as laying the ground for “ethnic cleansing”, the forcible removal of a population from its homeland.
Israeli political analyst Akiva Eldar told Al Jazeera on Saturday that the majority of Israelis are “really appalled” by Katz’s plan, which would be “illegal and immoral”.
“Anybody who will participate in this disgusting project will be involved in war crimes,” Elder said.
The message underlying the plan, he said, is that “there can’t be two people between the river and the sea, and those who deserve to have a state are only the Jewish people.”
As Israel announces its intention to force the population of Gaza into Rafah, Middle East professor at the University of Turin, Lorenzo Kamel, told Al Jazeera that the expulsion of Palestinians from their land and their concentration in restricted areas is nothing new.
In 1948, 77 years ago to this day, 70,000 Palestinians were expelled from the village of Lydda during what became known as the “march of death”.
“Many of them ended up in the Gaza Strip,” Kamel said, adding that the Israeli authorities have been forcing Palestinians into spaces similar to concentration camps for decades.
“This is not something new, but it has accelerated in the past months,” he said. The plan to gather the Gaza population on the ruins of Rafah is therefore “nothing but another camp in preparation for the deportation from the Gaza Strip”.
Negotiations taking place in Qatar to cement a truce are stalling over the extent of Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the Strip, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources familiar with the matter, the Reuters news agency reported on Saturday.
The indirect talks are expected to continue, despite the latest obstacles in clinching a deal based on a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire.
A Palestinian source said Hamas has not accepted the withdrawal maps which Israel has proposed, as they would leave about 40 percent of the territory under Israeli occupation, including all of Rafah and further territories in northern and eastern Gaza.
Matters regarding the full and free flow of aid to a starving population, and guarantees, were also presenting a challenge.
Two Israeli sources said Hamas wants Israel to retreat to lines it held in a previous ceasefire, before it renewed its offensive in March.
Delegations from Israel and Hamas have been in Qatar since Sunday in a renewed push for an agreement.
Nearly half the global population has also been exposed to dust levels exceeding WHO safety thresholds.
A new report by the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has found that sand and dust storms are leading to “premature deaths” due to climate change, with more than 330 million people in 150 countries affected.
On Saturday, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) marked the International Day of Combating Sand and Dust Storms and its designation of 2025 – 2034 as the UN Decade on Combating Sand and Dust Storms.
The storms “are fast becoming one of the most overlooked yet far-reaching global challenges of our time”, said Assembly President Philemon Yang. “They are driven by climate change, land degradation and unsustainable practices.”
The secretary-general of WMO, Celeste Saulo, said on Thursday that sand and dust storms do not just mean “dirty windows and hazy skies. They harm the health and quality of life of millions of people and cost many millions of dollars through disruption to air and ground transport, on agriculture and on solar energy production.”
Airborne particles from these storms contribute to 7 million premature deaths annually, said Yang, adding that they trigger respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and reduce crop yields by up to 25%, causing hunger and migration.
“About 2 billion tonnes of dust are emitted yearly, equivalent to 300 Great Pyramids of Giza” in Egypt, Laura Paterson, the WMO’s UN representative, told the UNGA.
More than 80% of the world’s dust comes from the deserts in North Africa and the Middle East, added Paterson, but it has a global effect because the particles can travel hundreds and even thousands of kilometres across continents and oceans.
Undersecretary-General Rola Dashti, head of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, told the assembly the storms’ economic costs are “staggering”.
In the Middle East and North Africa, it costs $150bn, roughly 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), annually to deal with dust and sand storms, she said.
“This spring alone, the Arab region experienced acute disruption,” Dashti said, citing severe storms in Iraq that overwhelmed hospitals with respiratory cases and storms in Kuwait and Iran that forced school and office closures.
Dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa has travelled as far as the Caribbean and Florida, she said. For the United States, dust and wind erosion caused $154bn in damage in 2017, a quadrupling of the amount since 1995, according to a study in the scientific journal Nature.
The WMO and World Health Organization also warned that the health burden is rising sharply, with 3.8 billion people – nearly half the global population – exposed to dust levels exceeding WHO safety thresholds between 2018 and 2022, up from 2.9 billion people affected between 2003 and 2007.