onslaught

Children, journalists among 105 killed in Israeli onslaught in Gaza | Child Rights News

The Israeli military onslaught on Gaza City continues nonstop, resulting in the killing of more than 50 Palestinians, including aid seekers, as it seeks to seize control of the enclave’s biggest urban centre – home to some 1 million people.

At least 105 Palestinians were killed across Gaza on Tuesday as Israeli strikes levelled densely populated areas, particularly al-Sabra neighbourhood, which has been under attack for days. At least 32 of those were killed while seeking aid.

The attacks are intensified as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is facing a “decisive stage” of the war as it prepares to seize Gaza City despite global condemnation.

“Palestinians are in a cage in Gaza City right now, trying to survive as many air strikes as possible. Wherever they go, the air strikes follow them,” said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary.

“They are also dying from the food and aid blockade as they are not able to get the basic means of sustenance,” she said, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

Palestinians are struggling to survive the dual threats of targeted attacks and starvation, with at least 13 people dying of starvation in the past 24 hours, bringing the total hunger-related death toll since the war began to 361. Eighty-three of those deaths have been recorded since a global hunger monitor confirmed famine conditions in Gaza on August 22.

Among those killed on Tuesday were at least 21 people, including seven children, who were struck by an Israeli drone while queuing for water in the al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Images posted online by Palestinian Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal showed children’s bodies and water containers stained with blood at the attack site, which Israel had previously declared a so-called “safe zone”.

“They were standing in line to fill up water … when the occupation forces directly targeted them, turning their search for life into a new massacre,” Basal said on Tuesday.

In Gaza City, an Israeli strike on the al-Af family home killed 10 people, mostly women and children, Gaza officials said.

“These crimes expose the criminal fascist nature of the enemy,” Gaza’s Government Media Office said in a statement, accusing Washington of complicity. It called Israel’s actions “war crimes under international law” and urged the UN Security Council to halt the “brutal genocide”.

Two more journalists, Rasmi Salem of al-Manara and Eman al-Zamli, were killed in the latest attacks, bringing the total number of journalists killed since October 7, 2023, to more than 270. The war in Gaza has become the deadliest conflict for media workers ever recorded, press watchdogs say.

Israel starts ground assault in Gaza City

On Tuesday, thousands of Israeli reservists reported for duty as efforts to end the war seemed to be stalling.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said Hamas had accepted a ceasefire proposal, but Israel had yet to respond.

“There has been no Israeli response yet,” he said, adding that negotiations with mediators and the United States had stalled. He warned that Israel’s plan to occupy Gaza “poses a threat to everyone”, including Israeli captives.

But Israel has tightened its siege of Gaza City in recent days, barring even limited humanitarian aid deliveries.

Israeli Army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir confirmed ground operations were intensifying. “We are going to deepen our operation,” he told reservists as tens of thousands of troops were called up. Israeli media reported that 365 soldiers have refused to report for duty.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, said in a video statement on Tuesday that “we are working to defeat Hamas.”

Yemen’s Houthi movement said its forces launched four drones targeting Israel’s General Staff headquarters near Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport, a power station, and the port of Ashdod, days after Israel killed Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi along with top officials in Sanaa.

The group claimed its drones “successfully hit their targets.” It also said a missile and drone attack struck a cargo vessel in the Red Sea for violating a ban on entering Israeli ports.

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military offensive take shelter in a tent camp, as Israeli forces escalate operations around Gaza City, in Gaza City, September 2, 2025. [Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters]
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military offensive take shelter in a tent camp, as Israeli forces escalate operations around Gaza City, in Gaza City, September 2, 2025 [Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters]

International ‘indifference’ to Palestine

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry welcomed Belgium’s decision to recognise the State of Palestine on Tuesday and urged other nations to follow suit, saying it was “in line with international law and UN resolutions” and necessary to halt “genocide, displacement, starvation, and annexation”.

In a separate statement, the ministry accused the international community of “alarming” indifference to Gaza’s economic collapse and Israel’s seizure of Palestinian tax revenues. It called for urgent financial support to “enhance the resilience of citizens and their steadfastness on their homeland’s soil”.

Mourners stand next to the bodies of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes, according to medics, during the funeral at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, September 2, 2025. [Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters]
Mourners stand next to the bodies of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes, according to medics, during the funeral at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, September 2, 2025 [Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters]

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Powell defends Federal Reserve in speech amid onslaught of attacks from Trump

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell defended the central bank’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic Sunday in a Princeton University commencement speech in which he also praised government employees and U.S. universities, both of which have been targeted by the Trump administration.

The Fed chair and the central bank have been subject to extensive criticism in recent weeks by President Trump and former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, a potential successor to Powell.

In his speech, Powell, who noted he graduated from Princeton 50 years ago, defended the central bank’s decision to cut its key interest rate to nearly zero in response to the pandemic shutdown. It also launched an asset-purchase program that involved buying trillions of dollars of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities, intended to keep longer-term interest rates low.

“With little warning, economies around the world came to a hard stop” as the pandemic hit, Powell said. “The possibility of a long, severe, global depression was staring us in the face. Everyone turned to the government, and to the Federal Reserve in particular as a key first responder.”

Powell singled out longtime government employees for praise: “Career civil servants at the Fed who are veterans of previous crises stepped forward and said, ‘We got this,’” he said.

Trump has subjected Powell to a stream of attacks for months because the Fed has kept its key rate unchanged this year, after cutting it three times at the end of 2024. The president has claimed that there is “no inflation” so the Fed should reduce borrowing costs. Powell has noted that inflation persists.

This month, Trump called Powell a “fool” for not cutting rates and last week called the Fed chair “Too Late Powell.”

Powell has not responded to Trump’s attacks, a stance that has previously won him support among Republicans on Capitol Hill.

In his Sunday speech, he defended American universities, which have come under sharp attacks from the Trump administration as research grants and other funding have been cut for several Ivy League universities, including Princeton.

“Our great universities are the envy of the world and a crucial national asset,” Powell said. “Look around you. I urge you to take none of this for granted.”

Late last month, Warsh, who served as one of the Fed’s governors from 2006 to 2011, slammed the central bank, saying it had allowed inflation to spike to its highest level in four decades in 2022. Warsh is considered a leading candidate to become the next Fed chair when Powell’s term ends next May.

“Each time the Fed jumps into action, the more it expands its size and scope,” Warsh said in a speech on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings. “More debt is accumulated … more institutional lines are crossed, and the Fed is compelled to act even more aggressively the next time.”

The Fed does not issue debt, but Warsh and other Fed critics argue that its purchase of Treasury bonds enabled to federal government to borrow and spend more.

Powell has acknowledged that the Fed could have moved quicker to raise interest rates once inflation began to rise in 2021. Still, on Sunday, he defended the Fed’s pandemic record.

“Through the joint efforts of many, we avoided the worst outcomes,” Powell said. “It is hard to imagine the pressure people face at a time like that. Their collective efforts saved our economy, and the career civil servants involved deserve our respect and gratitude; it is my great honor to serve alongside them.”

Rugaber writes for the Associated Press.

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