Palestine

A senior United Nations official has warned the UN Security Council (UNSC) that Israel’s plan to seize Gaza City risked “another calamity” in the Gaza Strip with far-reaching consequences, as five more people in Gaza reportedly died from starvation – bringing the overall toll to 217, including 100 children.

UN Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas Miroslav Jenca on Sunday told an emergency weekend meeting that if implemented, the plan could result in the displacement of all civilians from Gaza City by October 7, 2025, affecting some 800,000 people, many of them already previously displaced.

This “will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings and destruction, compounding the unbearable suffering of the population,” Jenca said.

Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the UNSC that Israel was aiming for “the destruction of the Palestinian people through forced transfer and massacres to facilitate its annexation of our land”.

“What will force Israel to change course is our ability to transform justified condemnation into just actions … History will judge us all,” he said.

Foreign powers, including some of Israel’s allies, have slammed Israel’s plan. The United Kingdom, a close ally of Israel which nonetheless pushed for an emergency meeting on the crisis, warned the Israeli plan risked prolonging the conflict.

“It will only deepen the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This is not a path to resolution. It is a path to more bloodshed,” the British Deputy Ambassador to the UN James Kariuki said.

Another staunch Israel ally, Germany, said it could not actively support Israel’s plan to expand military operations in Gaza and displace of Palestinians.

“Where are these people supposed to go?” Chancellor Friedrich Merz asked in an interview with public broadcaster ARD. “We can’t do that, we won’t do that, and I will not do that.”

France’s Deputy Permanent UN Representative Jay Dharmadhikari condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the plan, which he said would have “dramatic humanitarian consequences” for civilians already “living in horrifying conditions”.

“The images of children dying of hunger or civilians being targeted as they tried to find food are unbearable,” Dharmadhikari said, urging Israel to comply with international humanitarian law.

The UK, Denmark, France, Greece and Slovenia issued a joint statement asking Israel “to urgently reverse this decision and not to implement” the plan, saying it violates international law.

In a separate statement, the foreign ministers of Spain, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal and Slovenia warned that Israel seizing Gaza City would be “a major obstacle to implementing the two-state solution, the only path towards a comprehensive, just and lasting peace”.

Israel to ‘finish the job’ in Gaza

Despite the international backlash and rumours of dissent from Israeli military top brass, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained defiant over the plan to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre, which was approved by Israel’s security cabinet on Friday.

“The timeline that we set for the action is fairly quickly,” Netanyahu told a news conference in Jerusalem on Sunday. “I don’t want to talk about exact timetables, but we’re talking in terms of a fairly short timetable because we want to bring the war to an end.”

He said Israel had “no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas”, given the group’s refusal to lay down its arms. Hamas said it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state was established.

Netanyahu said the military had been given the green light to “dismantle” what he described as two remaining Hamas strongholds: Gaza City in the north and al-Mawasi further to the south.

“This is the best way to end the war and the best way to end it speedily,” he said. “We will do so by first enabling the civilian population to safely leave the combat areas to designated safe zones.”

While the prime minister stressed that these “safe zones” would be given “ample food, water, and medical care”, guards at the controversial Israel- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), purportedly established to deliver aid to the starving Palestinian population, have routinely opened fire on the aid seekers, killing dozens at a time.

Asked about the growing criticism targeting his cabinet’s decision, Netanyahu said the country was prepared to fight alone. “We will win the war, with or without the support of others,” he said.

Hamas released a statement responding to Netanyahu’s claim that Israel did not intend to occupy Gaza but “liberate” it from the Palestinian group.

The group said the use of the term “liberation” was an attempt to distort the reality of occupation “that will not cover up the crime of extermination, killing, and systematic destruction for more than 22 months”.

Hamas added that it constituted a “desperate attempt to exonerate” Israel after it killed more than 61,400 Palestinians, including more than 18,000 children.

Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN Jonathan Miller fired back at Hamas at the UNSC session, saying the group was “exploiting” the captives and Gaza’s population to “maintain its position, benefiting from attempts to pressure Israel and from the willingness of some countries to recognise a Palestinian state”.

The United States, a veto-wielding permanent member of the UNSC, has so far shielded its staunch ally from any practical measures of UN censure. Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister spoke with US President Donald Trump about its plan, without elaborating on the outcome of the conversation.

Speaking to Fox News, the US vice president said Washington neither endorsed nor rejected Israel’s decision to seize Gaza City and the entire Gaza Strip at large. “Obviously, there are a lot of downsides and upsides”, JD Vance said.

Netanyahu’s plan also received domestic criticism, with opposition leader Yair Lapid saying its implementation would mean that “the hostages will die, soldiers will die, the economy will collapse and our international standing will crash.”

Israel’s Channel 12 reported it will cost billions of dollars within several months, increasing the country’s deficit by 2 percent and leading to widespread budget cuts in areas such as healthcare, education, and welfare.

‘Unacceptable catastrophe’

The director of the coordination division at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the “unacceptable catastrophe” unfolding in Gaza must be brought to an end as he addressed the UN Security Council via videolink on Sunday.

Ramesh Rajasingham expressed concern over “the prolonged conflict, the reports of atrocities and further human toll that is likely to unfold following the government of Israel’s decision to expand military operations in Gaza”.

Israel has blocked all but a trickle of aid from entering Gaza for months and has prevented UN workers from accessing and distributing lifesaving assistance. “The UN has a plan and the systems in place to respond. We’ve said this before, and we will say it again and again: Let us work,” Rajasingham said.

The Government Media Office in Gaza said only 1,210 aid trucks have entered Gaza over the past 14 days. Officials said this represents just 14 percent of the territory’s minimum actual needs of 8,400 trucks.

Netanyahu acknowledged there have been issues of “deprivation” in Gaza, but denied that Israel has a “starvation policy”. Human Rights Watch, among other international organisations, has repeatedly called Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war a “war crime”.

Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children International’s director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, told Al Jazeera that his team on the ground was seeing an “exponential increase” in the number of malnutrition cases, with effects that can “span generations”.

“This is not one event. This is not the absence of two or three meals. This is an accumulation of months [of deprivation],” he said. “We can help alleviate the suffering of children in Gaza, but we cannot do that if the government of Israel continues to impose all its limitations.”

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Al-Sharif killed in what appears to be a targeted Israeli attack on a tent housing journalists outside al-Shifa hospital.

Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif has been killed in what appears to be a targeted Israeli attack, the director of the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City has said.

Al-Sharif, 28, was killed after a tent for journalists outside the main gate of the hospital was hit.

The well-known Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent reportedly extensively from northern Gaza.

The Al Jazeera Media Network had recently denounced the Israeli military for what it called a “campaign of incitement” against its reporters in the Gaza Strip, including most notably al-Sharif.

In July, Israeli army spokesperson Avichai Adraee reshared a video on social media accusing al-Sharif of being a member of Hamas’s military wing – a claim that has been forcefully rejected as false.

Israel has routinely accused Palestinian journalists in Gaza of being members of Hamas since it launched its war on the enclave in October 2023 as part of what rights groups say is an effort to discredit their reporting on Israeli abuses.

The Israeli military has killed more than 200 reporters and media workers since its bombardment began, including several Al Jazeera journalists and their relatives.

More to follow.

Police in London on Saturday arrested 522 people who were protesting against the United Kingdom’s recent decision to ban the group Palestine Action, a tally thought to include the highest-ever recorded at a single protest in the British capital.

The Metropolitan Police on Sunday updated its previous arrest tally of 466 and said that all but one of the 522 arrests took place at a protest in central London’s Parliament Square and were for displaying placards backing Palestine Action.

The other arrest for the same offence took place at nearby Russell Square as thousands rallied at a Palestine Coalition march demonstrating against Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed at least 61,430 people and wounded 153, 213.

The Met made 10 further arrests on Saturday, including six for assaults on officers, though none were seriously injured, it added on Sunday.

The protests were the latest in a series of rallies denouncing the British government’s ban of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 on July 5, days after the group took responsibility for a break-in at an air force base in southern England that caused an estimated 7 million pounds ($9.4m) of damage to two aircraft.

The group said its activists were responding to the UK’s indirect military support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.

Huda Ammori, cofounder of Palestine Action, said ahead of Saturday’s protests that they would “go down in our country’s history as a momentous act of collective defiance of an unprecedented attack on our fundamental freedoms”.

The force said the average age of those arrested on Saturday was 54, with six teenagers, 97 aged in their 70s, and 15 octogenarians.

A roughly equal number of men and women were detained.

In a statement following the latest mass arrests, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper defended the government’s decision, insisting: “UK national security and public safety must always be our top priority”.

“The assessments are very clear – this is not a non-violent organisation,” she added.

But critics, including the United Nations and groups such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace, have condemned the government’s proscription as legal overreach and a threat to free speech.

“If this was happening in another country, the UK government would be voicing grave concerns about freedom of speech and human rights,” Greenpeace UK’s co-executive director Areeba Hamid said on Saturday.

She added the government had “now sunk low enough to turn the Met into thought police, direct action into terrorism”.

Police across the UK have made scores of similar arrests since July 5, when being a member of Palestine Action or supporting the group became a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Police announced this week that the first three people had been charged in the English and Welsh criminal justice system with such backing following their arrests at a July 5 demonstration.

In its update on Sunday, the Met revealed a further 26 case files following other arrests on that day are due to be submitted to prosecutors “imminently” and that more would follow related to later protests.

It believes that 30 of those held on Saturday had been arrested at previous recent Palestine Action protests.

Eighteen people remained in custody by Sunday lunchtime, but were set to be released on bail within hours, the Met added.

It noted officers from its counterterrorism command will now “work to put together the case files required to secure charges against those arrested as part of this operation”.

Protesters call for release of Israeli captives

Meanwhile, demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza marched in central London on Sunday.

The protesters, who planned to march to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s residence in Downing Street for a rally, include Noga Guttman, a cousin of 24-year-old captive Evyatar David, who featured in a video that enraged Israelis when it was released by Hamas last week. The video showed an emaciated David saying he was digging his own grave inside a tunnel in Gaza.

In the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, which triggered Israel’s war on Gaza, more than 200 people were taken captive. Some 50 of the captives still have not been released. Twenty are thought to be alive.

Israel last week announced its intention to seize Gaza City as part of a plan to end the war and bring the captives home. Family members and many international leaders have condemned the plan, saying it would lead to more bloodshed and endanger the captives.

“We are united in one clear and urgent demand: the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” Stop the Hate, a coalition of groups organising the march, said in a statement.

“Regardless of our diverse political views, this is not a political issue – it is a human one.”

By offering nothing except continual massacre for the Palestinians, and attempting to subjugate the surrounding areas to its will, Israel finds itself “in a predicament of its own making”, argues former Israeli adviser Daniel Levy.

Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project, tells host Steve Clemons that Israel has put Arab leaders in a bind, as regional disgust grows towards Israel for its war crimes in Gaza.

And while Western governments and cultural institutions have been carrying water for Israel for decades, argues Levy, some have begun “acknowledging things they worked hard not to acknowledge for an awfully long time.”

Former UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza Sigrid Kaag speaks to Talk to Al Jazeera about delivering aid under Israeli siege, amid what many world leaders call genocide. She discusses blocked aid, famine, the collapse of humanitarian norms, and the UN’s credibility crisis. Kaag, also a former deputy prime minister, finance minister, and foreign minister of the Netherlands, offers her perspective on what future remains for a rules-based order when even humanitarian principles are no longer guaranteed.

Police in London carried out the most arrests in a single day for a decade, detaining close to 500 peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters for ‘terrorism’. Demonstrators condemned Israel’s genocide in Gaza and expressed support for the banned activist group Palestine Action. Many say the crackdown violates free speech and targets peaceful dissent.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have held rallies and marches in cities around the world in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, demanding an end to Israeli attacks on the besieged and bombarded enclave as Israel-imposed starvation engulfs the entire population.

In London, the Metropolitan Police said it arrested more than 466 people at a protest on Saturday against the British government’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action.

British lawmakers proscribed Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation in July after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes as part of a series of protests. The group accuses the UK government of complicity in what it calls Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

Protesters, some wearing black-and-white Palestinian scarves and waving Palestinian flags, chanted, “Hands off Gaza” and held placards with the message “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

In Turkiye’s Istanbul, thousands of protesters demanded more aid be allowed into the Strip, with organisers calling on the international community to take urgent action to end the humanitarian crisis.

Many also took to the streets in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to protest against the blockade and Western support for Israel, demanding the immediate and unrestricted delivery of aid into Gaza.

Several pro-Palestine rallies were also held across Spain, including in the capital, Madrid, to protest Israeli attacks and the starvation in the enclave. Carrying Palestinian flags, protesters shouted, “End to genocide”.

In Switzerland’s Geneva, thousands gathered at the Jardin Anglais to protest against famine and malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza resulting from the Israeli blockade. The crowd staged a sit-in, shouting in English, French and Arabic to demand an end to international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

Large rallies showing support for those suffering in Gaza have also been held in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Protesters in major cities around the world have marched to oppose Israel’s plan to occupy Gaza City, its campaign of starvation, and its genocide of Palestinians. Demonstrators say the 22-month war of extermination must end.

From a festival celebrating the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in El Salvador to solemn commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing in Japan and the ongoing Israel-induced starvation and malnutrition crisis in Gaza, here is a look at the week in photos.

‘This is a death cabinet.’ Thousands of Israelis have marched in Tel Aviv to demand an end to the war on Gaza and the return of captives, a day after Israel’s security cabinet announced plans to occupy Gaza City.

Former Palestinian international player Suleiman Al-Obeid was killed by an Israeli attack on aid seekers in Gaza on Wednesday.

Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah has criticised the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA)’s tribute to the late Suleiman Al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele,” after European football’s governing body failed to reference the circumstances surrounding his death this week.

The Palestine Football Association said that Al-Obeid, 41, was killed by an Israeli attack on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

In a brief post on the social media platform X, UEFA called the former national team member “a talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times”.

Salah responded: “Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?”

Can you tell us how he died, where, and why? https://t.co/W7HCyVVtBE

— Mohamed Salah (@MoSalah) August 9, 2025

UEFA was not immediately available to comment when contacted by the Reuters news agency.

One of the Premier League’s biggest stars, the 33-year-old Egyptian, Salah, has previously advocated for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza during the nearly two-year-long war.

The United Nations says that more than 1,000 people have been killed near aid distribution sites and aid convoys in Gaza since the launch of the GHF, a United States- and Israel-backed aid distribution system, in late May.

Varsen Aghabekian Shahin says international community must take concrete steps to end Israeli impunity for abuses.

The international community must “shoulder its responsibility” and take action against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the Palestinian foreign affairs minister has told Al Jazeera before an emergency United Nations Security Council session.

In an interview on Saturday, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin said the 15-member council must uphold international law when it convenes at UN headquarters in New York on Sunday to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip.

The meeting was organised in response to Israel’s newly announced plan to seize Gaza City, which has drawn widespread condemnation from world leaders.

“I expect that the international community stands for international law and international humanitarian law,” Aghabekian Shahin told Al Jazeera.

“What has been going in Palestine for the last 22 months is nothing but a genocide, and it’s part and parcel of Israel’s expansionist ideology that wants to take over the entirety of the occupied State of Palestine.”

The Israeli security cabinet approved plans this week to seize Gaza City, forcibly displacing nearly one million Palestinians to concentration zones in the south of the bombarded coastal enclave.

Palestinians have rejected the Israeli push to force them out of the city while human rights groups and the UN have warned that the plan will worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza and lead to further mass casualties.

Israel has pledged to push ahead with its plans despite the growing criticism, saying that it wants to “free Gaza from Hamas”.

The country’s top global ally, the United States, has not commented directly on the plan to seize Gaza City. But US President Donald Trump suggested earlier this week that he would not block an Israeli push to take over all of Gaza.

Aghabekian Shahin told Al Jazeera that if Trump – whose administration continues to provide unwavering diplomatic and military support to Israel – wants to reach a solution, Palestinian rights must be taken into account.

“There will be no peace in Israel-Palestine, or the region for that matter, or even the world at large, if the rights of the Palestinians are not respected,” she said, noting that this means a Palestinian state must be established.

The minister also slammed recent remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the future governance of Gaza.

In a social media post on Friday, Netanyahu said he wants “a peaceful civilian administration” to be established in the enclave, “one that is not the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, and not any other terrorist organization”.

But Aghabekian Shahin said it’s up to Palestinians to decide who should govern them.

“The one that has the legal and the political authority on Gaza today is the PLO,” she said, referring to the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“If Gaza wants to come back to the core, which is the entirety of the Palestinian land, then it has to become under the control and governance of the Palestinian Authority, the PLO.”

Aghabekian Shahin also condemned the international community for failing to act as Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have faced a surge in Israeli military and settler attacks in the shadow of the country’s war on Gaza.

“It is the inaction that has emboldened the Israelis, including the settlers, to do whatever they are doing for the last six decades, since day one of the 1967 occupation,” she said.

“The times are very dangerous now, and it’s important that the international community shoulders its responsibility. The impunity with which Israel was happily moving should stop.”

Nearly every state in the Middle East has condemned Israel’s war on Gaza.

Saudi Arabia says normalising relations with Israel hinges on a Palestinian state.

Jordan, Egypt and some Gulf nations have diplomatic ties with Israel, but have criticised it publicly.

In Europe, a growing number of countries are recognising Palestine and the EU is reviewing economic relations with Israel.

But are words enough to make Israel stop killing and starving Palestinians?

And what would it take for countries to cut ties with Israel?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Daniel Levy – President of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli negotiator

James Moran – Former European Union ambassador to Egypt and Jordan

Jawad Anani – Former deputy prime minister and former foreign minister of Jordan

For more than 21 months, much of the international media danced around the truth about Israel’s war on Gaza. The old newsroom cliche – “if it bleeds, it leads” – seemed to apply, for Western media newsrooms, more to Ukraine than Gaza. When Palestinian civilians were bombed in their homes, when entire families were buried under rubble, coverage came slowly, cautiously and often buried in “both sides” framing.

But when the images of starving Palestinian children began to emerge – haunting faces, skeletal limbs, vacant stares – something shifted. The photographs were too visceral, too undeniable. Western audiences were confronted with what the siege of Gaza truly means. And for once, the media’s gatekeepers could not entirely look away.

The world’s attention, however, alerted Israel, and a new “hasbara” operation was deployed. Hasbara means “explaining”, but in practice, it’s about erasing. With Tel Aviv’s guidance, pro-Israel media operatives set out to “debunk” the evidence of famine. The method was fully Orwellian: Don’t just contest the facts. Contest the eyes that see them.

We were told there is no starvation in Gaza. Never mind that Israeli ministers had publicly vowed to block food, fuel and medicine. Never mind that trucks were stopped for months, sometimes vandalised by Israeli settlers in broad daylight.

Israeli officials, speaking in polished English to Western media, assured the public this was all a Hamas fabrication, as though Hamas had somehow managed to trick aid agencies, foreign doctors and every journalist in Gaza into staging hunger.

The propaganda machine thought it had struck gold with one photograph. A New York Times image showed a skeletal boy, Mohammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq. Israeli intelligence sources whispered to friendly outlets: He’s not starving. He has a medical condition. As if that somehow makes his horrific condition acceptable.

The Times went ahead and added an editor’s note to “correct” the record.

That’s how hasbara works – not by persuading people but by exhausting them. By turning every fact into a dispute, every image into a row. By pushing editors to “balance” a photograph of an emaciated child with a government news release denying he is hungry.

Imagine a weather report where one source says, “It’s raining,” and another insists, “No, it’s sunny,” while everyone stands outside, soaked from the downpour. Gaza is that drenched truth, and yet much of the Western news media still feels obliged to quote the weatherman in Tel Aviv.

Every honest report is met with a barrage of emails, phone calls and social media smears, all designed to create just enough doubt to make editors pull back.

But the claim “He’s not starving. He’s just sick” is not an exoneration. It’s an admission.

A child with a pre-existing medical condition who is brought to the point of looking like a skeleton means he has been deprived not only of the nutrition he needs, but of the medical care. This is forced starvation and medicide side by side.

Palestinian journalists inside Gaza, the only ones reporting since Israel banned all foreign media and killed more than 200 Palestinian journalists, are starving alongside the people they report on. In a rare joint statement, the BBC, AFP and Associated Press warned that their own staff members face “the same dire circumstances as those they are covering”.

At the height of the outrage over these photos last week, Israel allowed in a trickle of aid – some airdrops and 30 to 50 trucks a day when the United Nations says 500 to 600 are needed. Some trucks never arrived, blocked by Jewish extremists.

Meanwhile, a parallel mechanism for aid distribution has been funnelled through Israeli-approved American contractors, which purposefully create dangerous and chaotic conditions that lead to daily killings of aid seekers. Crowds of starving Palestinians gather, only to be shot at by Israeli soldiers.

And still, the denials persist. The official line is that this is not starvation. It’s something else – undefined but definitely not a war crime.

The world has seen famine before – in Ethiopia, in Somalia, in Yemen, in South Sudan. The photographs from Gaza belong in the same category. The difference is that here, a powerful state causing the starvation is actively trying to convince us that our own eyes are lying to us.

The goal is not to convince the public that there is no hunger but to plant enough doubt to paralyse outrage. If the facts can be made murky, the pressure on Israel diminishes. This is why every newsroom that avoids the word “starvation” becomes an unwitting accomplice.

Starvation in Gaza is not collateral damage. It is an instrument of war, measurable in calories denied, trucks blocked and fields destroyed.

Israel’s strategy depends on controlling the lens as well as the border. It goes as far as prohibiting journalists allowed on airplanes airdropping food from filming the devastation below.

For a brief moment, the publication of those photos of starving Palestinians broke through the wall of propaganda, prompting minimal concessions. But the siege continues, the hunger deepens and the mass killing expands. Now the Israeli government has decided to launch another ground offensive to occupy Gaza City, and with it, the genocide will only get worse.

History will record the famine in Gaza. It will remember the prices of flour and sugar, the names of children and the aid trucks turned back. And it will remember how the world allowed itself to be told, in the middle of a downpour, that the sky was clear.

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

Critics say ban on activist group stifles freedom of speech and assembly and aims to curb pro-Palestine demonstrations.

Police in London say they have arrested at least 200 people at a protest in support of the group Palestine Action, which was classified as a “terror organisation” by the British government last month.

The Metropolitan Police said on Saturday that 200 demonstrators had been arrested at Parliament Square “for showing support for a proscribed organisation”.

“It will take time, but we will arrest anyone expressing support for Palestine Action,” the police force said in an earlier post on X.

The arrests are the latest at a series of protests denouncing the government’s ban on Palestine Action, a move critics say infringes on freedom of speech and the right to protest, as well as aims to stifle demonstrations against Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.

Under the Terrorism Act 2000, membership in or support for the group is now a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Reporting from Parliament Square on Saturday, Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego said the threat of arrest or punishment “hasn’t deterred any supporters” of Palestine Action from expressing their backing for the group.

“Something as simple as wearing a t-shirt saying, ‘I support Palestine Action’, or even having that written on a sheet of paper” could lead to an arrest, Gallego said.

In advance of Saturday’s protest, more than 200 people had been detained in a wave of demonstrations across the United Kingdom denouncing the ban since it came into force in July.

More than 350 academics from around the world signed onto an open letter this week applauding a “growing campaign of collective defiance” against the decision by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to proscribe Palestine Action.

The signatories “deplore the repressive consequences that this ban has already had, and are especially concerned about the likely impact of Cooper’s ban on universities across the UK and beyond”, the letter read.

Israeli historian and University of Exeter professor Ilan Pappe, Goldsmiths professor Eyal Weizman, and political thinkers Michael Hardt and Jaqueline Rose were among those who signed the letter.

Meanwhile, a separate march organised by the Palestine Coalition group was also held in London on Saturday.

The Metropolitan Police said one person had been arrested at that march from Russell Square to Whitehall for displaying a banner in support of Palestine Action.

Amnesty International UK has condemned the arrest of peaceful protesters solely for holding signs, saying such action constitutes “a violation of the UK’s international obligations to protect the rights of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly”.

BREAKING: Quakers are now being arrested at Parliament Square for holding signs which say “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”

There are still hundreds here who are collectively opposing genocide and the unjust ban of the direct action group. pic.twitter.com/YcfrV8vZ4l

— Defend our Juries (@DefendourJuries) August 9, 2025

Palestine Action has increasingly targeted Israel-linked companies in the UK, often spraying red paint, blocking entrances or damaging equipment.

The group accuses the UK’s government of complicity in what it says are Israeli war crimes in Gaza, where Israel’s bombardment and blockade have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians since October 2023.

The British government issued the ban after Palestine Action broke into a military airbase in June and damaged two Airbus Voyager aircraft, used for air-to-air refuelling.

Manaal Siddiqui, a spokesperson for Palestine Action, told Al Jazeera that the aircraft “can be used to refuel and have been used to refuel Israeli fighter jets”.

According to the group, planes from the Brize Norton base also fly to a British Air Force base in Cyprus to then be dispatched to collect intelligence shared with the Israeli government.

Israeli attacks have killed at least 39 people, including 21 seeking humanitarian aid and 11 who starved to death, over 24 hours in Gaza, Palestinian health authorities say.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Saturday that the total number of malnutrition deaths has reached 212, including 98 children, since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023.

Most of the deaths have occurred in recent weeks as Israel continues to impose severe restrictions on aid supplies entering Gaza after partially lifting a total blockade in late May.

Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, told Al Jazeera that famine continues to pose a serious risk “especially among children and the elderly”.

“Malnutrition among children leads to decreased immunity and may lead to death,” he said.

On Friday, the World Food Programme (WFP) called on Israel to allow the delivery of at least 100 aid trucks per day to Gaza, noting that only 60 of its aid truck drivers have been vetted and approved by the Israeli military to date.

The 100 trucks per day the organisation called for is a fraction of the 600 per day other United Nations agencies and Gaza authorities have said are needed to meet the basic needs of Gaza residents.

“Since July 27, 266 WFP trucks arriving at crossing points were turned back, 31 percent of which had initially been approved,” the agency’s latest report said.

“Convoy movements are frequently hampered by last-minute changes by Israeli authorities, and heavy insecurity due to military activities along convoy routes.”

In its latest statement on Saturday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, noted that it has not been allowed to bring any humanitarian aid into Gaza, including food and medicine, for more than five months, depriving hungry and ailing Palestinians of what they need to survive.

UNRWA has been calling on Israel to lift its siege on Gaza, saying the ongoing airdrops of humanitarian aid from several countries “are very expensive and ineffective” at reaching those urgently in need.

The warnings come as Israeli forces continued to escalate their attacks across the territory. Six people were killed by Israeli soldiers while waiting for aid near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Two other Palestinians were also killed and transported to the Nasser Medical Complex from a GHF aid distribution site in the southern part of the territory.

One woman was killed and another person was wounded in an Israeli air strike targeting an apartment in Khan Younis in the south.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry’s latest count, at least 39 people have been killed in 24 hours.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,369 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 152,850. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.

‘No one and nowhere is safe’

As the death toll continues to soar, international condemnation of Israel’s conduct in the war is growing, with several countries raising alarm over Israel’s plans to seize Gaza City in an operation that could forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to concentration zones in southern Gaza.

A rare emergency UN Security Council meeting has been scheduled on Sunday to address the plan approved by Israel’s security cabinet this week.

In Gaza City, residents were defiant, promising not to leave in the event of a new Israeli ground offensive.

Umm Imran told Al Jazeera that there was nowhere safe in Gaza.

“They say go south, go to al-Mawasi, but there is nowhere safe any more – north, south, east or west. No one and nowhere is safe. We will stay here.”

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said residents were unable to sleep on Friday night after the announcement by Israel.

“People are wondering what’s going to happen to them, what’s going to be left of Gaza if Israel moves on with its approved plan to occupy the entire Gaza Strip, starting with Gaza City,” he said.

The Israeli plan has also been condemned by the foreign ministers of Australia, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

In a joint statement on Saturday, the diplomats warned that Israel’s plan will “aggravate the catastrophic humanitarian situation, endanger the lives of the hostages, and further risk the mass displacement of civilians”.

“Any attempts at annexation or of settlement extension violate international law.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also urged Muslim nations to work in unison to oppose Israel’s plan.

Speaking at a joint news conference in El Alamein with his Egyptian counterpart after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Fidan said members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation had been called to an emergency meeting to tackle the crisis.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ office said Israel’s decision to take control of Gaza City is a dangerous escalation that will lead to more “forced displacement, killings, and massive destruction.”

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Palestinians in Gaza City are facing the prospect of further displacement with a mixture of fear and defiance after Israel announced plans for a military takeover of the largest city in the enclave, where nearly a million people are currently sheltering.

The city was thrown into chaos on Friday after Israel’s security cabinet approved plans for the takeover, which would involve the forcible removal of Palestinians already displaced multiple times into concentration zones in the south.

“I swear to God that I have faced death like 100 times, so for me, it’s better to die here,” said Ahmed Hirz, who has been displaced along with his family at least eight times since Israel’s war began.

“I will never leave here,” he told Al Jazeera. “We have gone through suffering and starvation and torture and miserable conditions, and our final decision is to die here.”

That sentiment was shared by others who spoke to Al Jazeera. Rajab Khader said he would refuse to move to southern Gaza, to “stay in the streets with dogs and other animals”.

“We must stay in Gaza [City] with our families and loved ones. The Israelis will find nothing except our bodies and our souls,” he said.

Maghzouza Saada, who was previously displaced from northeastern Beit Hanoon, expressed her outrage over being forced to move again, when nowhere in the Strip could be considered safe.

“The south is not safe. Gaza City is not safe, the north is not safe. Where should we go?” she asked. “Do we throw ourselves in the sea?”

‘State of panic’

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said residents had been in a “state of panic” since the early hours of Friday over Israel’s plans to ethnically cleanse the area.

He said that some had started to pack up whatever is left of their belongings. “Not because they know where they are going, but because they don’t want to be caught at the [last] moment. They want to be ready for the time the Israeli military is forcing them out,” said Mahmoud.

“The fear, the concern, the desperation are all on the rise. The Israeli military promises an evacuation zone where people, in fact, end up being killed in these areas,” he added.

Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network, said residents were tired of being forcibly and repeatedly displaced. This time, he said, the prospect of evacuation posed even greater dangers, with hospitals, water facilities and other infrastructure destroyed.

“Now, there is nothing to give to the people, and it’s risky,” he said.

“We have to move elders who cannot walk, and we have patients and injured people who cannot move. We cannot leave them behind, and we cannot give them services.”

Some 900,000 Palestinians at risk

As news of Israel’s controversial escalation sunk in, the military continued its attacks on the vulnerable population, killing at least 36 people since dawn – including at least 21 who were seeking aid – according to medical sources.

Among the day’s attacks, an Israeli drone targeted Gaza’s southern municipality of Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis city, killing two Palestinians, according to a source from Nasser Hospital who spoke to Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera Arabic reported that one aid seeker was shot dead by Israeli forces in northern Gaza. And at least two people were killed at an aid distribution site run by the controversial United States and Israel-backed GHF, which is slated for expansion under Israel’s new offensive.

Reporting from Jordan’s capital, Amman, Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid said that the notorious foundation, which currently runs four aid sites where over 1,300 Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food, mainly by Israeli forces, would be operating 12 more hubs in the enclave.

Abdel-Hamid said that Israel had not given an “exact timeline” for taking control of Gaza City, but that a ground offensive was in the offing, with “troop movement along Israel’s southern border with Gaza”. Forcibly removing up to 900,000 Palestinians from the city could, she said, take weeks.

In the longer term, military experts have said Israel’s plans – which would see it assume security control over the enclave, establishing an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority – could take years.

‘War crime’

Amid mounting global condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union and a number of countries, it was unclear what Israel’s chief military backer, the US, made of the plans.

US Vice President JD Vance declined to comment on whether his administration had been given prior notification about Israel’s Gaza City plans, but continued to withhold support for a Palestinian state and underlined that “Hamas can’t attack innocent people”.

Experts say Israel would not be able to move forward with its plan to take total military control of Gaza without billions of dollars in backing from Washington. And few have forgotten President Donald Trump’s stated desire to “clean up” Gaza and turn the enclave into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

On Friday, Hamas called Israel’s plans for Gaza City a “war crime”, saying that the decision explained why the country had suddenly withdrawn from the last round of ceasefire negotiations.

In a separate statement on Telegram, it said Palestinians would “resist any occupation or aggressive force”, slamming the US for providing cover for Israel, and accusing the international community of complicity in crimes against the Palestinian people.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency session on Saturday to discuss Israel’s escalation.