Thousands of leaflets dropped over Deir el-Balah, ordering Palestinians to move to a ‘safe zone’ Israel has repeatedly bombed.
The Israeli military has issued a new forced evacuation warning for the Palestinians in central Gaza, ordering them to move south to al-Mawasi, an area Israel has regularly attacked despite declaring it a “safe zone”.
Thousands of leaflets were dropped over Deir el-Balah on Sunday, telling displaced families living in tents in several densely populated parts of the city to leave immediately.
The Israeli military warned of imminent action against Hamas fighters in the area as it continued its deadly attacks on unarmed and starving civilians desperately looking for food, killing dozens of Palestinians on Sunday, at least 73 of them aid seekers in northern Gaza.
In a post on X, the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said residents and displaced Palestinians sheltering in the Deir el-Balah area should leave immediately.
Israel was “expanding its activities” around Deir el-Balah, including “in an area where it has not operated before”, Adraee said, telling Palestinians to “move south towards the al-Mawasi area” on the Mediterranean coast “for your safety”.
(Al Jazeera)
A video verified by Al Jazeera showed the Israeli army dropping vast amounts of leaflets over residential areas in Deir el-Balah, notifying Palestinians of the order.
‘Nowhere else to go’
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said the area targeted by Israel is densely populated and it would be “impossible” for the affected residents to leave on short notice.
“Palestinians here are refusing to leave and say they are going to stay in their houses because even the areas designated as safe by the Israeli army have been targeted,” she said.
“Palestinians say they have nowhere else to go, and there is no space because most western areas or even al-Mawasi are full of people and tents with no more extra space for expansion. They are left with zero options.”
An injured Palestinian boy cries at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in southern Gaza as he sits on the ground next to men wounded while queueing for food aid [AFP]
The Israeli military issued the warning as Israel and Hamas held indirect ceasefire talks in Qatar, but international mediators said there have been no breakthroughs.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stressed that expanding Israeli military operations in Gaza will pressure Hamas to negotiate, but negotiations have been stalled for months.
This month, the Israeli military said it controlled more than 65 percent of the Gaza Strip.
Most of Gaza’s population of more than two million people has been displaced at least once during the war, which is now in its 22nd month. Israel has repeatedly ordered Palestinians to leave or face attacks in large parts of the coastal enclave.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in January that more than 80 percent of the Gaza Strip was under unrevoked Israeli evacuation threats and many of their residents were living with starvation.
A 35-day-old baby in Gaza City and a four-month-old child in Deir el-Balah died of malnutrition at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital this weekend.
On Saturday, at least 116 Palestinians were killed, many of them aid seekers trying to get food from distribution sites run by the Israeli- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
At least 900 Palestinians desperate to find food have been killed at the sites since the GHF began operating them in late May as an Israeli blockade has prevented food and other necessities from the UN and other aid groups from coming into Gaza.
The genocide has prompted Pope Leo XIV to denounce the “barbarity” of the war as he urged against the “indiscriminate use of force”.
“I once again ask for an immediate end to the barbarity of the war and for a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” Leo said during a prayer meeting near Rome on Sunday.
The hashtag gains global popularity as Israel continues to kill Palestinians seeking food and children die of malnutrition.
Hashtag #GazaIsStarving is trending across social media as Palestinians face a worsening hunger crisis caused by Israel’s relentless bombardment of the enclave and allowing limited aid.
On Sunday, the Arabic version of the hashtag had appeared in more than 227,000 posts on X, where it recently topped the platform’s trending list. On Instagram, the hashtag has been used in more than 5,000 posts.
Most posts are attributing to a post from October 31, 2023, quoting Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah’s warning: “People have started going hungry.”
Nearly two years later, the phrase has become a global rallying cry as Israeli forces kill dozens of starving Palestinians every day.
The social media trend also came amid warnings from the United Nations and other aid agencies that Israel is starving Palestinian civilians, including more than a million children, by blocking food and medicines from entering the enclave.
Since May, nearly 900 Palestinians have been killed near aid sites run by GHF, a notorious aid agency backed by Israel and the United States.
Under the hashtag #GazaIsStarving, social media platforms have been flooded with images and videos showing the extent of the humanitarian crisis, which many countries and rights groups have called a genocide.
The following X post shows Palestinian children visibly suffering from malnutrition during medical examinations at a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) clinic in Gaza City. Israel has banned UNRWA from distributing aid in Gaza.
The following July 10, 2025 video, released on Saturday and verified by Al Jazeera, shows Israeli security forces using pepper spray on Palestinians seeking food at a GHF aid distribution hub in Shakoush area of southern Rafah.
The scene below illustrates the severity of Gaza’s food crisis and the level of desperation for aid, with children clashing over rations and scraping the bottoms of pots for food in the north of Gaza.
The following video, filmed on July 19 near a GHF distribution site in Rafah, captures civilians fleeing the scene as Israeli tanks and bulldozers are seen moving through the area.
The following verified photos taken on July 19 show Yazan Abu Foul, a two-year-old child suffering from severe malnutrition, amid restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid and essential supplies in Shati refugee camp to the west of Gaza City.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food from aid sites run by the notorious US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. As Israel starves Palestinians, the Arabic hashtag ‘Gaza is dying of hunger’ is trending, with thousands trying to raise awareness of their plight.
Men, women and children seen running in all directions away from Israeli soldiers attacking the desperate aid seekers.
Israeli military personnel have pepper-sprayed desperate and starving Palestinian aid seekers at one of the distribution points of the controversial aid agency GHF in Gaza, a video shows.
In the 20-second video verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad, Israeli troops were seen scattering a crowd with pepper spray at Shakoush in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.
The mobile phone video, recorded on July 10 and released on social media late on Saturday, shows three armed soldiers using the pepper spray against the Palestinians at the Israeli and United States-backed GHF aid point.
The GHF security personnel fired pepper spray at Palestinians who went to receive aid in Al Shakoush area in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. 10/7/2025 pic.twitter.com/uZbhyoMgdM
Men, women and children could be seen running in all directions away from the soldiers – some covering their mouths with their clothes, others frantically rushing to leave the scene with bags of flour hoisted on their backs.
Since the GHF started operating in Gaza in late May, at least 891 people have been killed while trying to get food, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Saturday.
A July 15 report by the United Nations found that at least 674 of those people were killed “in the vicinity of GHF sites”.
The highly criticised aid operation has effectively sidelined Gaza’s vast UN-led aid delivery network after Israel eased a more than two-month total blockade on the enclave.
The video of Palestinians being pepper-sprayed came as Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza saw at least 54 more Palestinians killed on Sunday, 51 of them aid seekers, until 10:30 GMT on Sunday.
On Saturday, 116 Palestinians were killed across the enclave, including at least 38 aid seekers.
Mahmoud Mokeimar, a Palestinian in Gaza, said he was walking with a crowd of people, mostly young men, towards the GHF hub when Israeli troops fired warning shots and soon opened fire.
“The occupation opened fire at us indiscriminately,” he told The Associated Press news agency.
Mokeimar said he saw at least three motionless bodies on the ground and many wounded people fleeing.
“Unless Israel allows more food into Gaza, Palestinians have no choice but to risk their lives just for something to eat,” said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in Gaza.
“Parents go to the GHF distribution sites to risk getting killed or leave their children starving. There is no option in the market. Everything is very expensive.”
Meanwhile, Palestinians, including infants and toddlers, continue to die from starvation across Gaza.
Four-year-old Razan Abu Zaher died of complications from malnutrition and hunger, a source at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza City told Al Jazeera on Sunday.
On Saturday, the director of al-Shifa Hospital said two Palestinians had died of starvation, including a 35-day-old infant.
On Friday, the Health Ministry said starving Palestinians are arriving in hospital emergency departments across Gaza in “unprecedented numbers”, as Israel continues to severely restrict access to food in Gaza and shoot people seeking aid.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 58,765 people and wounded 140,485 others. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.
A Palestinian baby has died of starvation in Gaza as Israel maintains its blockade on aid supplies and fires on people forced to seek food at controversial United States-backed aid sites described as “death traps”.
The 35-day-old infant died of malnutrition at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, director Muhammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera. The unnamed infant was one of two people who succumbed to starvation in the facility on Saturday.
The deaths occurred as Gaza’s Ministry of Health warned that hospital emergency wards were overwhelmed by unprecedented numbers of starving people, with officials saying that 17,000 children in Gaza are suffering from severe malnutrition.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military continued to pound the Strip, with medical sources reporting that at least 116 people were killed across the enclave since dawn, including 38 who were shot dead while seeking food from aid sites run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the deaths happened near a site southwest of Khan Yunis and another centre northwest of Rafah, both in southern Gaza, attributing the fatalities to “Israeli gunfire”.
The Health Ministry says almost 900 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and private military contractors near dangerous GHF sites since the foundation began distributing aid in late May, opening four points that replaced about 400 centres run by United Nations agencies and charities.
Witness Mohammed al-Khalidi told Al Jazeera the shots fired at aid seekers on Saturday were “meant to kill”.
“Suddenly, we saw the jeeps coming from one side and the tanks from the other, and they started shooting at us,” he said.
Another witness, Mohammed al-Barbary, whose cousin died in the shootings, said the GHF sites are “death traps”.
“Anyone can get killed. My cousin was innocent. He went to get food. He wanted to live. We want to live like everyone else,” said al-Barbary.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said families hoping for something to eat are instead burying their loved ones.
The GHF denied that Saturday’s killings happened at its site, claiming they occurred “several kilometres away” and “hours before our sites opened”.
The Israeli military said it was reviewing the incident.
‘Open the gates’
Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, warned that Palestinians in Gaza face “an acute risk of famine”.
“No one should have to risk their life to get basic humanitarian assistance,” he said.
Basic supplies are not available in markets or distribution points, while the cost of essentials such as flour skyrocketed, making it impossible for the population of 2.3 million to meet their daily nutritional needs.
No one should have to risk their life to get basic humanitarian assistance.
Recent weeks have seen desperate people risking their lives just to receive basic aid in Gaza.
The population is facing an acute risk of famine, with continuously worsening conditions. Basic food…
Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), rejected assertions made earlier in the week by European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who noted “some good signs” regarding aid distribution in Gaza.
“For NRC and many others no relief has entered for 142 days. Not one truck. Not one delivery,” Egeland wrote on X. He noted that 85 percent of aid trucks never reach their destination because of looting or other issues fuelled by the Gaza starvation crisis.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which Israel has banned from operating in the Palestinian territory, including in occupied East Jerusalem, said it had “enough food for the entire population of Gaza” waiting at the border crossing in Egypt.
“Open the gates, lift the siege and allow UNRWA to do its work,” the organisation said on X.
Wave of attacks
At least 116 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Saturday as Israel continued its ruthless onslaught, bombing tents for the displaced and homes across the enclave.
Four bodies were recovered from the site of Israeli strikes on Bani Suheila near southern Khan Younis, sources at Nasser Hospital told Al Jazeera.
At least one person was killed by an Israeli drone attack on a tent housing displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis.
Further north, Israel struck a residential home in the town of az-Zawayda in central Gaza, killing the director of the Nuseirat police, Colonel Omar Saeed Aql, along with 11 of his family members, according to the Interior Ministry.
In Gaza City, three people were killed in two Israeli air attacks on the Zeitoun neighbourhood, according to a source at al-Ahli Hospital.
Also in the city, five people were killed in an Israeli air attack on the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Medical sources said two people were killed in Israeli shelling in the Jabalia an-Nazla neighbourhood, in northern Gaza.
Israeli forces also opened fire on and arrested three Palestinian fishermen off the Gaza coast, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office.
The Israeli military has maintained a naval blockade on Gaza since 2007, when Hamas took over the enclave, which has been tightened since the start of the war in October 2023.
I have a big Palestinian family. I grew up in a household full of children: We are eight brothers and sisters. As my older siblings started getting married and having children, our family grew even bigger. Every weekend, our family home would fill up with children’s laughter.
I used to wait impatiently for Thursday to come, the day my married sisters would come to visit us with their children. My father would be out shopping, my mother – busy cooking her daughters’ favourite dishes, and I would be playing with the kids. I have nine nieces and nephews in total, and I have beautiful memories playing with and cuddling each one of them. They are the treasure of my family because a home without children is like a tree without leaves.
Despite the difficult life of occupation and siege in Gaza, my sisters and brothers did their best to provide for their children and give them the best opportunity to study and pursue their dreams.
Then the genocide started. The relentless bombing, the constant displacement, the starvation.
I do not have children of my own, but I feel the excruciating pain of my sisters when they face the cries of their hungry children.
“I no longer have the strength to endure. I am tired of thinking about how to fill my children’s empty stomachs. What can I prepare for them?” my sister Samah shared recently.
She has seven children: Abdulaziz, 20, Sondos, 17, Raghad, 15, Ali, 11, twins Mahmoud and Lana, 8, and Tasneem, 3. Like most other Palestinian families, they have been displaced so many times that they have lost most of their possessions. The last time they saw their home in Shujayea neighbourhood, its walls were blown off, but its roof was still standing on the pillars. The plot of land in front of their house, which was planted with olive and lemon trees, had been bulldozed.
Samah’s family has relied on canned food since the beginning of the war. Since Israel blocked aid in early March and aid distribution stopped, they have struggled to find cans of beans or chickpeas. Now, they are lucky if they manage to find a bowl of lentil soup or a loaf of bread.
Day after day, Samah has had to watch her children suffer, losing weight and falling sick.
Lana is suffering the most. She is 110cm (3 feet 7 inches), but weighs just 13kg (28.7 pounds). Her parents took her to a clinic where she was examined and confirmed to have severe malnutrition. She was registered in a programme for the distribution of nutritional supplements, but she has not received anything yet. There are none available.
Lana’s yellow body is so weak that she is unable to stand for long periods or walk in the event that they are suddenly forced to flee. All she wants is to sleep and sit without being able to play with her brother. I cannot believe what has become of her: she used to be a red-cheeked girl full of energy, who used to play with her siblings all the time.
We regularly hear news about children dying from malnutrition, and this is Samah’s worst fear: that she could lose her daughter.
Despite struggling to feed her family, Samah refuses to allow her husband, Mohammed, to go to one of the aid distribution points of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. She knows this is a death trap. She would not have him risk his life for a parcel of food he may not even be able to obtain.
Amid the starvation, my other sister, Asma, gave birth to her second child, Wateen. She is now two months old, and because of a lack of nutrition, she is suffering from jaundice. I have only seen Wateen in photos. She weighed two and a half kilograms (5.5 pounds) when she was born. She looked yellow and sleepy in all her photos.
The doctors said her mother, who is breastfeeding, cannot provide her with the nutrients she needs because she herself is undernourished. Wateen needs to be fed with highly saturated formula milk, which is not available because Israel has been blocking the delivery of all baby formula into Gaza.
Asmaa is now worried that Wateen may develop malnutrition because she is unable to provide her with nutritious milk. “I’m melting like a candle! When will this suffering end?” she told me recently.
My heart is tearing apart when I talk with my sisters and hear about their pain and the hunger that is ravaging their children.
The Israeli occupation forces have already killed more than 18,000 children since it embarked on the genocide. Some 1.1 million are still surviving. Israel wants to make sure they have no future.
This is not an unfortunate consequence of war; it is a war strategy.
Malnutrition is not just a severe loss of weight. It is a devastating condition that damages the body’s vital internal organs, such as the liver, kidneys, and stomach. It affects the growth and development of children and results in higher predisposition to disease, learning difficulties, cognitive impairment and psychological issues.
By starving Palestinian children, depriving them of education and health care, the occupier aims to achieve one goal: creating a fragile generation, weak in mind and constitution, unable to think, and with no horizon other than searching for food, drink, and shelter. This means a generation that is unable to defend the right to its land and stand up to the occupier. A generation that does not understand the existential struggle of its people.
The war plan is clear, and the goal has been stated publicly by Israeli officials. The question now is, will the world let Israel destroy Gaza’s children?
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
UK’s Met police says 55 people have been arrested in Parliament Square for displaying placards in support of the group.
Protests are taking place across the United Kingdom calling for the ban on Palestine Action to be reversed, amid police warnings that those showing support for the proscribed activist group face arrest.
Demonstrations have been taking place on Saturday in Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, Truro and London as part of a campaign coordinated by Defend Our Juries, which has already seen dozens arrested.
London’s Metropolitan police said 55 people have been arrested Saturday in Parliament Square for displaying placards in support of the group.
The Met police said 70 people were arrested at similar demonstrations in Parliament Square over the past two weekends, while Defend Our Juries said a total of 120 had so far been arrested across the UK.
Police officers remove a person after they took part in a protest in Parliament Square, London, to call for de-proscription of ‘Palestine Action’ after a ban against the organisation was announced, Saturday July 12, 2025. (James Manning/PA via AP)
It comes ahead of a High Court hearing on Monday in which the cofounder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, will ask for the green light to challenge the home secretary’s decision to ban the group under “anti-terror” laws.
The ban means that membership of, or support for, the direct action group is now a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison, under the Terrorism Act 2000, putting the group on a par with armed groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).
Authorities have beefed up police presence in Westminster in the wake of the rallies.
A counterprotest by the pro-Israeli Stop the Hate group will also take place in London on Saturday.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan said those expressing support for Palestine Action “will likely be committing an offence and will very likely be arrested”.
Five people appeared in court on Saturday over a Palestine Action protest at an Israeli-linked defence firm’s site.
Members of the organisation, allegedly armed with sledgehammers and whips, are accused of breaking into the Elbit Systems site near Patchway, Bristol, in the early hours of August 6, 2024, “counter-terrorism” police said.
More than 2 million pounds of damage ($2.68 million) was caused, and police officers and a security guard were assaulted, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.
Prosecutors claim the alleged offences had a “terrorist connection”. The five involved were charged with aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder.
Palestine Action describes itself as “a pro-Palestinian organisation which disrupts the arms industry in the United Kingdom with direct action”.
Since its founding in July 2020, it has carried out hundreds of protests across the UK aimed at disrupting the operations of companies they accuse of profiting from Israeli military operations, with a particular focus on the Israeli arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems.
The group’s tactics typically involve breaking into facilities, chaining themselves to machinery, daubing buildings with red paint and destroying equipment.
The UK has seen hundreds of thousands of people peacefully protest on a near-weekly basis, calling for an end to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza in the last 22 months.
Some 1,500 students are scheduled to sit their end-of-school exams, despite Israel’s genocidal war.
Hundreds of Palestinian students in Gaza are taking a crucial end-of-secondary-school exam organised by the besieged enclave’s Ministry of Education in the hope of entering university studies.
Earlier this month, the ministry announced Saturday’s exam, which will be the first since Israel began its genocidal war on Gaza after the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel in October 2023.
The ministry confirmed that about 1,500 students are registered to take the exam, which will be conducted electronically using specialised software, adding that all necessary technical preparations have been carried out to ensure smooth administration.
Some students are sitting the online exam at home, while others are taking it at venues depending on the region they are in, with safety considerations in mind, given the daily Israeli bombardment.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, stressed that for Palestinian students, the exam is a critical gateway to higher education, scholarships and a future beyond the Israeli blockade.
He said: “Even in a warzone, with no classrooms, no books and barely any internet, Gaza’s students are showing up, logging in and sitting their final exam, refusing to let war erase their future.”
After the war started, the education of many students in Gaza has been put on hold, and the results of Saturday’s exam will allow them to continue their studies at university.
Many should have been at university by now, but remained at the high school level due to the war, as Israeli attacks have devastated Gaza’s education system, along with the rest of the territory’s civilian infrastructure.
In response, Gaza’s Education Ministry has launched an online platform – the first of its kind in Gaza – to enable high school seniors to take their final exam.
“Students have downloaded the app to take their exam, but they face many challenges,” Morad al-Agha, the exams director of the Central Gaza Governorate, told Al Jazeera.
“We have raised these concerns with the ministry to make sure they’re resolved, so students can sit for their exams without disruption.”
‘It is so difficult’
Students log in from cafes, tents and shelters – wherever they can find a charged device and a working internet connection.
Before the final exam, they have completed a mock test, designed not only to test their knowledge but also the system’s stability.
However, students tell Al Jazeera that going digital in Gaza has not been easy.
“We are taking exams online, but it is so difficult,” student Doha Khatab said. “The internet is weak, many of us do not have devices and there is no safe space to take the test. We also lost our books in the bombardment.”
To support them, a few teachers have reopened damaged classrooms and are offering in-person guidance.
“It is the first time the ministry has done this online and students are confused, so we’re trying to guide them step by step,” teacher Enam Abu Slisa told Al Jazeera.
The war in Gaza and the destruction of 95 percent of educational infrastructure have left more than 660,000 children out of school – nearly all of Gaza’s school-aged population, according to the United Nations.
Many former UN-run schools are now being used as shelters for displaced people and also face relentless, deadly Israeli attacks.
A report to the UN Human Rights Council found that Israeli forces systematically destroyed education infrastructure in Gaza. The report described these actions as potential war crimes.
International public opinion continues to turn against Israel for its war on Gaza, with more governments slowly beginning to reflect those voices and increase their own condemnation of the country.
In the last few weeks, Israeli government ministers have been sanctioned by several Western countries, with the United Kingdom, France and Canada issuing a joint statement condemning the “intolerable” level of “human suffering” in Gaza.
Earlier this week, a number of countries from the Global South, “The Hague Group”, collectively agreed on a number of measures that they say will “restrain Israel’s assault on the Occupied Palestinian Territories”.
Across the world, and in increasing numbers, the public, politicians and, following an Israeli strike on a Catholic church in Gaza, religious leaders are speaking out against Israel’s killings in Gaza.
So, are world powers getting any closer to putting enough pressure on Israel for it to stop?
Here’s what we know.
What is the Hague Group?
According to its website, the Hague Group is a global bloc of states committed to “coordinated legal and diplomatic measures” in defence of international law and solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Made up of eight nations; South Africa, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia and Senegal, the group has set itself the mission of upholding international law, and safeguarding the principles set out in the Charter of the United Nations, principally “the responsibility of all nations to uphold the inalienable rights, including the right to self-determination, that it enshrines for all peoples”.
Earlier this week, the Hague Group hosted a meeting of some 30 nations, including China, Spain and Qatar, in the Colombian capital of Bogota. Also attending the meeting was UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who characterised the meeting as “the most significant political development in the past 20 months”.
Albanese was recently sanctioned by the United States for her criticism of its ally, Israel.
At the end of the two-day meeting, 12 of the countries in attendance agreed to six measures to limit Israel’s actions in Gaza. Included in those measures were blocks on supplying arms to Israel, a ban on ships transporting weapons and a review of public contracts for any possible links to companies benefiting from Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Have any other governments taken action?
More and more.
On Wednesday, Slovenia barred far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering its territory after the wider European Union failed to agree on measures to address charges of widespread human rights abuses against Israel.
Slovenia’s ban on the two government ministers builds upon earlier sanctions imposed upon Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in June by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and Norway over their “incitement to violence”. The two men have been among the most vocal Israeli ministers in rejecting any compromise in negotiations with Palestinians, and pushing for the Jewish settlement of Gaza, as well as the increased building of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Left to right, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israeli far-right lawmaker and leader of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish power) party, and Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli far-right lawmaker and leader of the Religious Zionist Party have both been declared ‘persona non grata’ by lawmakers in Slovenia [Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP]
In May, the UK, France, and Canada issued a joint statement describing Israel’s escalation of its campaign against Gaza as “wholly disproportionate” and promising “concrete actions” against Israel if it did not halt its offensive.
Later that month, the UK followed through on its warning, announcing sanctions on a handful of settler organisations and announcing a “pause” in free trade negotiations with Israel.
Also in May, Turkiye announced that it would block all trade with Israel until the humanitarian situation in Gaza was resolved.
South Africa first launched a case for genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice in late December 2023, and has since been supported by other countries, including Colombia, Chile, Spain, Ireland, and Turkiye.
In January of 2024, the ICJ issued its provisional ruling, finding what it termed a “plausible” case for genocide and instructing Israel to undertake emergency measures, including the provision of the aid that its government has effectively blocked since March of this year.
Following what was reported to be an “angry” phone call from US President Trump after the bombing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement expressing its “deep regret” over the attack.
To date, Israel has killed more than 58,000 people in Gaza, the majority women and children.
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III visit the Church of the Holy Family, which was hit in an Israeli strike on Thursday, in Gaza City, July 18, 2025 [The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem/Handout via Reuters]
Has the tide turned internationally?
Mass public protests against Israel’s war on Gaza have continued around the world throughout its duration.
And there are clear signs of growing anger over the brutality of the war and the toll it is taking on Palestinians in Gaza.
In Western Europe, a survey carried out by the polling company YouGov in June found that net favourability towards Israel had reached its lowest ebb since tracking began.
A similar poll produced by CNN this week found similar results among the American public, with only 23 percent of respondents agreeing Israel’s actions in Gaza were fully justified, down from 50 percent in October 2023.
Public anger has also found voice at high-profile public events, including music festivals such as Germany’s Fusion Festival, Poland’s Open’er Festival and the UK’s Glastonbury festival, where both artists and their supporters used their platforms to denounce the war on Gaza.
Revellers with Palestinian and other flags gather as Kneecap performs at Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset, UK, June 28, 2025 [Jaimi Joy/Reuters]
Has anything changed in Israel?
Protests against the war remain small but are growing, with organisations, such as Standing Together, bringing together Israeli and Palestinian activists to protest the war.
There has also been a growing number of reservists refusing to show up for duty. In April, the Israeli magazine +972 reported that more than 100,000 reservists had refused to show up for duty, with open letters from within the military protesting the war growing in number since.
Will it make any difference?
Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition has been pursuing its war on Gaza despite its domestic and international unpopularity for some time.
The government’s most recent proposal, that all of Gaza’s population be confined into what it calls a “humanitarian city”, but has been likened to a concentration camp and has been taken by many of its critics as evidence that it no longer cares about either international law or global opinion.
Internationally, despite its recent criticism of Israel for its bombing of Gaza’s one Catholic church, US support for Israel remains resolute. For many in Israel, the continued support of the US, and President Donald Trump in particular, remains the one diplomatic absolute they can rely upon to weather whatever diplomatic storms their actions in Gaza may provoke.
In addition to that support, which includes diplomatic guarantees through the use of the US veto in the United Nations Security Council and military support via its extensive arsenal, is the US use of sanctions against Israel’s critics, such as the International Criminal Court, whose members were sanctioned in June after it issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on war crimes charges.
That means, in the short term, Israel ultimately feels protected as long as it has US support. But as it becomes more of an international pariah, economic and diplomatic isolation may become more difficult to handle.
Israeli forces have shot and killed a Palestinian child in the occupied West Bank amid more violent raids by soldiers and settlers, and as Israeli authorities position to confiscate more land.
Local Palestinian sources reported on Friday that 13-year-old Amr Ali Qabha was hit with live ammunition in a street in Yabad, located south of Jenin, and was denied medical treatment as soldiers prevented ambulances from reaching him.
Qabha’s father also tried to reach him, but was severely beaten and detained by Israeli soldiers, according to the Wafa news agency, which said the child was pronounced dead at the hospital after an ambulance was finally able to get him there.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed across the occupied West Bank since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023. Of that figure, at least 204 were children.
The United Nations humanitarian office (OCHA) said on Friday that at least 14 Palestinian deaths and 355 injuries were recorded in the West Bank last month, while there were at least 129 Israeli settler attacks resulting in Palestinian casualties or property damage.
According to OCHA figures, between the beginning of 2024 and the end of June 2025, more than 2,200 Israeli settler attacks were reported, resulting in more than 5,200 Palestinian injuries.
In that same period, nearly 36,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced across the West Bank due to Israeli military operations, settler violence or home demolitions carried out by the Israeli government.
Ongoing raids and harassment
The deadly incident on Friday came as Israeli soldiers continued their raids across the occupied territory that were accompanied by arrests, and assisted settlers in their attacks aimed at driving Palestinians from their lands.
In Jenin’s village of Raba, Israeli forces fired tear gas at Palestinians, including children, who were protesting against the confiscation of their land and property.
Israeli forces fire tear gas at Palestinians who demonstrated against the confiscation of their land in Raba, near Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, July 18, 2025 [Raneen Sawafta/Reuters]
In the town of Dura, located south of Hebron, five Palestinians were detained after a raid that included the ransacking of several homes.
Six more were arrested in Qalqiliya’s village of Kafr Laqif, with another two taken from the village of Sir in the same district.
A Palestinian man was arrested in Bethlehem after being summoned by Israeli intelligence to the Gush Etzion settlement. Two people were taken during a raid on Nablus, with one shot and wounded before his arrest. Another arrest was reported in the Askar refugee camp.
In the village of Umm Safa near Ramallah, Israeli soldiers destroyed a main water pipeline, which left about 1,000 residents without water.
In the neighbourhood of Beit Hanina in occupied East Jerusalem, families living in a residential building were forced to leave in preparation for the demolition of their homes. The Palestinian families were among those forced to demolish the buildings themselves after an order by Israeli authorities, because the municipality would fine them more if it demolishes the building.
Armed Israeli settlers launched a violent attack earlier on Friday in the village of al-Malih in the northern Jordan Valley, located northeast of the occupied territory. They killed at least 117 sheep belonging to Palestinians, stole more livestock and vandalised tents and other property, according to Wafa.
Israel’s plan to divide future Palestinian state
Israeli authorities are planning to illegally confiscate more Palestinian land as well, despite international criticism.
The United Kingdom on Friday opposed Israel’s announcement of its intention to renew plans for construction in the E1 area in the occupied West Bank, a move that would split the Palestinian territory.
“The UK strongly opposes the announcement by the central planning bureau of Israel’s Civil Administration to reintroduce the E1 settlement plan, frozen since 2021,” said a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson.
The plan would include the construction of more than 3,000 houses to the east of Jerusalem, dividing a future Palestinian state in two, read the statement, and “marking a flagrant breach of international law”.
A Palestinian man inspects burned cars, after Israeli settlers set fire to vehicles in the Palestinian town of Burqa, near Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, July 15, 2025 [Mohammed Torokman/Reuters]
US Democratic Senators Bernie Sanders, Peter Welch, Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen issued a joint statement on Friday condemning Israel’s longstanding plan to destroy and force out Palestinian communities in Masafer Yatta, in the South Hebron Hills.
Amid frequent attacks by settlers and troops in the area, Israeli authorities are advancing with plans to turn the Masafer Yatta area into an “open fire” zone for their military.
Washington, DC – New media reports in the United States, citing intelligence assessments, have cast doubt over President Donald Trump’s assertion that Washington’s military strikes last month “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme.
The Washington Post and NBC News reported that US officials were saying that only one of the three Iranian nuclear sites – the Fordow facility – targeted by the US has been destroyed.
The Post’s report, released on Friday, also raised questions on whether the centrifuges used to enrich uranium at the deepest level of Fordow were destroyed or moved before the attack.
“We definitely can’t say it was obliterated,” an unidentified official told the newspaper, referring to Iran’s nuclear programme.
Trump has insisted that the US strikes were a “spectacular” success, lashing out at any reports questioning the level of damage they inflicted on Iran’s nuclear programme.
An initial US intelligence assessment, leaked to several media outlets after the attack last month, said the strikes failed to destroy key components of Iran’s nuclear programme and only delayed its work by months.
But the Pentagon said earlier in July that the attacks degraded the Iranian programme by one to two years.
While the strikes on Fordow – initially thought to be the most guarded facility, buried inside a mountain – initially took centre stage, the NBC News and Washington Post reports suggested that the facilities in Natanz and Isfahan also had deep tunnels.
‘Impenetrable’
The US military did not use enormous bunker-busting bombs against the Isfahan site and targeted surface infrastructure instead.
A congressional aide familiar with intelligence briefings told the Post that the Pentagon had assessed that the underground facilities at Isfahan were “pretty much impenetrable”.
The Pentagon responded to both reports by reiterating that all three sites were “completely and totally obliterated”.
Israel, which started the war by attacking Iran without direct provocation last month, has backed the US administration’s assessment, while threatening further strikes against Tehran if it resumes its nuclear programme.
For its part, Tehran has not provided details about the state of its nuclear sites.
Some Iranian officials have said that the facilities sustained significant damage from US and Israeli attacks. But Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said after the war that Trump had “exaggerated” the impact of the strikes.
The location and state of Iran’s highly enriched uranium also remain unknown.
Iran’s nuclear agency and regulators in neighbouring states have said they did not detect a spike in radioactivity after the bombings, suggesting the strikes did not result in uranium contamination.
But Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, did not rule out that the uranium containers may have been damaged in the attacks.
“We don’t know where this material could be or if part of it could have been under the attack during those 12 days,” Grossi told CBS News last month.
According to Grossi, Iran could resume uranium enrichment in a “matter of months”.
The war
Israel launched a massive attack against Iran on June 13, killing several top military officials, as well as nuclear scientists.
The bombing campaign targeted military sites, civilian infrastructure and residential buildings across the country, killing hundreds of civilians.
Iran responded with barrages of missiles against Israel that left widespread destruction and claimed the lives of at least 29 people.
The US joined the Israeli campaign on June 22, striking the three nuclear sites. Iran retaliated with a missile attack against an air base housing US troops in Qatar.
Initially, Trump said the Iranian attack was thwarted, but after satellite images showed damage at the base, the Pentagon acknowledged that one of the missiles was not intercepted.
“One Iranian ballistic missile impacted Al Udeid Air Base June 23 while the remainder of the missiles were intercepted by US and Qatari air defence systems,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told Al Jazeera in an email last week.
“The impact did minimal damage to equipment and structures on the base. There were no injuries.”
After a ceasefire was reached to end the 12-day war, both the US and Iran expressed willingness to engage in diplomacy to resolve the nuclear file. But talks have not materialised.
Iran and the US were periodically holding nuclear talks before Israel launched its war in June.
EU-Iran talks
During his first term in 2018, Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The agreement saw Iran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for lifting international sanctions against its economy.
In recent days, European officials have suggested that they could impose “snap-back” sanctions against Iran as part of the deal that has long been violated by the US.
Tehran, which started enriching uranium beyond the limits set by the JCPOA after the US withdrawal, insists that Washington was the party that nixed the agreement, stressing that the deal acknowledges Iran’s enrichment rights.
I had a joint teleconference with E3 FMs & EU HR last night, in which I made the following points clear:
It was the US that withdrew from a two-year negotiated deal -coordinated by EU in 2015- not Iran; and it was US that left the negotiation table in June this year and chose a… pic.twitter.com/NFQdK2HZD4
On Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he held talks with the top diplomats of France, the United Kingdom and Germany – known as the E3 – as well as the European Union’s high representative.
Araghchi said Europeans should put aside “worn-out policies of threat and pressure”.
“It was the US that withdrew from a two-year negotiated deal – coordinated by EU in 2015 – not Iran; and it was US that left the negotiation table in June this year and chose a military option instead, not Iran,” the Iranian foreign minister said in a social media post.
“Any new round of talks is only possible when the other side is ready for a fair, balanced, and mutually beneficial nuclear deal.”
Tehran denies seeking a nuclear bomb. Israel, meanwhile, is widely believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.
As fighting continues between factions in southern Syria and the country’s army faces threats from Israel if it intervenes, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr says Israel’s posture poses a major challenge to the Syrian government.
At least 26 Palestinians have been killed since dawn across Gaza in Israeli attacks, medical sources have told Al Jazeera, as the besieged and bombarded enclave’s decimated health system, overwhelmed by a daily flow of wounded, is forcing doctors to make decisions on who to treat first.
In the latest killings on Friday, three people died in an Israeli attack on the Tuffah neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City. Five people were also killed in an Israeli air attack in Jabalia an-Nazla, in northern Gaza.
Earlier, an Israeli attack hit tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza – previously designated a so-called “safe zone” – igniting a major fire and killing at least five people, including infants. Al-Mawasi has come under repeated, deadly Israeli fire.
The death toll also includes includes six people who were desperately seeking aid.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent Hani Mahmoud said the injured, including children, were transferred to Nasser Hospital. Some showed wounds compatible with drone attacks.
“Drone missiles are packed with nails, metals and shrapnel that explodes at high speed, causing internal bleeding,” Mahmoud said. “These attacks are on the rise and target people in large crowds, in markets or while queueing for water.
“While Israel claims to be using sophisticated weapons, when we look on the ground, we see the number of casualties contradicting what Israel is [saying],” he added.
‘What should we do? Die at home?’
Israel’s ongoing, punishing blockade of Gaza is forcing doctors in crammed medical facilities to make difficult decisions about who to treat.
Patients with chronic illnesses are often the first to miss out because emergency departments are overwhelmed by people wounded in Israeli attacks.
“Before the war, I used to receive dialysis three times a week, with each session lasting four hours. At that time, the situation was stable, the treatment was effective, and we would return home feeling well and rested,” Omda Dagmash, a dialysis patient, told Al Jazeera at the barely functioning al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
“Now we can barely make the journey to the hospital, particularly since we are not eating well.”
At al-Shifa, the dialysis schedule has been scaled down to shorter and less frequent sessions. For some, it is a matter of life and death.
“The journey here is long and costly,” said Rowaida Minyawi, an elderly patient. “After all this exhaustion, we sometimes can’t find treatment. I have heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. Even the medicine we get is not good. What should we do? Die at home?”
Besides prioritising patients, healthcare workers say they have to scale back operations to the minimum, as no fuel means no power – and no way to save lives.
“Only a few departments are working. We had to cut electricity to the rest,” said Ziad Abu Humaidan, from the hospital’s engineering department.
“The hospital’s yards turned into graveyards rather than a place of care and healing. Without electricity, there is no lighting, no functioning medical equipment, and no support for other essential services.”
Waning support in Israel for war
According to a public opinion survey conducted by the Israeli news outlet Maariv, about 44 percent of the Israeli public said the continued war in Gaza will not achieve the country’s goals.
A total of 42 percent of those surveyed said they believe the fighting will lead to achieving the goals, while 11 percent of the respondents said they are undecided.
Maariv also noted that of those who support the current coalition government, 73 percent think the military will achieve its goals, while 70 percent of opposition supporters think otherwise.
In the meantime, Israel faced a rare backlash on Thursday after it bombed Gaza’s only Catholic church, killing three people and wounding at least 10.
United States President Donald Trump contacted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after having “not a positive reaction” to the strike, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
After the call, Netanyahu attributed the strike to “stray ammunition” and added that Israel was investigating the incident.
Hamas slammed the attack as “a new crime committed against places of worship and innocent displaced persons” that comes in the context of a “war of extermination against the Palestinian people”.
Khan Younis, Gaza Strip – Eighteen-year-old Hani Hammad never imagined that his daily search for flour would end with him suffocating and being trampled.
On Wednesday morning, he left his tent in the al-Mawasi area of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, where he’s been displaced from Rafah along with his seven siblings, heading to a food distribution point run by the much-criticised, United States-backed GHF.
“We left at dawn and stood among the thousands gathered. About 5am [02:00 GMT], they [US staff and Israeli army] signalled to open the gate, and people rushed forward,” Hani told Al Jazeera.
“The gate was open, but people were packed into a very narrow corridor leading to it – only about seven metres wide,” he said, struggling to catch his breath after arriving at Nasser Hospital gasping and barely conscious.
“I got in with the crowd with difficulty. Suddenly, American guards started spraying pepper spray and firing gas bombs, and people began stampeding through the corridor,” he added.
Hani Hamad was rushed unconscious to Nasser Hospital after the stampede near an aid site run by the controversial GHF [Abdullah Attar/Al Jazeera]
‘I collapsed. They trampled my face.’
“I felt like I was dying. I couldn’t move forward or backwards. I collapsed. My face and side were trampled. No one could pull me out. But God gave me a second chance,” Hani said.
He was rushed unconscious to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on a tuk-tuk and initially placed beside the bodies of others who had died, some from suffocation, others from bullet wounds.
“I was unconscious, couldn’t see or hear. I drifted in and out. They put me beside the dead. I thought I was one of them.”
Early Wednesday, 21 Palestinians were killed, including 15 by suffocation, while trying to collect food aid.
The incident occurred near a gate managed by the GHF in western Khan Younis. Dozens more were reportedly injured, with some still in intensive care.
Hani is the oldest of eight siblings who live next to their uncle’s tent – their parents remain in Jordan, where they travelled for medical treatment just a month before the war began.
“I feel like I carry a huge burden. We’ve endured the pressures of displacement and war without our parents and without any help from them,” he said.
Though he acknowledges that lining up for aid from the GHF is a major daily risk, he adds: “Our intense hunger pushes me to go every day.”
“There’s no other choice. I have no money to buy the overpriced goods available in the markets. My only option is to try my luck with aid distributions,” says the young man.
“Each time is a near-death experience. There’s gunfire, tanks, drones and attacks. What kind of aid distribution is this? We are exhausted, truly exhausted.”
“We’re shot at like animals”
Mohammed Abedin was left with a wounded leg after the stampede [Abdullah Attar/Al Jazeera]
Mohammed Abedin, 24, now lies in a hospital bed with a leg wound after heading to the same aid centre in Khan Younis early Wednesday.
For the first time, he says, he chose to turn back after sensing the danger of the crowd surge.
The young man, a first-year accounting student, arrived about 3am (00:00 GMT) at the distribution site, but he noticed that things looked different. The same site had been closed for two days before reopening.
“Before, we used to enter from several access points, and the entryway was wide. But this time, we were funnelled through one long, narrow corridor, fenced in with metal,” he says.
“When the gates opened, everyone rushed forward, and people began falling underfoot.”
Mohammed described a terrifying scene of people crushed against the metal barriers, screaming and gasping for help, as pepper spray and gas bombs were fired by American guards and quadcopters above.
“I was standing close to my cousin, watching. We decided not to go in because of the overwhelming numbers. I saw kids screaming, choking, men and youth trapped. No one could move forward or back.”
“The fenced corridor, with gas bombs raining down and people being pushed through, became a death trap,” he says.
Mohammed and his cousin tried to leave, but just as he thought he had made a wise choice, a quadcoptor shot him in the leg. His cousin was also injured.
“There’s always random gunfire from quadcaptors, tanks, or soldiers in the area. This time, I was the unlucky one,” he said. “But thank God, I survived.”
Mohammed reflects on the tragic situation faced by Palestinians, caught between starvation and death, forced to risk their lives for food. He supports his displaced family of nine, originally from Rafah and now sheltering in al-Mawasi.
“We dream daily of eating bread. I go for aid almost every day and usually return empty-handed. But the days I brought home just a few kilos of flour felt like ‘an eid’ [a celebration] for my family.”
Flour is the top priority for Mohammed, especially with Gaza being under siege for four months, the borders sealed, and humanitarian and commercial goods blocked by Israel.
“Bread is what drives me to risk death. There’s no alternative,” he said, awaiting surgery at Nasser Hospital to remove a bullet from his leg. “Has the world failed to provide a safe channel for aid delivery?”
“There’s no system, no organised relief, no police or UN intervention. We’re shot at like animals. If we don’t die of hunger, we die in the chaos and stampedes.”
In late May 2025, the GHF launched its aid distribution efforts in Gaza following an Israeli-imposed near-total blockade, which is still in effect and has prevented the entry of humanitarian supplies.
According to United Nations figures, at least 798 Palestinians have been killed since then while trying to reach or receive aid from the organisation’s distribution points.
Widespread criticism has emerged from UN agencies and rights organisations that argue the operation is politicised and endangers civilians. The UN has stated that the GHF’s operations violate humanitarian neutrality and are inherently unsafe, highlighted by the hundreds of deaths at their sites.
“Either we return with flour, or we don’t return at all”
‘More than 20 people died for a bag of flour,’ says Ziad Masad Mansour [Abdullah Attar/Al Jazeera]
Ziad Masad Mansour, 43, displaced with his wife and six children from central Gaza to al-Mawasi in Khan Younis after their home was destroyed in the war, is another frequent visitor to the aid lines.
“I head there at 10 at night and sleep on the sand like thousands of others. We endure the dust and humiliation,” said Mansour, who was wounded in the head on Wednesday.
“Sometimes I manage to get flour, sometimes a few cans. Other times, I return empty-handed. I even help others carry their bags in exchange for some food.”
“Yesterday, there was horrific crowding: gas bombs, bullets, and we were packed tightly in the narrow corridor. I was trying to escape the crush when I got shot in the head and lost consciousness.”
Mansour is now recovering at Nasser Hospital. “More than 20 people died today – for a bag of flour. What more is there to say?”
Washington, DC – The family of Sayfollah Musallet, the United States citizen who was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank last week, is calling for justice.
Musallet’s relatives want Washington to launch its own investigation into the incident to ensure accountability.
The Florida-born 20-year-old is the ninth US citizen to be killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers since 2022. None of the previous cases have led to criminal charges or US sanctions against the perpetrators.
That lack of response is what advocates call a “pattern of impunity”, wherein Washington demands a probe without placing any significant pressure on Israel to produce results.
In Musallet’s case, the administration of President Donald Trump urged Israel to “aggressively” investigate the killing.
“There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act,” Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, said in a statement on Tuesday.
It is not clear if the US has taken any further actions to seek justice in the aftermath of the fatal beating.
Critics say the “pattern of impunity” stems in part from the historically close bonds between the US and Israel. Successive presidential administrations in the US have affirmed their “unwavering” support for Israel, and the US provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid annually.
Here, Al Jazeera looks at who the eight other victims were, how the US has responded to their killing and where their cases stand.
Omar Assad
Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian American, was driving home in the occupied West Bank after visiting friends on January 12, 2022, when Israeli soldiers stopped him at a checkpoint.
According to the autopsy report and his family’s account, the troops dragged Assad out of his car and then handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded him, leaving him to die at a cold construction site.
The administration of then-President Joe Biden called on Israel to launch a criminal investigation into the incident.
But Assad’s relatives and lawmakers from his home state of Milwaukee wanted Washington to conduct its own probe – a demand that never materialised.
As is often the case, Israel’s investigation into its own soldiers’ conduct did not lead to any criminal charges.
In 2023, the Israeli army said that it found no “causal link” between the way its soldiers treated Assad and his death.
The Biden administration also declined to apply sanctions under US law to the Israeli unit that killed Assad: the Netzah Yehuda, a battalion notorious for its abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Last year, the US Department of State announced that the battalion will still be eligible for US aid under the Leahy Law, which prohibits military assistance for security units involved in human rights violations.
Shireen Abu Akleh
Abu Akleh, a veteran Al Jazeera reporter, was fatally shot by Israeli forces during a raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank on May 11, 2022.
Owing to her status as one of the most celebrated journalists in the Middle East, her killing sparked international outrage from rights groups and press freedom advocates.
Despite the global attention, Israeli forces attacked her funeral in Jerusalem, beating the pallbearers carrying her coffin with batons.
A portrait of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is displayed during a memorial mass held at a church in Beit Hanina in occupied East Jerusalem [AFP]
Israel initially denied killing Abu Akleh, 51, falsely claiming that the reporter was shot by armed Palestinians.
Months later, after multiple visual investigations showed that Israeli soldiers targeted Abu Akleh, Israel acknowledged that its forces likely killed the reporter, dismissing the incident as an accident.
The Biden administration faced waves of pleas by legislators and rights groups to launch its own investigation into the killing, but it resisted the calls, arguing that Israel is capable of investigating itself.
In November 2022, Israeli media reports claimed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was investigating the shooting of Abu Akleh, but the US Department of Justice never confirmed the probe.
More than three years after Abu Akleh’s killing, her family and supporters say justice in her case has not been served.
Tawfiq Ajaq
Born in Louisiana, Ajaq was 17 when he visited the occupied West Bank to see his relatives last year.
On January 19, 2024, he was driving a pick-up truck with his friends when Israelis sprayed the vehicle with bullets and killed him.
Mohammed Salameh, who witnessed and survived the attack, said the shooting was unprovoked.
While it is not clear which individual shot Ajaq, Israel said the incident involved “an off-duty law enforcement officer, a soldier and a civilian” and was sparked by “rock-throwing activities” – a claim that Salameh has denied.
The US State Department called for an “urgent investigation to determine the circumstance” of the incident.
But more than 19 months after the shooting, Israel has not publicly released any findings or charged any suspect in the shooting.
“We feel abandoned by our government,” Ajaq’s uncle, Mohammad Abdeljabbar, told Al Jazeera last year.
Mohammad Khdour
Khdour was also 17 when he was killed under almost identical circumstances to Ajaq just weeks later.
According to his cousin Malek Mansour, who witnessed the attack, an unidentified assailant opened fire at their car in the occupied West Bank from a vehicle with an Israeli number plate.
Mansour said the attack was unprovoked. Khdour died on February 10, 2024.
The two had been eating cookies and taking selfies moments before the shooting.
Once again, Washington called for a probe.
“There needs to be an investigation. We need to get the facts. And if appropriate, there needs to be accountability,” then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters at that time.
But advocates say that, while normally Israel launches sham investigations into such incidents, Israeli authorities have not acknowledged Khdour’s killing at all.
The Israeli military and police told the publication Haaretz last year that they are not familiar with the case.
Jacob Flickinger
An Israeli air strike targeted a World Central Kitchen (WCK) vehicle in Gaza on April 1, 2024, killing seven aid workers, sparking anger and condemnation across the world.
Among the victims was Flickinger, a 33-year-old US-Canadian dual citizen.
Biden called for a “swift” Israeli investigation into the attack, which he said “must bring accountability”.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the blast a “tragic accident”.
A vehicle for the World Central Kitchen sits charred in the central Gaza Strip after a deadly Israeli strike, on April 2, 2024 [Ahmed Zakot/Reuters]
The Israeli military said the commander who ordered the strike had “mistakenly assumed” that gunmen in the area were in the aid vehicle.
It added that the commander did not identify the car as associated with World Central Kitchen, a well-known hunger relief initiative founded by celebrity chef Jose Andres.
A World Central Kitchen logo was displayed prominently on the top of the vehicle before the attack.
Israel said it dismissed two commanders over the incident, but there were no criminal charges.
Last year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza as well as other alleged war crimes.
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi
Eygi, born in Washington state, was participating in a protest against an illegal settler outpost in the West Bank on September 6, 2024, when an Israeli soldier shot her in the head.
She was 26.
While there were reports of a scuffle during a crackdown on the demonstration by Israeli forces, several witnesses have said that Eygi was shot during a calm period after the chaos had ended.
The State Department called on Israel to “quickly and robustly” investigate Eygi’s killing, but it ruled out conducting its own probe.
Biden dismissed her death as an “accident”, but Blinken condemned it as “unprovoked and unjustified”.
On the same day that Eygi was fatally shot by Israel, the US Justice Department filed charges against Hamas leaders after the killing of US-Israeli captive Hersh Goldberg-Polin in Gaza.
The Israeli military said its soldiers likely killed Eygi “indirectly and unintentionally” – a conclusion that her family called offensive, stressing that she was targeted by a sniper.
“The disregard shown for human life in the inquiry is appalling,” the family said in a statement.
Trump ally Randy Fine, now a Congress member, celebrated the killing of Eygi. “One less #MuslimTerrorist,” he wrote in a social media post, referring to the shooting.
Kamel Jawad
When Jawad, a celebrated leader in the Lebanese American community in Michigan, was killed by an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon on October 1 of last year, the Biden administration initially denied he was a US citizen.
Washington later acknowledged that Jawad was American, expressing “alarm” over his killing.
“As we have noted repeatedly, it is a moral and strategic imperative that Israel take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Any loss of civilian life is a tragedy,” the US State Department said at that time.
Israel has not commented publicly on the strike that killed Jawad.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) slammed the Biden administration’s handling of the case, including the US government’s initial “smug” response.
“It’s as if they’re intentionally trying to see our people killed, intentionally downplaying us and dehumanising us,” ADC executive director Abed Ayoub told Al Jazeera last year.
Amer Rabee
On April 6, Israeli forces in the West Bank fatally shot 14-year-old Rabee, a New Jersey native, and called him a “terrorist”. Two of his friends were also injured in the attack.
While the Israeli military accused Rabee and his friends of throwing rocks at Israeli vehicles, the slain teenager’s family insisted that he was picking almonds on the side of the road.
The Trump administration failed to pursue accountability in the case or even publicly press for further details about the incident.
Instead, the State Department cited the Israeli account about the 14-year-old’s killing.
“We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss,” the State Department said at that time. “We acknowledge the [Israeli military’s] initial statement that expressed that this incident occurred during a counter-terrorism operation.”
Israeli forces have bombed Gaza’s only Catholic church, killing three people and wounding at least ten others, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said, as the military continues its assault across the besieged enclave.
At least one person is in critical condition as a result of Thursday’s strike on the Church of the Latin Monastery in Gaza City – known as the Holy Family Church, the Patriarchate said in a statement. The church’s priest was also lightly wounded, it added.
Among those killed were the parish’s 60-year-old janitor and an 84-year-old woman who was receiving psychosocial support inside a Caritas tent in the church compound, according to the Catholic charity Caritas Jerusalem.
Israeli attacks have killed at least 32 Palestinians on Thursday, including 25 in Gaza City alone, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
Footage of the Holy Family Church attack published by a Palestinian activist and verified by Al Jazeera shows Father Gabriel Romanelli, the church’s pastor, following the Israeli attack. The video shows the priest with his right leg bandaged but otherwise in good condition.
“The people in the Holy Family Compound are people who found in the Church a sanctuary – hoping that the horrors of war might at least spare their lives, after their homes, possessions, and dignity had already been stripped away,” the Patriarchate said in its statement after condemning the deadly attack.
Shadi Abu Dawoud, a 47-year-old Palestinian Christian, said the church’s main hall was housing dozens of displaced citizens, mainly children and elderly people, and that all were “peaceful civilians”.
“My mother suffered serious injuries in the head; she was wandering in the church’s yard with other elderly women [when Israeli forces attacked],” he told Al Jazeera.”We were taken by surprise by this Israeli air strike. This is a barbaric and unjustifiable act.”
Mohammed Abu Hashem, a 69-year-old man who lives beside the church, said he was in the ruins of his home when there was a huge explosion that covered the area in black smoke, adding that he never thought the Israelis would attack the church.
“The Israeli air strike was massive, totally horrifying,” he said. “The horror we are living in is beyond description. No words could describe what we are living through. It is not even close to what you watch [on TV] or hear.”
‘War of extermination’
Pope Leo, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, said he was “deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and injury caused by the military attack” on the Gaza church, according to a telegram signed on his behalf by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state.
Pope Leo “assures the parish priest, Father Gabriele Romanelli, and the whole parish community of his spiritual closeness”, the telegram said.
The pontiff renewed his “call for an immediate ceasefire, and he expresses his profound hope for dialogue, reconciliation and enduring peace in the region”.
His predecessor, the late Pope Francis, had held nightly calls with the church’s parishioners in a show of solidarity with them. The last call took place the day before he died in April.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, said in comments to Vatican News that an Israeli tank hit the church “directly”.
“What we know for sure is that a tank – the [Israeli army] says by mistake, but we are not sure about this – they hit the church directly, the Church of the Holy Family, the Latin church,” he added.
Since the start of the war on Gaza, Israel has repeatedly attacked religious sites, including mosques and churches. In October 2023, just days after the deadly assault began, the Israeli army bombed the Church of Saint Porphyrius, the Gaza Strip’s oldest, killing at least 18 people.
The Israeli military acknowledged Thursday’s attack and claimed the incident was “under review”. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered a rare apology and confirmed an investigation was under way.
It also said Israel did not target churches or religious sites and regretted harm to them or civilians, even though it has attacked dozens of mosques and churches since the start of the war on Gaza.
An independent United Nations commission report said last month that Israel has committed the crime against humanity of “extermination” by attacking Palestinian civilians sheltering in religious sites and schools in Gaza.
The report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said Israel has destroyed more than half of all religious and cultural sites in the territory, as well as more than 90 percent of school and university buildings in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Hamas slammed the attack as “a new crime committed against places of worship and innocent displaced persons”.
“It comes within the context of the comprehensive war of extermination against the Palestinian people,” the group said in a statement shared on Telegram.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also blamed Israel for the strike, saying attacks against “the civilian population that Israel has been carrying out for months are unacceptable”.
Only about 1,100 Christians live in Gaza, according to a US Department of State report in 2024. The majority of Palestinian Christians are Greek Orthodox, but there are also Roman Catholics living there.
