Main events on August 14th

• At least 32 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip since dawn on Thursday, including 13 aid seekers, according to hospitals in the enclave.
• Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced his intention to approve the construction of more than 3,000 homes in the E1 area settlement of the occupied West Bank.
• Several countries and bodies, including the UN, have called on Israel to backtrack on its plans, which would allow it to completely encircle Jerusalem, bisecting land that would be used for a future Palestinian state.
• More than 100 aid groups have accused Israel of obstructing life-saving aid from entering Gaza, resulting in vast quantities of relief supplies remaining stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt.
• Health officials in Gaza have warned Israel is starving to death “all sorts of people”, saying “frightening figures” of malnutrition-related deaths continue to mount.
• An Israeli drone strike targeted a motorcycle in the southern Lebanese town of Aitaroun, wounding at least one person.

‘Game of Target Practice’: Doctors Back From Gaza Share Harrowing Stories of Israel’s Brutality

“I actually don't think anyone can be prepared for the things you see in Gaza now.”

In this shocking Zeteo Live Town Hall Q&A, Mehdi Hasan and subscribers spoke to two prominent doctors who both recently returned from Gaza: Dr. Nick Maynard, a consultant surgeon at Oxford University Hospitals, and Dr. Ambereen Sleemi, the executive director of the International Medical Response Foundation. They share harrowing stories from their most recent visits.

British MPs write to PM Starmer on Gaza situation, demand ambassador’s expulsion

A number of UK MPs from various political parties have signed a joint letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer demanding the immediate expulsion of Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely and urgent sanctions against the Netanyahu government amidst worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza. Rifat Jawaid looks at the significance of this development as he asks why more MPs have not signed this letter.

Bit of a recap video of all the absurdity and lies in the past 22 months.

Debunking Every Zionist Argument Ever

The world’s most moral video.

Here’s Exactly How Israel Is Starving Gaza To De@th

Israeli military carries out raids, arrests across occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have carried out raids and arrests in locations across the occupied West Bank in recent hours and there have been more settler attacks, according to Palestinian media reports, including in:

Israeli settlers launch more attacks in West Bank’s Ramallah, Nablus

Local sources cited by the Wafa news agency report that Israeli settlers attacked the Abu Falah village northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and cut down olive trees on Palestinian land.

Another incursion was reported in the Duma town, located south of Nablus, where settlers uprooted olive and grape trees and threatened Palestinians not to enter their lands.

The latest attacks come hours after settlers injured several Palestinians and burned vehicles after storming two villages in the occupied territory.

آثار هجوم مليشيات المستوطنين وإحراق عدد من المركبات في قرية عطارة شمال رام الله، فجر اليوم. pic.twitter.com/3OUqusUfCt

— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) August 15, 2025

Palestinian couple attacked by Israeli settlers in Masafer Yatta area

A Palestinian man and his wife have been injured by Israeli settlers who attacked Palestinian homes in the village of Susiya, in the Masafer Yatta area, in the occupied West Bank.

The settlers attacked Palestinian residents with sticks and stones in an attempt to establish a settlement outpost there, the Palestinian Wafa news agency said.

A video clip posted on Facebook, and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency, showed blood stains in the aftermath of the incident. Palestinian resistance against displacement in the collection of hamlets known as Masafer Yatta was the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary, No Other Land.

As we just reported, Wafa news agency said that a group of settlers forced two families to leave the Shallal al-Auja community, north of Jericho, after threats and severe beatings. Hassan Malihat, of the al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, said the settlers had recently established settlement outposts some 300 meters (984 feet) away.

Barghouti’s wife, Palestinian ministry hail jailed leader after Ben-Gvir’s taunting visit

As we reported earlier, Palestinian officials have been condemning far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s taunting visit to the jail cell of long-imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.

His wife, Fawda, has said Barghouti and other Palestinian prisoners are subjected to many hardships behind Israeli bars.

“They are still, Marwan, chasing you and pursuing you even in the solitary cell you’ve been living in for two years, and the struggle of the occupation and its figures with you continues. The shackles are on your hands, but I know your spirit and determination, and I know you will remain free, free, free,” she wrote in a post on Facebook.

“I know that the only thing that can shake you is what you hear about your people’s pain, and the only thing that crushes and wounds you is the failure to protect our sons and daughters. You are of the people; wherever you are among the people, you are one of them and part of them.”

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry also released a statement to say it considers the Ben-Gvir visit “an unprecedented provocation and organised state terrorism, falling within the framework of the crimes of genocide, displacement, and annexation faced by the prisoners and our people”.

BREAKING: Surrounded by guards and cameras, Israel’s extremist minister Itamar Ben Gvir stormed the solitary confinement cell of Marwan Barghouti — the most popular Palestinian political leader and a unifying national figure, imprisoned since 2002 — in “Ganot” prison, to threaten… https://t.co/Bnbik6IJaP pic.twitter.com/53p5lIJKAz

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) August 14, 2025

Hamas official slams Ben-Gvir’s visit to Barghouti’s jail cell

Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq has condemned far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to the jail cell of long-imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.

“There is no longer any meaning to brutality except in the form of one of the leaders of this inhumane entity,” he wrote on Telegram.

“A Zionist minister gathers his army, his guards, and the blood of his state and stands before a captive leader, shackled and isolated in solitary confinement, barely able to stand, and addresses him, saying: ‘You will not triumph over us!'” al-Risheq said.

“If Ben-Gvir had been victorious in Gaza, he would not have said what he said. But this is the arrogance of a criminal who failed to achieve his goal, whose prestige was defeated, and whose reputation was tarnished by the shame of the ages,” he said.

Palestinian UN envoy accuses Israel of torture and solitary confinement

Ibrahim Khraishi, Palestine’s permanent observer to the UN in Geneva, in a letter to International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, accused Israel of subjecting prisoners to torture, starvation and prolonged solitary confinement. He singled out the deteriorating health of Marwan Barghouti, a senior leader of the Fatah party long detained by Israel, as a prime example.

Khraishi said Barghouti has been subjected to years of isolation, beatings and shackling, as well as recent threats to his life, and described the harsh treatment as a violation of international law and a form of ethnic cleansing aimed at destabilising Palestinian political leadership.

He called for the release of the most vulnerable detainees, including the sick, elderly, women, children, and those held without charge, and condemned a violent incident this week in which Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir entered Barghouti’s cell and threatened him.

‘Palestine will remain the compass’: Hezbollah leader chides Lebanese government over disarming his group

Naim Qassem has delivered a video speech emphasising the Lebanese armed group’s stance that it will not bow to pressure from the US and Israel to disarm.

He said the Lebanese government’s decision to disarm the group “means facilitating the killing of resistance fighters and their families and expelling them from their land and homes”.

Hezbollah is willing to cooperate on “discussions of defence strategy and national security” once Israel ends its occupation of Lebanese territory, Qassem said, adding that the government’s duty is to “build the country, not to hand it over to the Israeli and American enemy”.

He said a number of Arab states support ongoing Israeli strikes on Hezbollah fighters across Lebanon, thanked Iran and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for their continued support and pledged that “Palestine will remain the compass” for Hezbollah.

Lebanon PM says ‘veiled threat of civil war’ in Hezbollah leader’s remarks

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has commented on Qassem’s speech today, in which the Hezbollah leader said Palestine would “remain the compass” for the group.

Qassem said Hezbollah would not bow to pressure from the US and Israel to disarm and threatened there would be “no life in Lebanon” should its weapons be taken by force.

In a post on X, Salam said Qassem’s remarks carried “a veiled threat of civil war”.

“No one in Lebanon today wants a civil war, and any threats or intimidation of such a war are completely unacceptable,” he said. “Talk about the Lebanese government implementing an American-Israeli project is a false claim. … Our decisions are purely Lebanese, made by our Council of Ministers, and no one dictates them to us,” he added.

Except that international aid for reconstruction has conditions on it...

Israel strikes outskirts of Nabatieh, southern Lebanon

Israeli aircraft have launched air strikes on the Ali al-Taher area in the outskirts of Nabatieh, in southern Lebanon, the state news agency NNA has reported. The agency said several air-to-ground missiles were used in the attacks. The number of casualties is unknown.

Video taken by local sources and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency shows thick plumes of smoke rising from the area. NNA reported loud booms being heard from a distance.

مراسلة ZNN: سلسلة غارات معادية عنيفة تستهدف منطقة #علي_الطاهر#عاجل #لبنان #جنوب_لبنان pic.twitter.com/HC8L7fseek

— ZNN-LEB (@znn_lb) August 15, 2025

Israeli public ‘not informed’ of what’s going on in Gaza as attacks intensify

We have more comments from Alon Liel, former director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, who said the Israeli public is not informed about what is going on in Gaza as the Israeli army intensifies the bombardment of Gaza City.

“We hear very little about what is going on in Gaza, there are other headlines and, in general, the Israeli public sees more of what happens to us than what happens in Gaza,” he said. “I’m very sorry to see that the war is going on and that stage two of conquering [Gaza City] is in the plan.”

Liel described the ongoing military operation as a “big mistake” on Israel’s part. “We are playing with fire when it comes to the international community,” he told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv. “Already, there is a deterioration in Israel’s status internationally, but if we go on with this war, conquer Gaza, expand the settlements, we will become a pariah state.”

Liel said there is very little condemnation of Israel’s actions coming from the White House, but argued that the country has “developed an immunity” to criticism. However, “the pressures that are coming from the rest of the world, from Europe and Canada, might make a difference,” he said.

ICC arrest warrant applications ready for Israel’s Ben-Gvir and Smotrich: Report

Arrest warrant applications against Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on charges of apartheid are ready at the International Criminal Court (ICC), Middle East Eye has reported, citing anonymous sources.

According to the UK-based news outlet, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan has prepared the cases, which have yet to be submitted to the court.

The ICC Pre-Trial Chamber would then have to determine whether the arrest warrant applications establish reasonable grounds to believe that the named individuals committed the alleged crimes.

If the warrants are issued, it would be the first time that the crime of apartheid is charged at an international court.

Thirty-one Arab, Islamic states condemn Netanyahu’s ‘Greater Israel’ vision

The foreign ministers of 31 Arab and Islamic countries, along with the secretaries-general of the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), strongly condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent statements on the so-called “Greater Israel”, warning that they threaten Arab national security and regional stability.

“These statements represent a grave disregard for, and a blatant and dangerous violation of the rules of international law and the foundations of stable international relations”, they said in a joint statement. “They also constitute a direct threat to Arab national security, to the sovereignty of states, and to regional and international peace and security.”

Netanyahu told news channel i24 on Tuesday that he feels “very attached” to the vision of a Greater Israel. He said he considers himself “on a historic and spiritual mission”, which is for “generations of Jews that dreamt of coming here and generations of Jews who will come after us.”

“Greater Israel” is a term used in Israeli politics to refer to the expansion of Israel’s territory to include the West Bank, Gaza, and Syria’s Golan Heights, with some interpretations also including Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and parts of Jordan.

The statement also condemned the approval by far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of a new settlement building in the occupied West Bank and his rejection of a Palestinian state, calling this a “flagrant assault” on the Palestinian people’s right to an independent, sovereign state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Israel created unit to link Gaza journalists with Hamas: Report

The Tel Aviv-based +972 Magazine reports that the Israeli military has created a special unit called the Legitimisation Cell with the aim of finding Gaza journalists who could potentially be portrayed as “terrorists” in Hamas and other organisations.

Three unnamed Israeli intelligence sources told the publication that the motivation was public relations, not security, and the unit would work to find any information that could be used against journalists whenever criticism of Israel in the media intensified.

Information gathered by the unit was also passed regularly to US officials through direct channels. In at least one case since the start of the war, the unit misrepresented intelligence in a way that allowed for the false portrayal of a journalist as a member of Hamas’s military wing.

According to +972 Magazine, “a similar pattern of manipulation is evident in the intelligence presented” on Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who was killed with five other journalists after Israel accused him of being a Hamas operative. It said the same applies to accusations levelled against assassinated Al Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul.

Israel operates a "Legitimization Cell" that seeks to frame journalists in Gaza as "Hamas operatives."

"The idea was to [allow the military to] operate without pressure, so countries like America wouldn’t stop supplying weapons," one source told @972mag.https://t.co/Ydt5fqYAp8

— Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) August 14, 2025

From Dearborn to The Hague – protesters commemorate Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza

_{Dutch diplomats and civil servants gather in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague, Netherlands}