Armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon’s refugee camps to begin handing over weapons today: Committee

Armed Palestinian groups based in Lebanon’s refugee camps will start handing over their weapons to authorities today, as per a May agreement, according to a joint committee tasked with implementing Lebanese government policy relating to Palestinian refugees.

“Today marks the beginning of the first phase of the process of handing over weapons from inside the Palestinian camps,” Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee chairman Ramez Dimashkieh said in a statement.

The process would start with the Burj al-Barajneh camp in Beirut, where an initial batch of weapons would be transferred to the Lebanese army, Dimashkieh added.

The transfer comes after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Beirut in May and struck an agreement with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun that all arms in Palestinian camps would be surrendered to the state.

But while Abbas’s Palestinian Authority exercises power over the Fatah movement, that does not extend to the remaining factions in the camps, most notably Hamas.

Lebanon hosts about 222,000 Palestinian refugees, according to UNRWA, with many living in overcrowded camps outside of the state’s control.

Fatah leader in Lebanon says cooperating with disarmament

As we’ve been reporting, armed Palestinian factions inside Lebanon’s refugee camps began handing over weapons to the state today, part of an agreement that was reached in May.

Badie al-Habit, a leading Fatah member in Burj al-Barajneh, a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern suburbs of Beirut, says that he can only speak for his party’s involvement in the disarmament.

“This concerns the factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Palestinian national security forces, and the Fatah movement. As for other factions in other locations with different affiliations, the decision [to hand over weapons] is in other places,” he told AFP news agency.

“In principle, what will be handed over is illegal weapons. The arms entered the camp illegally and pose a danger to our people in the camp and to the Lebanese neighbourhoods. Some of the weapons are old and some are new.”

UK summons Israeli ambassador over settlement expansion plans

A spokesperson for the British Foreign Office says Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely has been summoned over Israel’s approval of an illegal settlement expansion plan.

As we’ve been reporting, Israel yesterday approved the construction of about 3,400 additional settlement units in the so-called E1 corridor between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim, a major settlement in the occupied West Bank.

The move, which comes amid a surge in Israeli military and settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel’s war on Gaza, drew widespread international criticism.

“The UK and 21 international partners have written to condemn this decision in the strongest terms,” the Foreign Office said in a statement. “If implemented, these settlement plans would be a flagrant breach of international law and would divide a future Palestinian state in two, critically undermining a two-state solution.”

UK complicit in Gaza genocide: Jonathon Porritt, ex-adviser to King Charles

Jonathon Porritt, a 75-year-old Oxford-educated environmentalist, is among the hundreds of people that the UK has cracked down on over their support of Palestine Action.

He was arrested and charged earlier this month, under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, for holding up a sign at a rally decrying the government’s decision to outlaw the protest group.

“I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” read the cardboard placard that he, and many of the 520 others arrested, raised.

His bail hearing is scheduled for late October. But Porritt is not a hardened criminal.

He spent 30 years advising the king on environmental issues when the monarch held the title “Prince of Wales”. He has also chaired a sustainable development commission set up by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and throughout his career has worked in politics, academia and directed Friends of the Earth. In 2000, he was awarded a CBE – Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, a high-ranking order – for services to environmental protection.

Al Jazeera spoke to Porritt about his activism, Palestine, the role of business, and the effect of weapons manufacturing on climate change.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/21/jonathon-porritt-ex-adviser-to-king-charles-uk-complicit-in-gaza-genocide

Scottish leader urges UK PM Starmer to recall Parliament to sanction Israel

Scottish First Minister John Swinney has called on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to recall Parliament to sanction and end arms sales to Israel over its war on Palestinians in Gaza.

“Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide, and the ground invasion of Gaza City only intensifies it,” Swinney wrote on X. “The world cannot look away. We need serious and urgent action to put a stop to this.”

Starmer’s Labour government has been accused of being complicit in Israel’s war on Gaza amid widespread calls to impose a strict arms embargo on the country.

Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide, and the ground invasion of Gaza City only intensifies it.

The world cannot look away. We need serious and urgent action to put a stop to this.

The UK Government must recall Parliament, sanction Israel, and end all arms sales now.

— John Swinney (@JohnSwinney) August 21, 2025

Finland also summons Israeli ambassador over E1, Gaza City plans

The Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it summoned the Israeli ambassador to the Nordic country “to express Finland’s deep concern” over Israel’s plans to expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and seize Gaza City.

“Finland called for the unhindered access of humanitarian aid to Gaza in line with international law,” the ministry said in a post on social media.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs summoned the Israeli ambassador to express Finland’s deep concern over Israel’s plans to take over Gaza City and advance the E1 settlement plan. Finland called for the unhindered access of humanitarian aid to Gaza in line with international law.

— MFA Finland 🇫🇮 (@Ulkoministerio) August 21, 2025

Maccabi Tel Aviv prepare to play in Europa League despite calls for ban

Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club is set to play against Dynamo Kyiv in a UEFA Europa League match tonight despite calls from rights groups for Israeli teams to be banned from European football competitions.

Last November, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans clashed with apparent pro-Palestinian protesters before and after a Europa League football match in Amsterdam. Videos shared on social media at the time showed them chanting racist, anti-Arab songs, vandalising a taxi and burning a Palestinian flag.

Dima Said, a spokesperson for the Palestine Football Association and former captain of Palestine’s women’s national football team, said that FIFA’s decision to suspend Russian teams from all international football competitions following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 highlights the “double standards” shown towards Palestinian lives.

Ahead of a Beitar Jerusalem game in Riga, Latvia, earlier this month, she told Al Jazeera that seeing Israeli football fans being allowed to shout anti-Palestinian chants without punishment around Europe is “as a Palestinian athlete … one of the hardest things to watch”.

“For me to see that those people who publicly support genocide, who publicly advocate for children to be killed, is something that’s very harmful for me as a human being, first, but secondly, as a Palestinian, it should not be allowed,” she said.

Israel carrying out ‘mass slaughter of civilians’: CAIR

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called on US lawmakers to publicly acknowledge Israel’s mass killing of Palestinian civilians, after today’s report indicating that 83 percent of all those killed in Gaza were civilians.

As we reported earlier, the Guardian and Israeli news outlets +972 and Local Call uncovered the stark civilian casualty figures in Israeli military intelligence data.

“This newly-revealed secret Israeli data confirms what human rights organizations, journalists, and survivors have been saying all along: the Israeli government has been carrying out a mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza with impunity and with U.S. complicity,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement.

“This is not collateral damage — it is calculated, industrial-scale slaughter. Congress can no longer hide behind Israeli propaganda. The time to recognize this genocide is now. Silence is complicity.”

The US has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance and staunch diplomatic support since its war on Gaza began.

Why is Canada ‘choosing not to speak out’ on Gaza journalist protection?

Human rights advocates in Canada are questioning why the Canadian government has failed to sign onto a letter calling on Israel to guarantee press freedom and the protection for journalists in the Gaza Strip.

As we reported earlier, the Media Freedom Coalition released an open letter today urging Israel to ensure the safety of Palestinian journalists in Gaza and to allow foreign reporters into the bombarded enclave.

“Canada is a member of the Media Freedom Coalition, yet is missing from this statement signed by 27 countries that urges foreign media access into Gaza and condemns violence against journalists,” Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East wrote on X.

“Why is [Foreign Minister Anita Anand] choosing not to speak out?”

Canada is a member of the Media Freedom Coalition, yet is missing from this statement signed by 27 countries that urges foreign media access into Gaza and condemns violence against journalists. Why is @AnitaAnandMP choosing not to speak out? https://t.co/HmFgugHNnu

— Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (@CJPME) August 21, 2025

Netanyahu says Israel to begin Gaza ceasefire negotiations to end war, release captives

Israel’s Government Press Office has released a video in which the Israeli prime minister says that he had directed the immediate initiation of negotiations for the release of all captives in Gaza and the conclusion of the war there on terms acceptable to Israel.

He also said that he had visited the Gaza Division – which is part of the Israeli military – to approve the plans to seize Gaza City and defeat Hamas.

Main events on August 21st

• Israel’s attacks have continued across Gaza, including a strike on Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood, which killed six people, four of whom were children.
• Eighty-three percent of those killed in Israel’s war on Gaza have been civilians, The Guardian and Israeli news outlets +972 and Local Call have found, citing classified Israeli military intelligence figures.
• Hamad Hospital announced that it received the bodies of three people killed by Israeli forces, along with 91 others who were wounded while seeking aid.
• The Palestinian Interior Ministry has denounced Israel’s push to seize Gaza City as a “death sentence” for the more than one million people living there.
• Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says he has directed negotiators to immediately initiate talks for the release of all captives in Gaza and an end to the war, but only if the terms are acceptable to Israel. There is no immediate indication that Israeli negotiators are travelling for talks.

Netanyahu proposing ‘negotiation under fire’ with US approval

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, has likened Netanyahu’s announcement about relaunching purported Gaza truce talks while the Israeli military intensifies its assault on Gaza City to “negotiation under fire”.

“There will be no stoppage of the fighting. There will be no breaks in the genocide. Hamas is going to have to make up its mind as Israel kills dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Palestinians moving forward [and] as it transfers a million Palestinians southward in Gaza,” Bishara said.

“Israel is now dictating all the terms, and it’s not listening to anyone, and it has a green light from Washington.”

Bishara added that Israel doesn’t intend to allow real negotiations to take place. Instead, it plans to dictate its demands to Hamas, with no regard for the fate of the Israeli captives still held in Gaza.

“It’s going to try to rescue whatever it can rescue through war, and if not, it’s just going to continue with this dictating of its conditions to Hamas while carrying on with its genocide.”

Netanyahu’s lie, says he wants talks for hostages’ release amidst Gaza occupation

Israeli Prime Minister has made another attempts to calm the angry protesters back home by claiming to take part in ceasefire talks for the release of hostages. However, Rifat Jawaid exposes his contradiction and the media’s role in letting such lies go unchallenged. This comes just days after Hamas accepted the ceasefire proposal that was proposed by Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in June.

Israel SEIZES Entire West Bank & USHERS IN END TIMES With Red Heifer

UNRWA USA Director EXPOSES Israel's War on the U.N. (w/ Mara Kronenfeld)

Mara Kronenfeld, the Executive Director of UNRWA USA, describes how important UNWRA has been in Gaza for decades — long providing top-tier education, food, shelter, refugee camps and more to Palestinians — and how Israel's targeted destruction of UNWRA infrastructure is a direct attack on all civilian life in Gaza.

At least 25 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since morning

Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 25 Palestinians since dawn, according to medical sources at Gaza hospitals speaking to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

Among those killed are three children, who were killed in an Israeli shelling on a tent at Jalaa Street, west of Gaza City.


_{Palestinians inspect the site of an overnight Israeli strike on a tent, in Gaza City, on August 22}

Baby starves to death in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis

A baby has died of malnutrition in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, a source at the city’s Nasser Medical complex has told our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said yesterday that 271 Palestinians, including 112 children, have died of malnutrition in the enclave since October 7, 2023. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has said child malnutrition had tripled across Gaza in less than six months.

Israeli strike wounds several in southern Gaza: Emergency services

The Gaza Emergency and Ambulance Authority says an unspecified number of Palestinians were injured in an Israeli drone strike on tents for displaced people and a water station, northwest of Khan Younis.

Meanwhile, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that the Israeli army is also attacking residential buildings in the southern Gaza city.

_{Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of an Israeli strike on a tent sheltering displaced people, in Khan Younis, the southern Gaza Strip}

Death toll from Israeli strike on school housing displaced Palestinians rises to 12

We reported earlier that an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced people in Gaza City’s northwestern Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood had killed five people.

Emergency services in Gaza are now saying that the death toll from the attack has risen to 12.

Two more Palestinians killed in northern Gaza

One person has been killed by Israeli forces in the Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City, according to a medical source at al-Ahli Hospital speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic.

Meanwhile, another Palestinian has been killed and others injured after the Israeli army struck the Jabalia al-Balad area, a source at al-Shifa Hospital said.

Ambulances blocked from reaching injured in several Gaza City neighbourhoods

Mohammed Abu Afash, the director of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a medical charity in Gaza, has spoken to Al Jazeera Arabic about the dire situation facing the healthcare system in the coastal enclave.

Israeli forces shoot aid seeker dead in central Gaza: Hospital sources

At least one Palestinian aid seeker has been killed and others injured as result of an Israeli shooting near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, according to medical sources at northern Gaza’s al-Awda Hospital speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the total number of aid seekers killed since May 27, when Israel introduced a new aid distribution mechanism through the US and Israeli-based GHF, has reached at least 2,036.

Woman, 4 children killed in Israeli attack on southern Gaza: Medical sources

An Israeli drone strike on a makeshift tent in Khan Younis has killed one woman and four children, sources at the Nasser Medical Complex say, according to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

Daily death toll in Gaza rises to 47

Israeli attacks have killed 47 Palestinians in Gaza since dawn, sources in the territory’s hospitals tell Al Jazeera. The sources said 31 of the killings were in Gaza City, which is under heavy attack as the Israeli military pushes ahead with an operation to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre. At least five of the victims were seeking aid, the sources said.

At least 71 Palestinians, including 24 aid seekers, have been killed and 251 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the latest 24-hour reporting period, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.

Israeli defence minister threatens to open ‘gates of hell’ if Hamas does not disarm

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz says “soon, the gates of hell will open” if Hamas does not agree to “Israel’s conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament”.

“If they do not agree, Gaza [City], the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah and Beit Hanoon,” he added, referring to two cities in Gaza largely razed during previous Israeli operations.

Mediators have been waiting for days for an official Israeli response to their latest ceasefire proposal, which Hamas accepted earlier this week.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry in Gaza.

At least 20 countries join EU, UN in opposing Israel’s illegal E1 settlement plan

The UK, Australia and Japan are among 21 countries that have condemned Israel’s plans to build a controversial illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, which they say renders a future two-state solution for Palestinians impossible.

“We condemn this decision and call for its immediate reversal in the strongest terms,” the 21 countries said in a joint statement on Thursday, describing Israel’s construction plans as a “violation of international law”.

The statement follows news this week that Israel will formally move forward with a settlement on a 12-square-kilometre (4.6-square-mile) tract of land east of Jerusalem known as “East 1” or “E1”.

The development, which will include 3,400 new homes for Israeli settlers, will cut off much of the occupied West Bank from occupied East Jerusalem while also linking up thousands of illegal Israeli settlements in the area.

Gaza City and surrounding areas experiencing famine: UN-backed body

A famine is occurring in Gaza City and its surrounding areas, according to the international system for monitoring world hunger and food security.

The UN-backed scale, known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), has raised its classification for Gaza governorate to Phase 5, the highest level, which is characterised by starvation, destitution and death.

The same classification is projected to be extended to Deir el-Balah in central Gaza and Khan Younis in the south by the end of September.

At this point, more than 500,000 people throughout Gaza are living under Phase 5 conditions, an IPC report said.

Another 1.07 million people, or 54 percent of Gaza’s population, are classified as being under Phase 4, or “emergency” conditions, while 396,000 people (20 percent) are under Phase 3, or “crisis” conditions.