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SvennoJ on 23 August 2025

Iran reports killing six Israel-linked ‘terrorists’ in Sistan and Baluchistan

Iranian state media has released footage of a gunfight between security forces and “terrorists” belonging to an unnamed armed group that Tehran claims is backed by Israel.

The blurred out bodies of six armed assailants, as well as a number of weapons and explosives, were shown in southeastern Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province after the armed fighting erupted, with a statement from Iranian intelligence services cited by the official IRNA news agency saying two more were arrested.

The exact location or date of the shootout was not provided. The report said there are “documents” indicating “the Zionist nature” of the group targeted in the latest raid, adding that its members had planned to attack a “vital” facility in Iran’s east, without elaborating.

What was described as “the main operation team” was allegedly composed of “seven non-Iranian terrorists” whose nationalities were not provided. Two intelligence agents and a police officer were reported wounded in the gunfight.

This comes a day after five police were killed during two armed attacks in the Iranshahr county of the province. A sixth officer was reported killed in a separate overnight gunfight. Tehran has long accused Israel of arming and funding separatist groups in the restive area.




Gantz offers to rejoin Netanyahu coalition to release captives from Gaza

Benny Gantz, the leader of the Blue and White–National Unity alliance who left Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition in June 2024, has offered to rejoin on a temporary basis in order to reach a deal that would bring back captives held in Gaza.

Israeli media report that he called on the prime minister, opposition leader Yair Lapid, and Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Liberman to join a six-month “government of redeeming the captives”.

The Yisrael Betyenu party said its official stance is that efforts must be made to recover all captives immediately, without any political conditions.

Lapid has repeatedly called for the return of the captives, and for the government of Netanyahu and his far-right allies to be replaced through general elections.

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir heavily criticised Gantz in a post on X, and suggested that the government has been better off since his departure.

“Right-wing voters chose right-wing policy – not Gantz’s policy, not a centrist government, not surrender deals with Hamas, but absolute victory.”



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SvennoJ on 23 August 2025

Israeli tanks roll into Sabra, Gaza City, as child killed

Al Jazeera Arabic has obtained footage showing Israeli tanks advancing into the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City in northern Gaza, signalling that it is expanding its ground invasion of the area.

Sabra is close to the besieged Zeitoun neighbourhood, which has been increasingly targeted by the Israeli army over the past week as it moves to seize Gaza City.

A source at the al-Ahli Hospital told Al Jazeera that a child was killed in the latest Israeli bombardment of Sabra in the past several hours.

The civil defence in Gaza also reported that three people were wounded after Israeli forces bombed tents housing displaced people in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.


Translation: Amid heavy gunfire … exclusive images for Al Jazeera show the incursion of several Israeli military vehicles in the vicinity of the Sabra neighbourhood south of Gaza City.

Israeli soldier killed in Gaza explosion

An Israeli soldier has been killed during an explosion in Gaza, with an initial investigation by the Israeli military branding it an accident.

Lieutenant Ori Gerlic, 20, a platoon commander in the Kfir Brigade’s Shimshon Battalion, was confirmed killed in the southern part of the enclave. An Israeli explosive that detonated for unclear reasons killed him in Khan Younis.

This brings the number of Israeli soldiers confirmed killed by the military since the start of the war to 899.


Israeli military continues to pound Gaza City

Intense artillery attacks are taking place in the area of the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza. Israeli artillery shells have hit the Zeitoun neighbourhood to the east of Gaza City, along with Jabalia and Jabalia al-Nazla in northern Gaza over the past several hours.

Translation: The violent air strikes launched by the Israeli air forces on the Zeitoun neighbourhood southeast of Gaza City.


Qassam Brigades reports hitting invading Israeli tanks in Zeitoun

The armed wing of Hamas says its fighters targeted two Israeli tanks with explosive landmines in the besieged Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City. The Qassam Brigades said an Israeli backup force arrived at the scene following the explosions.



SvennoJ on 23 August 2025

Main events on August 23rd

  • The Israeli army killed dozens more Palestinians in Gaza, including children and aid seekers, as its ground forces advanced with a plan to seize Gaza City and expel its medical workers.
  • Thousands more Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv to call for an end to the war, with several European cities also seeing protests after Israeli-imposed famine was officially confirmed in the enclave.
  • Israeli forces arrested a local village council chief in Ramallah amid a string of new incursions in the occupied West Bank and attacks by violent settlers.
  • Hamas said the Israeli defence minister’s call for the destruction of Gaza City is “a confession of committing a crime that amounts to ethnic cleansing”, and commended Dutch Foreign Minister Casper Veldkamp for resigning after failing to add more sanctions against Israel.
  • Turkish first lady Emine Erdogan urged her US counterpart, Melania Trump, to speak out for the children in Gaza who are suffering as a result of Israel’s attacks and policies.
  • Iran released footage of its security forces engaging in gunfights with six killed “terrorists” belonging to a group allegedly linked with Israel in southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan.

CNN Anchor Accidentally EXPOSES Israel’s Secret on Live TV


Journalist Abby Martin joins Katie to call out Israel’s smear campaign against murdered journalists and the Western press that repeats it. Foreign Press chief Ian Williams shocks CNN by slamming Israeli government claims.

 

Cops, Microsoft lie about Palestine encampment being “aggressive” & “threatening” before arrests


REDMOND, WA: On Wednesday, Aug. 20, Redmond PD officers violently dismantled the Palestine encampment at Microsoft’s corporate headquarters set up by current and former tech workers and community members with the No Azure for Apartheid Coalition. 20 coalition members were arrested.

Police have claimed that protestors became “aggressive” before arrests commenced, and a spokesperson for Microsoft told Fox13 that protestors “harassed” others in the plaza and said that the company would “[take] clear steps to address unlawful actions that damage property, disrupt business or that threaten and harm others." TRNN editor-in-chief Maximillian Alvarez was one of the only journalists on the ground: “I was standing and filming 10 feet away the entire time, and I saw nothing of the sort,” Alvarez says. "The protestors weren't threatening or harming anyone." This video shows Alvarez’s uninterrupted, 37-minute shot documenting the moments before, during, and after police dismantled the encampment. Officers begin dismantling the encampment and making arrests around 14:30 in the video.

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 23 August 2025

SvennoJ on 24 August 2025

Protesters in 20 cities across Australia demand end to war on Gaza

Thousands of people in Brisbane are marching from the centre of the city and across the Victoria Bridge, demanding an end to the war in Gaza, a ceasefire, and an end to starvation and famine in Gaza.

This is one rally out of a number of rallies happening around Australia in what’s been described as a Day of Action. We’ve got more than 20 cities taking part in this Day of Action, as well as every capital city of the Australian states and territories.

The police presence here is heavy, but it’s a peaceful rally. There are thousands of people here on this Sunday.


Thousands of people joined one of several nationwide protests against Israel’s war on Gaza at the State Library Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, on Sunday

Bands boycott UK music festival after it silences Irish group for displaying Palestine flag

The Last Dinner Party, Cliffords and The Academic have pulled out of the Victorious Festival in the city of Portsmouth, England, after organisers turned off the sound for the Irish folk band, the Mary Wallopers, for displaying a Palestinian flag.

“We are outraged by the decision made to silence the Mary Wallopers yesterday at Victorious,” The Last Dinner Party said in a statement on Instagram. “As a band, we cannot cosign political censorship and will therefore be boycotting the festival today.”

The outcry prompted the festival to issue an apology. It said that while it supported artists’ right to express their views from the stage “within the law”, it did not allow flags for “wide event management and safety reasons”.

“We didn’t handle the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached,” it said in a statement. “This put the band and our own team in a difficult situation which never should have arisen. We would like to sincerely apologise to all concerned.”

 

Families of captives gather outside Israeli ministers’ homes

The relatives and supporters of captives held in Gaza are staging demonstrations outside the residences of Israeli government ministers to demand a ceasefire.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said protesters will be gathering outside the homes of Defence Minister Israel Katz, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar as well as Ministers Eli Cohen, Miri Regev and Avi Dichter.

The father of Nimrod Cohen was among those outside Katz’s home, according to The Times of Israel.

“I came to remind you on day 688 that an [Israeli] soldier who was sent to defend the country with a faulty tank is still sitting in the tunnels of Gaza,” Yehuda Cohen shouted through a megaphone, the Times reported.

“If you really think you’re a defence minister, behave like a defence minister, not a war minister,” he added.



SvennoJ on 24 August 2025

UN expert outlines steps states should take urgently to ‘stop Israel’s genocide’

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, has shared a list of actions “urgently needed” from states.

She said they include a “full arms embargo” as well as “navies carrying aid” to break Israel’s blockade.

Albanese also said the UN General Assembly should provide a “protection presence” in Gaza, referring to a resolution that allows the 193-member body to step in when the Security Council fails to act because one of its permanent members used its veto power.

You can read more about the so-called “Uniting for Peace” resolution here.



Palestinian Foreign Ministry calls for binding international action to end war on Gaza

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is calling for measures to stop the “kidnapping” of people in Gaza and to free them “from extermination and starvation”.

In a statement, the ministry said it was intensifying political, diplomatic and legal efforts to build an international front to pressure Israel to halt “crimes of extermination, displacement, and annexation”.

It said it was building on the recent declaration of famine in Gaza to urge states to meet their “legal and moral responsibilities” to end it.

The ministry stressed that famine in Gaza is “neither natural nor resulting from a scarcity of resources, but rather an intentional Israeli policy that falls within the framework of committing the crime of using starvation as a weapon in war”.

“The Ministry demands firm international measures and binding practical arrangements to save lives in the Gaza Strip,” the statement added.



UN expert demands EU action over Dr Hussam Abu Safia, detained Gaza hospital director

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on occupied Palestinian territory, has urged EU leaders to act over the detention of Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital.

“I officially ask EU leaders [Ursula] von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas what demarches they have taken to set free Dr Abu Safia and the other thousands of Palestinian hostages who, like the Israeli hostages, have the sacrosanct right to return home,” she wrote on X.

Abu Safia, 51, was taken by the Israeli army in Gaza in December and moved to the Sde Teiman military detention camp in the Negev desert in southern Israel before being transferred to Ofer Prison near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

His lawyer previously told Al Jazeera that Abu Safia had been subjected to “intense torture and inhumane treatment” in detention.

Amnesty International has also condemned Israel’s actions, saying: “Dr Abu Safia’s arrest and ongoing arbitrary detention without charges or trial is a reflection of Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian health workers.”


Dr Hussam Abu Safia shows the damage Israel caused to Kamal Adwan Hospital on December 18, 2024



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SvennoJ on 24 August 2025

Parents in Gaza helpless as their children starve to death

In Gaza today, famine is no longer a warning; it is a reality. Parents say they are feeling helpless as they watch their children starving to death in Israel’s man-made famine.

Among those at risk is 12-year-old Huda Abu Naja. Her mother says she was forced to bring her back to their tent after watching five other malnourished children die before her eyes at Nasser Hospital. 

“My daughter has been suffering from acute malnutrition since March, when Israel closed Gaza’s borders,” said Somia Abu Naja, Huda’s mother. “She spent three months in hospitals, but her condition did not improve. She used to weigh 35kg, and now she is down to 20.”

As we’ve been reporting, the starvation death toll is rising day by day in the Gaza Strip. It’s now at 281, and more than 100 of them are children.


British surgeon recounts death of Gaza infant due to a lack of baby formula

Dr Nick Maynard, talking about the death of an infant in Gaza after Israeli border guards confiscated formula that doctors had tried to bring in, says, “I saw with my own eyes perfectly healthy children, prior to this, starving and dying.”

“I can tell you about little Zeyna, who’s a seven-month-old girl. I was with her only a few weeks ago. She looked like a newborn; you could see every single bone in her body underneath her skin. She had no muscle visible at all,” he said.

Maynard said she was being fed only sugar water “with no nutritional value at all, because there was no formula feed”. He added that Zeyna died while doctors waited at the border with “suitcases of formula feed” that were seized by Israeli border guards.

“Those bottles of formula could have saved Zeyna’s life,” he said.

“Even as famine grips Gaza, Israeli forces are targeting densely populated residential areas and makeshift camps, where displaced Palestinians are sheltering,” he added.

Maynard’s account comes as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification estimates 514,000 people in Gaza – about a quarter of the enclave’s population – are experiencing famine, a figure expected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.


289 Palestinians died of starvation: Gaza Health Ministry

Munir al-Bursh, director of the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip, has spoken to Al Jazeera about the ongoing famine crisis gripping the enclave.

Here is a summary of his comments:

  • 289 people, including 115 children, have died of starvation in Gaza.
  • We are in a race against time to address famine, as the humanitarian response to it must be massive.
  • The occupation’s prevention of residents from accessing healthcare is an intolerable violation.
  • Eight Palestinians, including a child, have died due to food shortages in the past 24 hours.



SvennoJ on 24 August 2025

Trump ‘is doing nothing while watching this famine unfold’

US Senator Bernie Sanders has denounced President Donald Trump’s lack of action on the Israeli-induced famine in Gaza. He wrote in a post on X, “Let’s be clear: President Trump has the power to end the starvation of the Palestinian people. Instead he is doing nothing while watching this famine unfold.

“Enough is enough. No more American taxpayer dollars to Nethanyahu’s war machine.”



Every US taxpayer is ‘contributing to Israel’s military actions’

Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene has again lambasted US support for what she described as Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.

The congresswoman from Georgia, a key Trump ally and MAGA supporter, issued an impassioned appeal on X, saying, “Just as we spoke out and had compassion for the victims and families of Oct7, how can Americans not speak out and have compassion for the masses of innocent people and children in Gaza? Is one type of innocent life worthy and another type of innocent life worth nothing?”

She noted that US taxpayers fund $3.8bn in annual military aid for Israel.

That means every US taxpayer is “contributing to Israel’s military actions”. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to pay for genocide in a foreign country against a foreign people for a foreign war that I had nothing to do with,” Greene wrote.

“And I will not be silent about it.”



SvennoJ on 24 August 2025

Six aid seekers killed since dawn: Medical sources

Israeli forces have killed at least six Palestinian aid seekers across Gaza, hospital sources tell Al Jazeera. Since the early hours of the morning, Israeli attacks have killed at least 11 people.


Displaced people wait to fill containers with drinking water amid the destruction in the Khan Younis camp on August 24


Nasser Hospital unable to cope with rising cases of malnourished children

The head of the children’s department at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis says the health crisis in southern Gaza has reached “a catastrophic level”, warning that the facility can no longer cope with the number of malnourished children seeking treatment.

In a post on the hospital’s Facebook page, Dr Ahmed al-Farra said the facility would need “ten hospitals the size of the Nasser Complex” to handle the increasing number of cases of children suffering from malnutrition.

There are currently 25 children hospitalised in critical condition, including those lying on the floor due to a lack of beds, he said.

One in four children in Gaza is already suffering from malnutrition, and between 60,000 and 75,000 children in southern Gaza alone are at risk, he continued, calling the figures “horrifying and unprecedented”.

“The malnutrition clinic in Nasser, which can only operate two days a week, receives more than 120 cases in a few hours, ten times the previous rates,” he said.

Some children, al-Farra added, arrive at the hospital after losing their lives outside its gates “due to lack of milk and treatment”.


Healthcare staff fainting from hunger in Gaza: Medical Aid for Palestinians

The famine declared in Gaza on Friday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) only confirms what aid workers have been witnessing for months, Liz Allcock of Medical Aid for Palestinians says.

The IPC, an independent body of experts, said its declaration was based on “extremely rigorous” evidence with 514,000 people, a quarter of Gaza’s population, already in famine conditions. The figure is expected to rise further.

“If anything, it’s quite late,” Allcock said.

“All of us were expecting this declaration … a long time ago because of what we see on the ground, but because of the thoroughness of the evidence base that’s required to make this decision, it has taken a while.”

She said famine conditions are visible daily across Gaza. “It’s not only children, the images that you see with the swollen bellies and the skin-and-bone arms,” she said.

“It’s also elderly people who are unable to get access to any kind of food. It’s also healthcare staff, aid workers who are fainting on the job because they don’t have enough food or sustenance to keep them going.”



SvennoJ on 24 August 2025

War on Gaza death toll rises

Since October 2023, Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 62,686 people and wounded 157,951, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the enclave says.

In the latest 24-hour reporting period, the bodies of 64 people and 278 injured Palestinians have been brought to hospitals across the besieged enclave, hospital officials said.

Moreover, the bodies of 19 people killed while seeking aid and 123 wounded aid seekers were brought to Gaza’s health facilities in the past 24 hours.

The latest deaths raise the total number of aid seekers who have been killed by Israeli fire since the establishment of the US- and Israel-backed GHF at the end of May to 2,095, with more than 15,431 wounded.


A Palestinian man rides a bike as smoke rises following an Israeli attack on Gaza City, August 24


Israeli forces blocking access to areas it bombed: Emergency services director

The director of ambulance and emergency services in Gaza, Fares Afaneh, has updated Al Jazeera on the challenges facing rescue workers and residents. Here are his comments:

  • The occupation prevents our vehicles from entering to rescue civilians in the areas it has targeted.
  • Displaced people don’t know where to go due to the lack of safe areas in the Gaza Strip.
  • Hospitals are damaged and severely lack supplies and medical staff.


Seven-year-old Palestinian girl fights for her life amid Israeli-made famine

The Israel-imposed famine is tightening its grip on Gaza, and for some families, it’s too late.

May Abu Arar is just one of an increasing number of young Palestinians suffering from malnutrition. The seven-year-old has been losing weight for four months and is so weak she has to be fed through a syringe.

“She’s been suffering from malnutrition for four months now,” Nadia Abu Arar, May’s mother, told Al Jazeera, adding that May had never spent a night in a hospital before.

“The doctor told me that she isn’t suffering from any disease or from any past conditions. They are saying it’s all due to malnutrition. … I haven’t seen improvement in her situation at all,” she said.

Hisham Abu al-Oun, director of paediatric intensive care at Friends of the Patient Hospital, says the Israeli army “is preventing the entry of vital medicines into the Gaza Strip”.

“Potassium chloride is the easiest medication that any doctor can prescribe. We don’t even have that,” he told Al Jazeera. “We have babies die because we don’t have it. Sometimes, supplies come in but, unfortunately, very little.”



SvennoJ on 24 August 2025

Five aid seekers killed in southern Gaza: Medical sources

Israel has killed the five Palestinians who were seeking aid. They were waiting for food near the US- and Israel-backed GHF food distribution points, according to medical sources at Nasser Medical Complex.

Earlier, medical sources at Gaza hospitals said at least seven aid seekers had been killed.


Israel kills 6 in Gaza City: Emergency services

Israel has killed at least six people in artillery shelling of the Sabra neighbourhood, an emergency and ambulance service source told Al Jazeera. An unspecified number of Palestinians were also injured in the attack, they said.


Gaza City invasion would be a disaster for 1.2 million residents: Al-Shifa Hospital director

The director of al-Shifa Hospital, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, has spoken to Al Jazeera about the ongoing Israeli operations in Gaza City and their potential repercussions on the enclave. Here’s what he said:

  • The hospital receives large numbers of wounded, starving and sick people and loses dozens of lives every day.
  • Every day, a health system on the brink of collapse receives dozens of slain Palestinians and hundreds of wounded.
  • The occupation’s threats to invade Gaza City will lead to massacres against the population.
  • Any military operation would be disastrous for the 1.2 million Palestinians who live in Gaza City.
  • Gaza’s medical workers hope the world’s conscience will awaken and will urge Israel to stop the genocide and starvation.



WHO chief ‘extremely relieved’ after release of staff member detained by Israel

The World Health Organization (WHO) says one of its Gaza staff members has been released more than four weeks after being detained by Israel. “Extremely relieved that our colleague, detained since 21 July in Gaza, was released this morning,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X.

He repeated his call for the protection of all health and humanitarian workers.

In July, the agency said the Israeli military attacked its staff residence and main warehouse in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. At that time, two WHO staff members and two of their family members were detained. Three were later released while one remained in detention until today.

WHO has described Gaza’s health sector as “on its knees”, citing severe shortages of fuel, medical supplies and staff amid repeated mass casualty incidents.