‘Atrocious and inhumane’: UN chief decries mass killings in starving Gaza

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the latest mass killing of aid seekers in the Gaza Strip by Israeli troops.

“Over the weekend in Gaza, we saw yet more mass shootings and killings of people seeking UN aid for their families, an atrocious and inhumane act, which I utterly condemn,” Guterres said at a forum on sustainable development.

Highlighting the deteriorating situation in Gaza, Guterres stressed “we need an immediate ceasefire in Gaza [and] the immediate release of all hostages”.

“Unimpeded humanitarian access” must be allowed by Israel to UN-led aid agencies, Guterres said.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 86 people – including 76 children – have died from hunger and dehydration since October 2023.

MSF aid workers among thousands affected by Deir el-Balah offensive

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says the forced displacement threat that preceded the Israeli army’s ground invasion of Deir el-Balah has already displaced up to 80,000 Palestinians.

Among them were 36 staff members of the medical aid group, who worked in the al-Mawasi clinic and had to abruptly leave a busy health facility while treating an influx of patients wounded near distribution sites run by the notorious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

In a statement, the MSF also pointed out that the forced evacuation also impacted one of the main lifelines for water distribution in southern Gaza.

“Today water distribution trucks could not reach the plant, and these orders will put at risk anyone who tries to distribute water from here in the near future,” it said.

Forced displacement areas by the Israeli army now encompass 87 percent of the enclave, said the MSF.

‘Systemic destruction project’ as Israel clears Gaza of Palestinians

A columnist for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper says the ethnic cleansing happening now in Gaza is comparable to what the Nazis did in their early years, and it must be immediately stopped.

“There’s now a very systemic destruction project of whole towns and villages, one after the other,” Gideon Levy told Al Jazeera. “Israel is doing things that the Germans did in the early years of the Third Reich, which Israelis don’t see any similarity.”

He said Israeli politicians and the media are giving “unbelievable explanations and legitimisations”, such as fighting Hamas to justify the total destruction and emptying of Gaza.

“Killing 27,000 children is self-defence. At the same time, nobody is looking backward to their own family’s experience,” said Levy.

“I must remind all of us: The extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust started with evacuating people to the east [of Europe]. Same plan. That’s the first stage. We should stop it here. But Israel doesn’t see its own image. We don’t look in the mirror.”

Israeli army chief draws up new plan to capture more territory in Gaza

Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has drafted a plan to intensify ground operations across Gaza, according to a report by Israel’s Channel 12.

Sources cited by the outlet described the proposal as “the plan for taking over Gaza”.

The reported blueprint is seen as an alternative to Netanyahu’s controversial concentration camp plan in Rafah, which Zamir reportedly opposes.

The plan would be implemented if a deal to end the war is not reached after a proposed 60-day ceasefire, and envisions Israeli forces gradually capturing more territory than they currently control.

According to another Israeli media outlet, Netanyahu has blocked Zamir from presenting the plan to Israel’s security cabinet and prevented further discussion by ministers already briefed.

Israel’s Ben-Gvir attacks army chief over potential ceasefire

Israel’s far-right security minister has condemned a “grave and dangerous mistake” by army chief Eyal Zamir after he made positive ceasefire comments while visiting invading soldiers in Gaza.

Itamar Ben-Gvir said Zamir’s comments that it would be a “great achievement for you” if a truce and captive exchange deal is reached in the coming days are “extremely reckless”.

“Our soldiers have been fighting for a very long time to achieve the primary goal of this operation: to eliminate Hamas in Gaza,” Ben-Gvir said during a speech, adding a deal would be bad because it would get humanitarian aid into Gaza and release some Palestinian prisoners.

“I do not believe in a deal that weakens our power and gives Hamas oxygen, but I believe in the complete occupation of the Gaza Strip, enhancing military operations, and encouraging voluntary migration.”


_{National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir waves to right-wing activists outside the Damascus Gate of the Old City of East Jerusalem}

Israeli-Canadian soldiers fear fallout from war crimes probe

The Times of Israel (ToI) is reporting that Israeli soldiers who hold Canadian citizenship are afraid of returning to Canada after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) launched what it called a “structural investigation” into possible war crimes in the “Israel-Hamas conflict”.

Nati Hubberman, a dual citizen from the Canadian city of Toronto who carried out reserve duty on Israel’s northern borders, told the media outlet he was scared.

“A lot of us asked ourselves: Is it safe for me to fly to Canada? Will I be arrested at the border?” he said.

A leading Canadian Jewish organisation expressed concern over the RCMP’s inquiry, but has said the Canadian police have confirmed that a criminal investigation is not under way at present.

David Cooper, CIJA’s vice president, told ToI that the RCMP’s involvement began with “investigations into Canadians that were murdered by Hamas” and said his organisation has urged the Canadian government to maintain that focus.

The RCMP’s investigation comes as calls grow for accountability for Israeli atrocities in Gaza, which experts say amount to a “genocide”.

Palestine Action cofounder asks UK court to challenge ban

A cofounder of Palestine Action is set to ask the UK High Court for permission to challenge the government’s decision to ban the group under anti-terror laws.

Huda Ammori is seeking to overturn Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s move to proscribe the direct action network, after it claimed responsibility for covering two RAF planes with red paint at Brize Norton airbase on June 20.

The group said the planes were linked to UK military support for Israel’s war on Gaza, accusing Britain of enabling the transport of weapons used in the bombardment of the enclave.

Cooper announced the ban on June 23, calling the action “terrorist-related”. The proscription came into force on July 5, after Ammori failed in an urgent legal attempt to block it.

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


_{Police officers remove a demonstrator from a protest in Parliament Square in support of Palestine Action in London, July 19}

British Palestine Project says government must prevent atrocities in Gaza

The British Palestine Project (BPP) has questioned the government’s failure to abide by the Geneva Convention to “prevent genocide from occurring in Gaza”.

Twenty-five countries, including UK, France, call for immediate end to Gaza war

The foreign ministers of 25 countries, including the UK, France, Italy and Japan, and the EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management, signed a joint statement calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza.

In a statement, the signatories said the “suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths”, with the aid delivery system in the enclave “dangerous” and depriving “Gazans of human dignity”.

“We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food,” the statement read.

“The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable,” it said, calling on the government to lift restrictions on aid trucks.

Moreover, the foreign ministers said they “strongly oppose” any plans for a demographic change in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“We urge the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. Further bloodshed serves no purpose,” it added.

Israeli attacks target Yemen’s Hodeidah port

Israeli media report attacks by the Israeli army on Yemen’s Hodeidah port.

Israel says it attacks Houthi infrastructure

The Israeli army says it has carried out attacks on Houthi infrastructure in Yemen.

The targets included “engineering vehicles, fuel containers and naval vessels”, it said in a post on X.

Israeli forces arrest 12 Palestinians in West Bank raids

Israeli forces have arrested nine Palestinians from the Bethlehem governorate of the occupied West Bank this morning, Wafa is reporting.

They also arrested Zarifa Yousef Daoud al-Deek after raiding her home in Kafr ad-Dik, and two brothers from Nablus, in other early morning raids.

Settler and military violence driving mental health crisis in West Bank

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, has warned relentless violence by Israelis from illegal settlements and the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank is leaving deep psychological scars on Palestinians.

In a statement, the medical aid agency said more than 85 percent of homes in some villages have been demolished, while residents face near-daily assaults, blocked roads and destruction of clinics and mosques.

MSF said children are suffering from nightmares and panic attacks, while adults face serious trauma. In June alone, 94 percent of new mental health cases seen by the group were directly linked to violent incidents.

It accused Israeli forces of enabling and sometimes participating in the violence, and called on the international community to stop what it described as “a policy of forced displacement”.

Israeli forces torching homes in Nur Shams is a ‘systematic crime’

Abdullah Kamil, governor of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank, has condemned the Israeli army’s “deliberate, systematic” burning of Palestinian homes in the Nur Shams refugee camp.

The arson attacks are meant to terrorise residents and force their displacement, he said.

In a statement carried by the Wafa news agency, Kamil said Israeli troops set fire to two more homes overnight, citing camp residents who reported soldiers in the area moments before the blazes began.

Kamil called the attacks a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and urged the UN, human-rights groups and the wider international community to intervene immediately and hold Israeli forces accountable.

Continued silence, he said, would amount to complicity in acts that “rise to the level of war crimes”.

Main events on July 21st

• The Israeli military killed more than 60 Palestinians, including 11 aid seekers, in attacks across Gaza as it launched a ground invasion of central Deir el-Balah for the first time during the 21-month war.
• Deadly malnutrition was reported throughout the Strip by the UN, international organisations, local authorities, and footage from hospitals. The Israeli blockade has also led to an acute shortage of drinking water.
• Hamas said it is talking to other Palestinian factions and that it hopes an “honourable” ceasefire agreement can be reached as quickly as possible, which would end the “suffering of Palestinians”.
• Israel’s government dismissed a statement by 25 countries – including the UK, France, Italy and Japan – that called for the immediate end of the war as “disconnected from reality”, while the US ambassador to Israel called it “disgusting”.
• The Israeli army killed another Hezbollah member in southern Lebanon and bombed Yemen’s Hodeidah port. The Houthis launched drones from Yemen towards Israel, which were intercepted.
• Palestinians were arrested during Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank, which included torching a home in the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem. Settler attacks have also continued in the occupied territory.

“Precisely Designed Mass Starvation”: Aid Access as Weapon in Israel’s War on Gaza

The starvation crisis in Gaza is deepening under Israel’s brutal blockade and amid regular massacres of civilians attempting to secure aid at the only officially sanctioned aid sites, run by Israeli troops and American mercenaries.

The so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the onset of famine are the subjects of a new report by analysts Davide Piscitelli and Alex de Waal for the research organization Forensic Architecture on the “architecture of genocidal starvation” in Gaza.

“I’ve been working on this field of famine, food crisis and humanitarian action for more than 40 years, and there is no case, over those four decades, of such minutely engineered, closely monitored, precisely designed mass starvation of a population as is happening in Gaza today,” says de Waal, who is also the author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.

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