Former Scottish first minister and his wife plead for Gaza aid

Humza Yousaf and his wife, Dundee councillor Nadia El-Nakla, have released a video message urging the world to take action to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza.

“My cousin Sally, her husband and four children are starving. My aunt Hanan, her children and grandchildren, including a 7-month-old baby, are being starved,” El-Nakla said.

“This is a deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people. Food and water are mere kilometres away. This form of warfare is sickening, and the stories and images from my families and millions of others in Gaza are absolutely gut-wrenching.”

Main events on July 23rd

• Israeli attacks across Gaza killed at least 77 people, including 25 aid seekers, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
• More than 100 aid agencies warned of  “mass starvation” of Palestinians in Gaza and called for an immediate ceasefire and all restrictions on humanitarian aid
• The Israeli government rejected the letter from the aid agencies, referring to them as echoing “Hamas propaganda”.
• Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in Gaza, said: “hunger has become as deadly as the bombs, families are no longer asking for enough; they are asking for anything.”
• Israeli forces have shot and killed a teenager in the town of Arrabeh, south of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency reported.
• Brazil said it is in the final stages of formally joining South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
• Amid ongoing ceasefire negotiations, far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich called for ceasefire talks to end with Hamas and for the total destruction of the group.

Gaza: Aid blockages leave people and aid workers starving

Children and adults fainting in the street and doctors too weak to treat patients.

UN Turns Battleground As U.S. And UK Clash Over Israel’s Actions In Gaza, Genocide Claims Fly

Tensions erupted at the United Nations as the United Kingdom and the United States clashed over Israel's actions in Gaza. UK Ambassador Barbara Woodward condemned Israel’s aid system as "inhumane, ineffective, and dangerous," citing reports of children dying from starvation. On other hand, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Dorothy Shea strongly rejected genocide accusations against Israel, calling them "politically motivated propaganda."

Israel examining Hamas response to ceasefire proposal: PM office

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says it has received Hamas’s response to a ceasefire proposal through mediators, and it is examining it.

The response reportedly included amendments to conditions around the entry of aid, areas from which the Israeli army should withdraw, and guarantees on securing a permanent end to the war, AFP reported.

Netanyahu recalls ceasefire negotiators for ‘consultations’

The Israeli PM’s office says in a statement that the team will return to Israel “in light of the response that Hamas gave this morning”.

“We appreciate the efforts of the mediators Qatar and Egypt and the efforts of [US] envoy [Steve] Witkoff to bring about a breakthrough in the talks”, the statement reads.

‘All Gaza will be Jewish’: Israeli minister

Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu has told Haredi radio station Kol Barama that his government “is racing ahead to wipe out Gaza”, according to the Times of Israel newspaper.

Eliyahu says Gaza will be cleared for Jewish settlement, but says Jewish towns will not be “fenced in inside cantons”.

“All Gaza will be Jewish,” he was quoted as saying.

Families call for updates on captives negotiations

The families of the captives have said they are following with “deep concern” reports that the Israeli negotiating team has returned from Doha, urging the Israeli leadership to provide an update on the status of negotiations and information on what is preventing a deal.

“Another missed opportunity to bring all 50 hostages back would be inexcusable. It would be yet another moral, security, and diplomatic failure in an endless chain of failures,” the families said in a statement.

The group also urged US President Donald Trump to use his leverage to make sure this round of negotiations ends with the return of the captives.

The comments come soon after Netanyahu’s office said the negotiating team was called back from Doha for “additional consultations” in Israel.

There are about 50 captives still in Gaza. Less than half are believed to be still alive.

At least 25 Palestinians arrested by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have stormed a number of towns and villages across the occupied West Bank, arresting at least 25 Palestinians since dawn, according to the Wafa news agency:

Israel’s West Bank annexation vote ‘colonial and racist’: Palestinian Foreign Ministry

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has condemned the Israeli parliament’s vote on the nonbinding motion to impose sovereignty on the occupied West Bank, calling it “colonial and racist”.

The ministry said the Knesset’s decision highlights how futile it is to bet on the possibility that Israel would pull back from its plans to expand its occupation and implement a two-state solution.

It called for international sanctions to deter Israel from committing crimes against the Palestinian people.

Israeli parliamentary panel approves $275m for West Bank roads: Report

The Knesset Finance Committee has approved 918 million shekels (nearly $275m) in funding for roads and transport infrastructure in the occupied West Bank in a move hailed by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, according to The Times of Israel.

“This is how you do facto sovereignty. This is how you bring in a million residents [to the West Bank]. This is how you take the idea of a Palestinian terrorist state off the table,” Smotrich said, according to the report.

The investment was part of a plan for “strengthening settlement, physically and politically connecting the region to the State of Israel, and making sovereignty a fait accompli on the ground”, he said.

The annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory has long been one of the main political goals of Smotrich, who lives in an illegal settlement himself.

In the past years, the ultranationalist minister has adopted a series of administrative measures to bring the West Bank under civilian rule while also dramatically expanding the presence of illegal settlements there.


_{A view of the damaged roads by bulldozers and construction equipment during the Israeli forces’ raid in Jenin, West Bank}

Israel carries on demolition of Palestinian property in Jordan Valley

Videos on social media, verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency, show Israeli bulldozers demolishing Palestinian property in the Ein el-Hilweh area, in the northern Jordan Valley.

The footage shows Israeli soldiers next to the machinery, pushing away residents from their homes.

Since the start of the war, there has been a sharp increase in the number of Palestinian homes being demolished. According to data collected by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in 2024 and 2025, more than 2,700 structures have been demolished, forcing at least 5,600 people out of their homes.

‘Horrific’: Gaza children crying from hunger day and night

The situation for children is nothing short of horrific. We see a dramatic surge of acute malnutrition among children, specifically below the age of five.

The bodies look visibly very thin. Those children should be learning, growing; instead, they are lying weak in shelters, tents or hospitals.

Parents say children go to sleep and wake up crying from hunger. Sometimes they lose consciousness because they have not been eating in days. These are heartbreaking testimonies that we continue to hear from the ground.

All these cases could be prevented. Gaza’s Health Ministry has been calling for unconditional flow of food and medical supplies. Humanitarian workers here say that if aid won’t be delivered as soon as possible, we are expecting to see a huge wave of child deaths.

Families are financially broken and unable to afford the basic necessities for their children. That is why we see people taking the dangerous journey to the infamous Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, taking that risk, despite the awareness that these areas have turned into militarised zones, causing more harm than benefits to civilians.

AFP, AP, Reuters, BBC urge Israel ‘to allow journalists in and out of Gaza’

International news agencies Agence France-Presse (AFP), The Associated Press (AP) and Reuters, as well as the BBC, have called on Israel to allow journalists in and out of Gaza, which is subject to a strict blockade.

“We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families,” the media groups said in a joint statement.

“We once again urge the Israeli authorities to allow journalists in and out of Gaza,” they added.

EU has leverage on Israel but some member states blocking action

James Moran, former EU ambassador to Egypt and Jordan, has told Al Jazeera that there are a number of European Union countries that would like to see “a lot more action taken” to end Israel’s war on Gaza.

“But there are some on the other side who tend to take the side of Israel,” he said from Cambridge, UK.

“Recently, there has been a lot of debates going on among the European Union foreign ministers about suspending the EU-Israel association agreement, which covers about a third of Israel’s foreign trade and certainly provides leverage on Israel to change its course,” Moran said.

“But up till now, it has been blocked by a number of member states, including Germany and others, for reasons which are complicated but nevertheless it is there.”

‘Israel is allowed to act without consequences’: EU lawmaker

We’ve spoken to Lynn Boylan, an Irish member of the European Parliament (MEP) who signed on to today’s letter to the European Union’s foreign policy chief demanding an emergency meeting to take action against Israel.

As we reported earlier, the letter calls for sanctions to be imposed against Israel as well as for Kaja Kallas to lobby EU member states to implement an arms embargo on Israel, among other things.

Boylan said racism is a factor in why the EU so far has failed to take concrete actions against Israel over its deadly bombardment and starvation-inducing blockade of Gaza.

“Clearly, Palestinian lives are not seen by the elite in the EU as equivalent to, for example, Ukrainian lives,” Boylan told Al Jazeera. “We saw the swift action that was taken when Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, and we haven’t seen any action from the EU” regarding Israel.

Boylan added that Israel also remains “quite influential” in the EU. “There’s a chilling effect, that if you dare to speak up against Israel, if you dare to call out the war crimes that you’re witnessing, there is immediately a backlash and an attack,” she said.

Hind Rajab Foundation calls on Netherlands to arrest two Israelis accused of war crimes

The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), in collaboration with the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), has filed a criminal complaint with the authorities in the Netherlands, calling for the arrest of two Israelis it accuses of war crimes committed in Gaza.

The foundation and GLAN had already filed a complaint against the two men in Belgium after learning that they were in the country to attend the Tomorrowland music festival. The two were interrogated and later released. The prosecutor’s office said it would not release further information at this stage of the investigation.

Now, the HRF says the individuals are in the Netherlands and therefore urged Dutch authorities to take action.

The Belgium-based HRF has been campaigning for legal action against Israeli soldiers over alleged war crimes in Gaza. The foundation is named after a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli fire while fleeing Gaza City with her family, early in Israel’s war on Gaza.

Since its formation last year, the foundation has filed dozens of complaints in more than 10 countries, targeting both low- and high-ranking Israeli military personnel.

Palestinians face ‘worst days’ in Gaza under Israel’s starvation policy

Enforced starvation, enforced dehydration, and hunger are gripping the Gaza Strip, with more people reported with malnutrition and a severe, acute shortage of food supplies and other basic necessities.

If you look at the number of people reported with war wounds, it’s now about the same as the number of people reported with malnutrition.

Many of these people have been diagnosed as malnourished. According to the World Health Organization, we are at Stage 5 of malnutrition – this is the final and most dangerous stage of malnutrition.

It means people are not going to recover from all the negative effects of starvation.

According to what we hear from health sources, people’s immune systems are falling apart. They’re unable to fight the many diseases that are spreading because their bodies are unable to fight.

‘Sociocidal war’: How Israel pushed Gaza to breaking point

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/24/how-israel-pushed-gaza-to-breaking-point-starving-alone-and-hunted

Derek Summerfield, a United Kingdom-based psychiatrist who has written on the effects of war and atrocity, says “Israeli policy has left Gaza uninhabitable”.

“It’s destroyed the idea of a society and every institution that might serve it, from universities to hospitals to mosques. It’s become a sociocidal war,” he told Al Jazeera, describing a conflict intended to destroy a society’s entire structures and sense of identity.

“People have been left with nothing, and are feeling they can’t go on.”