‘There’s no way to describe the horror’

Aqsa Durrani, a pediatric doctor and a humanitarian worker with Doctors Without Borders, has recounted the horrific scenes she witnessed while volunteering in the Gaza Strip.

“I’ve worked in many places with extreme hunger, but what’s so jarring in this context is how cruel it is, how deliberate. I was in Gaza for two months; there’s no way to describe the horror of what’s happening,” she told Humans of New York, a popular photo blog.

“In the hospital, there are kids maimed by air strikes: missing arms, missing legs, third-degree burns. Often, there’s not enough pain medication. But the children are not screaming about the pain, they’re screaming: ‘I’m hungry! I’m hungry!'” she said.

She spoke of the plight of her Palestinian colleagues, “who are trying to treat patients while hungry, exhausted”.

“They’re living in tents. Some of them have lost 15, 20 members of their families,” she said.

Durrani called Israel’s abuses in Gaza “clearly a genocide” and said she was ashamed that she has been unable to stop the atrocities.

Ex-Irish, NZ leaders visit Rafah crossing, call for end to Israel’s deliberate starvation

The former prime minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, and former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, have called for global action after visiting the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, where they said they “witnessed the shocking reality behind the unfolding famine in Gaza”.

The two leaders, who are part of The Elders, a group of former heads of state and high-level officials, visited Egyptian Red Crescent warehouses in Al Arish on Monday, where they saw “massive quantities of food and medicines like ibuprofen ready for delivery to Gazans but blocked by Israeli authorities”, according to a statement.

They also heard from aid workers about aid trucks being “sent back multiple times without plausible explanation, Palestinians in Gaza undergoing operations without anaesthesia”, and “parents unable to feed themselves or their children”.

Clarke and Robinson said that other world “leaders must not look away any longer. They must act”.

“Israel’s deliberate starvation and systematic killing of Gazans must end now.”

Greta Thunberg, activists plan new aid flotilla to Gaza

The 22-year-old Swedish activist says she and a group called the Global Sumud Flotilla will be launching “the biggest attempt to break the illegal Israeli siege over Gaza” on August 31.

Dozens of boats will set sail from Spain on the day, and will meet dozens more that will sail from Tunisia and other ports on September 4, she said in a post on Instagram. “We are also mobilizing more than 44 countries on simultaneous demonstrations and actions to break complicity in solidarity with the Palestinian people!” she added.

Thunberg and 11 other activists were arrested by Israeli forces in June, during a previous attempt to break the siege on Gaza. They were held for several hours and later deported.

Chris Smalls DARES Israel to “Release the Footage!”

Katie talks to Chris Smalls, the founder of Amazon’s first U.S. labor union, the Amazon Labor Union founder, who was beaten, arrested and detained by the Israeli military for attempting to bring aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The only Black passenger on the ship, he was treated worse and was one of the last to be released from Israeli prison.

Madonna asks Pope Leo to visit Gaza and save its children

Pop superstar Madonna has urged Pope Leo to “please go to Gaza and bring your light to the children before it’s too late”.

“As a mother, I cannot bear to watch their suffering. The children of the world belong to everyone,” she said in a post on Instagram.

“You are the only one of us who cannot be denied entry. We need the humanitarian gates to be fully opened to save those innocent children,” the singer added.

Pope Leo has repeatedly spoken in support of Palestinians in Gaza, following in the footsteps of Pope Francis.

The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, visited Gaza last month, describing the situation there as “morally unacceptable”.

Pizzaballa, who is the most senior Catholic authority in the region, and Theophilos III visited Gaza after an Israeli attack on the Holy Family Church in Gaza City killed at least three people.

Pope Francis held nightly calls with the people sheltering at the Holy Family Church until shortly before his death in April.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DNOYDvuip2x

Protesters rally outside offices of major US outlets in Washington, DC

Several hundred demonstrators have gathered outside a building in Washington, DC, which houses the headquarters of various media organisations, including NBC, Fox News, ITN and the Guardian.

The demonstrators say their coverage of the genocide in Gaza has given Israel room to kill so many Palestinians and, notably, so many journalists.

They have lit candles here for each of the journalists killed by Israel, and a particular focus today, obviously, is Anas al-Sharif.

One of the protest organisers, Hazami Barmada, slammed the coverage of these outlets.

“These media companies in this building helped manufacture public consent for the murder of these journalists by manufacturing stories, in essence by making excuses for the Israeli government to target and kill them,” she said. “And after their death, continue to justify the illegal death, shooting, bombing and murdering journalists, which is a crime against humanity and a war crime.”

The protesters here are banging pots and pans, making as much noise as possible, because they know the evening bulletins of various news and current affairs programmes are currently live in this building. They are trying to disrupt the narratives that are being told on these programmes. Their message is, look, you are no longer the gatekeepers, we know what’s happening in Gaza. We know about the genocide despite your best efforts.

PEN America says Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza could be a war crime

The free speech group has said that Israel’s killing of Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza “raises grave concerns” and “could amount to a war crime”.

“This attack not only wiped out an entire team of journalists – at a time when there are fewer and fewer voices able to report from Gaza – but also took six more Palestinian lives in an onslaught that has already claimed thousands of lives,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, managing director of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center at PEN America.

“The fact that [Anas] al-Sharif’s family, friends, and colleagues must now defend him from unsupported accusations rather than being able to mourn him and honour his legacy as a journalist adds to the disgraceful nature of this crime,” added Gerntholtz.

PEN America also noted that al-Sharif was previously part of a Reuters team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2024.

_{Palestinians protest against the killing of journalists in Gaza, in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 11}

Australian journalists’ union condemns targeted killing of media workers in Gaza

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) has released a statement condemning the “targeted killing of the five Palestinian media workers and the killing of nearly 200 others”.

The largest organisation representing journalists in Australia said Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif’s “reports brought to the world the reality of the horrors being inflicted by the Israeli Government on the civilians in Gaza”.

“He asked the world to not forget Gaza and to not forget him,” the MEAA said. “Shockingly, the Israeli military confirmed the targeted killing on social media, with a post to X accompanied by a target emoji,” it added.

“The targeting of journalists is a blatant attack on press freedom, and it is also a war crime,” MEAA said. “It must stop.”

The journalists’ union also called for Israel’s ban preventing international journalists from reporting from Gaza to be lifted, to provide “unfettered coverage of the worsening humanitarian crisis”.

Belfast, Dublin hold protests after Israeli killing of journalists in Gaza

Demonstrations have been held in Northern Ireland’s capital Belfast and Republic of Ireland’s capital Dublin, after a prominent Al Jazeera correspondent was killed in a targeted Israeli attack in Gaza City at the weekend, alongside four colleagues and a freelancer.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) organised demonstrations at Writer’s Square in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter and at the Spire in Dublin on Monday evening to condemn the killings.

“This is a horrific attack,” NUJ general secretary Laura Davison said. “We extend our deepest sympathies to the families of the murdered journalists and their colleagues. Journalists have specific rights under international law and once again these rights have been violated while other civilians have been killed as collateral damage.”

Ireland’s foreign affairs minister, Simon Harris, also offered “sympathy and solidarity” to Al Jazeera and the families of the victims, calling the strike “a horrifying attack in Gaza” and “the silencing of some of the few journalistic voices left”.

“Any attack on any civilian, including … any attack on any journalist, should always be absolutely condemned,” he said, adding that Israel’s government appeared to be “going in the complete opposite direction” of a ceasefire.

‘The world’s silence and complicity gave my family only shrouds’

Yousef Aljamal, the Gaza coordinator at the Palestine Activism Program at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), says his sister and her family were killed in an Israeli attack on their apartment in Gaza last week.

His 14-year-old niece, Noor, was the only survivor of the attack that killed her mother, father, and two sisters, Aljamal wrote in an online post.

He said a fight between the children the night before saved Noor’s life.

“She usually sleeps next to her sister, Hoor. They were very close growing up. They played together, went to school together, and went to their favourite ice cream shop together their whole lives. On the night of the air strike, however, the sisters had a small argument, and Noor decided to sleep closer to the curtain in the room where their family slept. While the family slept, an Israeli missile targeted their room, killing everyone except Noor,” he wrote.

“Noor’s body flew through the air with her mattress and hit the bathroom wall. She survived with multiple fractures in her arm,” he said.

Aljamal said the world is allowing “this genocide to happen” in Gaza.

“My family would have preferred to celebrate the lives of their loved ones rather than just their memories,” he wrote. “Instead, the world’s silence and complicity gave my family only shrouds and no graves of their own.”

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is an organisation guided by Quaker beliefs, which provides humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and advocates for divestment to support Palestinian rights.

Palestinians live in crowded tents, destroyed buildings in Gaza City


<sub>Burnt-out tents can be seen among the makeshift shelters


Families are also living in partially destroyed buildings next to the tents</sub>

Three aid seekers among four Palestinians killed in central, northern Gaza

Our colleagues on the ground are reporting several deadly Israeli attacks.

Near central Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor, Israeli forces shot at and killed at least three people seeking aid, while injuring others, our colleagues quoted a source at al-Awda Hospital as saying.

Meanwhile, in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood, an Israeli attack killed another person, they added.

At least 18 people killed across Gaza since dawn as child starves to death

A six-year-old boy has died from malnutrition in southern Gaza, and at least 18 people have been killed across the territory since dawn. The Nasser Medical Complex confirmed the death of Jamal Fadi al-Najjar, who succumbed to hunger-related illness in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Elsewhere in the governorate of Khan Younis, at least five people were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent sheltering displaced civilians in the al-Mawasi area.

In Gaza City, which Israel said it plans to seize, at least four people were killed and others injured in an air strike on an apartment in the al-Sahaba area.

Heavy bombardment also struck residential homes elsewhere in Gaza City:

Five Palestinians starve to death in Gaza in 24 hours: Ministry

Gaza’s Health Ministry has recorded “five deaths due to famine and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, including two children”. This brings the total number of hunger-related deaths recorded since October 7, 2023 to 227, including 103 children.

Israel claims to have killed dozens of fighters in three-month northern Gaza operation

In its latest message, Israel’s army claims its air force and ground troops have struck and killed numerous fighters and destroyed military infrastructure in northern Gaza’s Jabalia and parts of Gaza City over the past three months.

The military said it killed dozens of fighters, while wrecking military observation posts, rocket launch sites and tunnel shafts used by fighters. It added that troops with its Southern Command continue to operate in the area.

As we’ve reported, recent Israeli attacks in northern Gaza have killed numerous civilians, including six children in the same family yesterday.

Dozens of fighters in three months??? Dozens of civilians die every single day.

Since May the official recorded death toll rose by 7,503
https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-21-may-2025
https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-6-august-2025

Estimated death toll is far higher 
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02009-8
They already estimate it at 84,000 early Januari.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-media-loves-the-experts-until-its-time-to-count-gazas-dead

Estimating Starvation Deaths, Before the Last Few Weeks

One letter to the Biden administration, signed by 99 American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza, estimated a death toll of 118,900 by the time the letter was sent in October 2024. Brown University’s Costs of War Project believes the figure credible and has cited it in its own report.

As detailed in the letter’s appendix, this includes a conservative count of over 62,000 deaths from starvation, alongside the more than 41,000 killed directly by that time, an additional 10,000 buried under rubble and therefore uncounted, and a few thousand more from those with chronic medical conditions who were cut off from their treatments.

Israel’s COGAT trying to cover up ‘internationally documented crime’ in Gaza: Media Office

Gaza’s Government Media Office has accused COGAT, the Israeli military’s liaison to the Palestinians, of “a pathetic attempt to cover up an internationally documented crime, the systematic starvation of the population of the Gaza Strip”.

The statement published on Telegram seems to have been a response to COGAT’s statement published on X that claimed: “Hamas is misrepresenting deaths from pre-existing medical conditions as malnutrition to advance their political agenda.”

The Government Media Office highlighted that the UN and other international organisations have documented scores of deaths “as a result of starvation and lack of food and medicine due to the closure of crossings, the imposition of a comprehensive blockade, and the prevention of the entry of food and aid”.

“The occupation claimed that some of the martyrs suffered from chronic diseases to exonerate itself, but international law is clear: even chronically ill people need food, medical care, and medicine, all of which the occupation has deprived them of through its policy of blockade and prevention of their entry into Gaza,” it added.

The office insisted that the death toll issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health is “accurate and documented according to clear health standards”.

Another person dies of malnutrition in Gaza

A 30-year-old man, Wissam Abu Mohsen, has died of malnutrition, according to a Nasser Hospital report cited by our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

The announcement of his death came shortly after Gaza’s Health Ministry reported five hunger-related deaths recorded in 24 hours, which raised the total number of people who have starved to death during the war to 227.

Gaza death toll rises

At least 89 Palestinians, including 31 aid seekers, have been killed and 513 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in 24 hours, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.

Eleven bodies were also recovered from the rubble of previous Israeli attacks, the ministry said on Telegram.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed a total of 61,599 Palestinians and injured 154,088 since October 7, 2023, the ministry added.

The total number of aid seekers killed since May 27 when Israel introduced a new aid distribution mechanism through the US-based GHF has reached 1,838 with more than 13,409 injured, the statement said.

Israel blocks 430 food items from entering Gaza: Media Office

Gaza’s Government Media Office says Israel is still blocking the entry of more than 430 food items into the territory, despite allowing some aid trucks through last month under international pressure.

In a statement, the office said banned items include “frozen meat of all kinds, frozen fish, cheese, dairy products, frozen vegetables, and fruits”, along with “hundreds of other items needed by the starving and sick”.

The statement said the partial easing announced on July 27 has not lifted broad restrictions on food and other essential goods.

It added that Israel had directly targeted food sources, by not just preventing aid, but deliberately bombing 44 food banks, killing dozens of workers in them, and targeting “57 food distribution centers with bombardment”.

Earlier, we reported that Gaza’s media office has accused COGAT, the Israeli military body reporting on aid deliveries into the enclave, of “a pathetic attempt to cover up an internationally documented crime, the systematic starvation of the population of the Gaza Strip”.

Paramedic recounts being directly targeted while rescuing wounded in Gaza City

Paramedic Noah Al-Shagnoubi has spoken about the moment he was directly targeted while trying to rescue people injured in the bombing of a house on Eighth Street in southern Gaza City.

After being injured on Monday, Al-Shagnoubi said in a video shared by an activist on Instagram: “I went to the place and found the stairs hit and found a martyr in pieces. I left him and kept running towards the voice of the lady upstairs. Next to the lady, I found two children, an old man and a child martyr.”

“I went to rescue the lady and started shouting for someone to help me,” he added. “Suddenly, I saw a green light directed at me. I fell to the ground and woke up to find myself bleeding. I woke up and kept crawling, found a living child, took him and jumped with him from the second floor.”

He continued: “What made me jump from the floor was that they threw another shell at me. The woman stayed alive, and there was also a girl injured on her legs but she is OK. I appeal to the Red Cross and anyone who can help them.”

Footage shows aftermath of deadly Israeli attack in Gaza City

Footage verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking unit captures the chaotic aftermath of a recent Israeli attack in central Gaza City.

A crowd gathers in the street as a small group carries a man’s limp body into a vehicle, rushing him to medical care. The street is filled with a thick, flowing stream of blood, forcing people to step around it.

According to the Wafa news agency, Israeli forces have carried out two recent attacks on Gaza City – one targeting the Sabra area, as we reported earlier, and another striking a residential building in the centre of the city.

Wafa said the attacks have killed at least seven people.

Israeli bombardment of Gaza City ‘intensifying’: Civil Defence spokesman

Gaza’s Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal has said Israeli air raids on Gaza City have been intensifying for three days in a row.

“For the third consecutive day, the Israeli occupation is intensifying its bombardment,” Basal was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

“The Israeli occupation is using all types of weapons in that area – bombs, drones and also highly explosive munitions that cause massive destruction to civilian homes,” he added.

The escalation comes four days after Israel’s government approved a plan to seize Gaza City. Israeli PM Netanyahu has not provided a clear timetable for that operation, but during a news conference on Sunday, he said it would happen “fairly quickly”.

Gaza death toll since dawn rises to 67

At least 67 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn, according to medical sources speaking to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

At least 14 aid seekers are among those killed by Israeli gunfire, the sources said.

Denmark to take part in Gaza aid airdrops

Denmark will soon participate in a mission to airdrop aid into Gaza, according to the country’s foreign minister.

Speaking to public broadcaster DR, Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said the airdrops are “by no means an optimal way to deliver emergency aid”. “It is a kind of emergency solution, but it is also where we are now,” he said.

The mission – coordinated by Jordan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)  – will drop aid from a C-130 aircraft that will fly over Gaza once or twice before August 22, according to Rasmussen, who did not detail the amount of aid to be provided.

International aid groups and experts have repeatedly warned that aid airdrops are inefficient and often dangerous, and instead called for Israel to allow more aid trucks to flood the strip.

Western countries, including the United Kingdom, France and Spain, have recently taken part in aid airdrops for Gaza.

WTF is this, complicit countries taking air drop selfies to deflect from their complicity and reluctance to impose sanctions / ban arms trade.

The C-130 can drop less than a trucks worth of aid. Canada dropped 10t of aid with their C-130 air drop, half a truck's worth. It's like helping battle forest fires by spitting on them. A minimum of 2,000 tons of food aid is needed daily just to feed 2 million people. That's 1 kg per person, while Israel calculated the minimum subsistence level at 1.84kg per person (2,279 calories)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/31/the-mathematics-of-starvation-how-israel-caused-a-famine-in-gaza

New Zealand legislator removed from Parliament over Israel comments

Chloe Swarbrick, who is co-leader of the Green Party, has been ordered to leave Parliament after she criticised her country’s delay in recognising a Palestinian state and called for sanctions against Israel.

The legislator described New Zealand as a “laggard” and an “outlier” before calling on members of the ruling party to support a bill to “sanction Israel for its war crimes”.

The bill was proposed by her party in March and is supported by all opposition parties. “If we find six of 68 Government MPs with a spine, we can stand on the right side of history,” said Swarbrick.

Speaker Gerry Brownlee said that statement was “completely unacceptable” and she had to withdraw it and apologise. When she refused, Swarbrick was ordered to leave parliament.

Brownlee later clarified Swarbrick could return on Wednesday, but if she still refused to apologise, she would again be removed from parliament. New Zealand has said it will make a decision in September about whether it would recognise Palestine as a state.

Yeah this new 'wave' of recognizing Palestine led by France is as insincere as it can be. 

‘Protecting humanity in Gaza is a moral, legal and political obligation’: Palestinian Foreign Ministry

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has blamed the international community for inaction over “the genocide of our people” in Gaza, urging global powers to uphold their moral, legal and political obligations.

“Despite the international consensus … on the need to implement international humanitarian law and human rights, the occupying power continues to expand its aggression and deepen its use of starvation, thirst, and denial of medical treatment as weapons in the war,” the ministry said in the statement shared on X.

It stressed that “protecting humanity in the Gaza Strip is a moral, legal, and political obligation on the international community that should not be subject to any narrow calculations or interests.

“Human life is not a bargaining chip, a tool for extortion, or a means of improving terms,” it said.

The Elders group of global leaders warns of Gaza ‘genocide’

The Elders group of international stateswomen and statesmen, for the first time, has called the situation in Gaza an “unfolding genocide”, saying Israel’s obstruction of aid was causing a “famine”.

“Today we express our shock and outrage at Israel’s deliberate obstruction of the entry of life-saving humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the nongovernmental group of public figures, founded by former South African President Nelson Mandela in 2007, said in a statement after delegates visited border crossings in Egypt.

“What we saw and heard underlines our personal conviction that there is not only an unfolding, human-caused famine in Gaza. There is an unfolding genocide,” it added.

Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, called on Israel to open the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza so aid could be delivered, after visiting the site.

“Many new mothers are unable to feed themselves or their newborn babies adequately, and the health system is collapsing,” she said. “All of this threatens the very survival of an entire generation.”

Clark was joined by Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former UN high commissioner for human rights, on the visit.

She said international leaders “have the power and the legal obligation to apply measures to pressure this Israeli government to end its atrocity crimes”.

‘Genocide in Gaza is the worst I’ve ever seen’: Veteran war correspondent

Israel has killed at least 237 journalists and media workers since it launched its war on Gaza, according to the Gaza Government Media Office. At least nine of them worked for Al Jazeera.

Janine di Giovanni is the executive director of The Reckoning Project and a senior fellow in human rights at Yale University.

She says she’s worked 35 years as a war correspondent, but the genocide in Gaza is the worst she’s ever seen.