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Here’s where things stand on Saturday 26 July 2025:
- Two infants have become the latest Palestinian children to die from malnutrition amid Israel’s war and blockade on the Strip, as the total number of starvation deaths in the territory rises to more than 120, including more than 80 children.
- At least 25 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since dawn on Saturday, including 13 aid seekers.
- A former US soldier who worked for the notorious GHF in Gaza tells BBC that he had “without question … witnessed war crimes” in the killing of civilians seeking food aid.
- Leaders of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom called on Israel to immediately lift its blockade on aid supplies entering the famished Palestinian territory.
- Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 59,676 people and wounded 143,965. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks and more than 200 were taken captive.
Children cannot survive long in famine conditions, Gaza hospital chief warns
A hospital director in Gaza has warned that children are the group “most vulnerable” to the famine conditions gripping the territory amid reports that two babies have been the latest to die of malnutrition.
Dr Ahmed al-Farra, director of the children’s hospital at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, told Al Jazeera that children cannot survive long without food.
He warned that children face the greatest risk from the critical food shortages afflicting Gaza caused by the Israeli blockade. He said there would be mass deaths if border crossings are not immediately opened to allow aid to flow in.
As we reported earlier, five people have died from malnutrition in Gaza in 24 hours with two babies among the victims.
One, Hood Arafat, was born just a week ago in Gaza City and died as a result of malnutrition due to a lack of milk, a source at al-Ahli Arab Hospital told Al Jazeera. Earlier on Saturday, staff at the Nasser Medical Complex reported that a six-month-old, Zainab Ahmed Abu Haleeb, had also died of malnutrition.
Starving and exhausted doctors call for international intervention in Gaza
Doctors in Gaza are malnourished themselves as they try to help people. We have spoken with doctors who said they are always feeling dizzy, they experience headaches or even fall unconscious.
Starved Palestinian patients and wounded are coming into hospitals every single day under these circumstances. There are no medical supplies, no nutritional resources that those doctors can give them.
Many are forced to leave the hospitals because they can’t provide them any help. We have seen fathers and parents crying at the entrance of the hospitals sometimes because the doctors are helpless.
That’s why Palestinian doctors have been calling on other countries and the international community to let supplies and medicine enter the Gaza Strip.
Those who are severely wounded, or suffering from chronic diseases or malnourished cannot be helped at the moment.
Five people die of starvation in Gaza in past 24 hours
Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip says five people in Gaza have died due to famine and malnutrition in the past 24 hours.
Earlier we reported that at least two of those who died were infants, including a seven-day-old baby who died due to a lack of milk as Israel continues to prevent most aid from entering Gaza.
Handala crew preparing for possibility of Israeli forces storming aid ship
An activist on board the Handala, a ship carrying aid to Gaza to break Israel’s blockade, says the crew are preparing themselves for the possibility of Israeli forces storming the vessel.
Jacob Berger, an actor from the US, made the comments to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic from on board the Handala, which set sail from Gallipoli, Italy on Sunday. The ship is currently off the coast of Egypt in international waters on its route to Gaza.
The Handala is the latest ship sent by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) in its mission to break Israel’s Gaza blockade. The FFC’s previous mission ended when its ship, the Madleen, was intercepted by the Israeli military, who boarded the vessel and arrested the activists on board on June 9.
The Handala’s live location tracker shows it is nearing the area where the Madleen was intercepted by Israel. Earlier, we reported that 16 Israeli military drones were spotted flying near the vessel overnight.
Gaza government warns thousands of infants at imminent risk of death without baby formula
Gaza’s Government Media Office has strongly warned of an “unprecedented and imminent humanitarian disaster” being committed by Israel, saying 100,000 children aged two years and under, including 40,000 babies, are at risk of death within days.
This is due to a “complete lack of baby milk and nutritional supplements, and the continued closure of crossings and prevention of the entry of the simplest basic supplies”, it said in a statement.
“We are facing an expected and deliberate mass killing slowly being committed against infants whose mothers have been breastfeeding them water instead of baby milk for days, as a result of the starvation and extermination policy pursued by the ‘Israeli’ occupation.”
Starmer: ‘Humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza must end now’
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called for immediate action to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza in a newspaper column outlining efforts by the UK to help.
In a column in the Daily Mirror, the UK leader wrote that the “images of starvation and desperation in Gaza are utterly horrifying”.
“The denial of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people – to children and babies – is completely unjustifiable,” he wrote. “It is a humanitarian catastrophe. And it must end now.”
He said the humanitarian support allocated by the British government to help Palestinians had not been getting into Gaza so the government was scaling up its work.
“News that Israel will allow countries to airdrop aid into Gaza has come far too late – but we will do everything we can to get aid in via this route,” he wrote, adding that British officials were working urgently with Jordanian authorities to get aid onto planes and into Gaza.
He said his government was also speeding up efforts to evacuate children in need of critical medical support from Gaza to bring them to the UK for treatment.
Israeli army bombs Gaza 100 times in 24 hours, expands ground assault
The Israeli military reports that its warplanes attacked more than 100 “terror targets” across Gaza over the past day to support their invading ground forces.
In southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, the Israeli army claimed its 36th Division is operating to “expand combat against additional targets and destroy terror infrastructure”.
In a joint statement with security agency Shin Bet, it said they collaborated to kill a Palestinian fighter who was trying to carry out an explosive attack against Israeli forces. It also said combat tunnels and weapons caches were destroyed.
Seven-day-old infant dies of malnutrition in Gaza
A seven-day-old baby has become the latest victim to die of malnutrition in Gaza, a source at the al-Ahli Hospital has told Al Jazeera.
The child died from a lack of milk, said the source at the hospital in Gaza City.
Earlier, we reported that another infant, Zainab Abu Halib, had died of malnutrition amid critical food shortages in Gaza.
More than 120 people have died of malnutrition in the territory since the war began, and more than 80 of the victims were children or babies.
Civil Defence workers recover 12 bodies in southern Gaza
The Gaza Civil Defence reports that members of its teams in Rafah and Khan Younis, in the southern part of the enclave, have managed to gain access to an area previously attacked by the Israeli military after coordination with Israeli authorities and the UN.
They recovered the bodies of 12 killed Palestinians from the Morag area north of Rafah, and the remains are being transferred to the Nasser Hospital, it said in a short statement.
The Israeli army has separated both Rafah and Khan Younis from other areas in Gaza by building two military corridors, including the Morag Corridor that has also been a point of contention in the ceasefire talks. The bodies of many Palestinians killed in the area are still missing.
Senior Hamas figure rejects Trump’s description of ceasefire talks
Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq has disputed US President Donald Trump’s assessment of the Gaza ceasefire talks after the US leader said Palestinian negotiators “didn’t really want to make a deal”.
In a post on Telegram, al-Risheq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said the comments from Trump and his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff did not “align with the progress of the negotiation process, which was actually witnessing progress”.
He said the statements from Trump and Witkoff – who said Hamas was not “acting in good faith” as US negotiators cut short negotiations over a ceasefire in Qatar – overlooked “the real impediment to all agreements, which is the Netanyahu government”.
He said Hamas had shown a lot of flexibility in the talks and was eager to reach a comprehensive agreement to put an end to the suffering in Gaza.
He called on the US to stop “exonerating the occupation and providing it with political and military cover to continue the war of extermination and starvation”.
Israeli settlers and soldiers launch attacks in West Bank’s Bethlehem, Jericho
Israeli settlers have again stormed the village of Shallal al-Auja north of Jericho in the occupied West Bank and grazed their livestock inside Palestinian land and property.
A local Bedouin rights official told the Wafa news agency that settlers have continued their incursions from an illegal outpost nearby, and are trying to exploit Palestinian water sources, as well.
Meanwhile, in Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, Israeli soldiers launched a new raid today after killing a 31-year-old Palestinian man in the area, whose body is still being held by the Israeli authorities.
Another raid was reported in the town of Burqin, west of Jenin, where several Palestinian homes were ransacked by Israeli forces.
Israel must immediately lift fuel and access restrictions in Gaza: Oxfam
There should not be any restrictions on aid or fuel when the entire population of Gaza faces starvation and more than 80 children have died of hunger, Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam policy lead in the occupied Palestinian territory, says.
“What world do we live where I’m an hour and a half away from Gaza and there are children starving miles from me and there’s an abundance of food here?” she told Al Jazeera from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
“The main point is that there is a siege on Gaza, that Israel has occupied 88 percent of Gaza, that most of Gaza is an active conflict zone and that we are unable to operate under these conditions.”
Khalidi pointed out that even if there were access for aid groups, there is no way for the UN and other international organisations to deliver it to those most in need under live fire from Israeli soldiers. She said Israeli authorities have not provided any safe routes to warehouses or delivery points for Palestinian civilians.
“The crossings are closed, so what we need is opening them, lifting the restrictions and arbitrary delays and denials by Israeli authorities,” she said, adding that “just dumping aid at the border” is meaningless when none of it reaches people.
Israeli forces kill 25 people in Gaza, including 13 aid seekers, since dawn
At least 25 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces across Gaza since dawn, including 13 aid seekers, sources at Gaza hospitals tell Al Jazeera.
In the latest news of an attack, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent said a number of Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces targeting aid seekers in the northern Gaza Strip.
Recognising Palestinian state before it’s established may be ‘counterproductive’, Meloni says
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says recognising the State of Palestine before it is established could be counterproductive.
“I am very much in favour of the State of Palestine, but I am not in favour of recognising it prior to establishing it,” Meloni told the Italian daily La Repubblica.
“If something that doesn’t exist is recognised on paper, the problem could appear to be solved when it isn’t,” Meloni added.
France’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September drew condemnation from Israel and the United States.
On Friday, Italy’s foreign minister said recognition of a Palestinian state must occur simultaneously with recognition of Israel by the new Palestinian entity.
A German government spokesperson said on Friday that Berlin was not planning to recognise a Palestinian state in the short term and said its priority now is to make “long-overdue progress” towards a two-state solution.
‘No one has been spared’ in Gaza, UNRWA says
The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as starvation grips the Strip amid unrelenting Israeli attacks.
In a statement posted on X, UNRWA said Palestinians “are once again forced to be displaced” in the besieged territory by Israeli authorities.
“They have nowhere to go. No one is safe in Gaza. Not aid workers, not medical workers, not UN staff. No one has been spared.”
Another infant starves to death in Gaza during Israel’s blockade
The latest person to starve to death in Gaza is an infant, Zainab Abu Halib.
Her family says she died because she was malnourished and they could not get milk for her. Not only could they not afford the formula, they simply could not find any to buy.
Her family said they saw her dying slowly every day due to the lack of food and medical treatment. They went to the hospital, but the hospital did not have any treatment for her.
Her death brings the number of Palestinians who have died from malnutrition and starvation in Gaza to 123 with at least 84 of those children and babies.
Gaza Medical Relief: 17,000 children suffer from severe malnutrition in besieged territory
A total of 17,000 children in Gaza suffer from severe malnutrition, the director of Medical Relief in Gaza said, as Israel continues its humanitarian blockade of the besieged territory.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Dr Mohammed Abu Afash said the situation is “deteriorating day by day, and we are in the fifth stage of famine”, adding that the lack of milk for children is causing serious health problems for them.
“If medicines and medical supplies are not delivered immediately, the death rate will accelerate,” he added.
“There is no food or drink, and no aid has been delivered for the past five months.”
