LIVE UPDATES: 7 more people, including a child, die from Israel-induced Gaza starvation

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Here’s where things stand on Saturday 2 August 2025:

• Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip describe desperate struggle for food as Israeli bombardment continues.
• At least 30 people, including 13 aid seekers, have so far been killed on Saturday in Israeli attacks across Gaza.
• Seven more people, including one child, have died due to “famine and malnutrition” in Gaza, the territory’s Health Ministry says, bringing the number of deaths from starvation to 169, including 93 children.
• Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 60,430 people and wounded 148,722. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7 attack, and more than 200 were taken captive.

Palestinian woman killed near Khan Younis

An Israeli attack has killed a Palestinian woman in al-Amal neighbourhood, north-west of Khan Younis, report our colleagues on the ground.

Earlier this morning, as we reported, a series of Israeli aerial strikes targeted and destroyed homes in the same neighbourhood.

Photos: More Palestinian aid seekers killed, wounded at Netzarim Corridor

Gaza death toll rises

The Palestinian Health Ministry is reporting that at least 98 people were killed and 1,079 wounded by Israeli attacks in the last 24 hours.

The figure includes 39 people killed while waiting for food aid.

With that, the death toll from the attacks since October 2023 has gone up to 60,430, with 148,722 wounded.

‘We’re like dogs chasing after a bone’

The air drops taking place over Gaza are supposed to be a welcome relief but often, the pallets of air-dropped aid are damaged when they crash on landing.

People are forced to sift through sand for bits of food and scrape whatever they can off the ground. Palestinians say they feel completely humiliated by the process.

“We’re like dogs chasing after a bone. Why do they throw things like that? We don’t want them to help us in that way?” Rana Attia, a displaced Palestinian in Gaza, told Al Jazeera.

Eslam al-Telbany, also displaced by Israel’s war, said she ran after the aid dropped from the sky.

“I went and my children prayed that I returned with food. They haven’t eaten or drunk anything for two days.

“This breaks my heart that they’re waiting for me to feed them”, she said as she broke down in tears.

Seven deaths in Gaza due to malnutrition in 24 hours

The director of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital said that hospitals in Gaza have documented seven deaths, including a child, as a result of starvation and malnutrition over the past 24 hours.

This brings the total of Palestinians who have died due to malnutrition and starvation since Israel began its war on the Palestinian enclave to 169, including 93 children.

Medical sources also said that 30 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since this morning, including 13 aid seekers.

Food aid being stolen, resold at unaffordable prices

Not only are aid trucks entering in a small number, but a power vacuum has enabled looters and armed gangs to step in.

They take over many of these trucks coming in and hoard the aid. They then resell it at a very high price – double or triple the standard black-market price. It’s beyond anyone’s financial capacity.

‘Never witnessed this level of destruction, dehumanisation,’ says GHF whistleblower

As we’ve reported, former GHF guard Anthony Aguilar has spoken to Al Jazeera about the “abhorrent” and “unnecessary” deadly tactics he witnessed firsthand at the aid sites run by the controversial US- and Israel-backed contractor.

He explained that the Israeli military controls the crowd “using automatic machinegun fire, artillery rounds, mortar rounds, and at times, tank fire from the Merkava tank against unarmed, starving civilians, women, children, the disabled”.

When the aid seekers are allowed to enter the site, they’re “released in one giant, massive wave, unorganised, chaotic stampeding”, while the Israeli military shoots at their feet, over their heads and sometimes into the crowd to control them.

He also described how the Israeli military would then fire so-called “warning shots” at Palestinians using machineguns.

“Never in my military career, 25 years of service in multiple combat locations around the world, have I seen anyone use a ‘warning shot’ from a belt-fed machinegun,” Aguilar said.

“I have never witnessed something to this level of destruction, this level of dehumanisation of a population, and the abhorrent, unnecessary escalation of force and unnecessary force used against an unarmed population.”

Palestinian teen who died of malnutrition used to be sports champion

Seventeen-year-old Atef Abu Khater, who died of malnutrition, was very healthy prior to the war.

We hear from his family members and others who knew him that he used to be a local sports champion. He ended up losing a lot of weight, becoming acutely malnourished, and ultimately dying.

He was one of thousands of severe malnutrition cases throughout Gaza.

Many older people – in their 50s and 60s – are also suffering from malnutrition.

Photos: Palestinians mourn loss of loved ones killed while seeking aid

Eighty percent of northern Gaza’s ambulances destroyed

Fares Afanah, head of emergency and ambulance services in northern Gaza, has spoken to Al Jazeera about the challenges medics face in responding to emergencies and treating the wounded.

Afaneh said Israeli attacks have destroyed 80 percent of his department’s vehicles during the war, and that Israeli forces routinely block ambulances from reaching victims.

Many of those wounded while seeking aid arrive at the hospital with head and limb wounds, and overwhelmed doctors frequently struggle to prioritise care, he added.

Deadly Israeli attacks hit Shujayea

At least three Palestinians have been killed and many wounded by an Israeli attack on the Shujayea neighbourhood in central Gaza.

At least 24 people, including 13 aid seekers, have so far been killed on Saturday in Israeli attacks across the Strip.

Six aid seekers killed in central Gaza: Report

Six people waiting to get aid near Wadi Gaza in the central part of the Strip have been shot dead by Israeli forces, reports the Wafa news agency.

Earlier, as we reported, Israeli forces shot and killed 12 aid seekers near the Netzarim Corridor, also in central Gaza.

Since the US- and Israel-backed GHF took over limited food distribution in late May, Israeli forces have regularly opened fire on Palestinian crowds at or near aid sites to disperse them. Nearly 1,400 people have been killed in these shootings, according to the UN.

‘One day feels like 100 because of the heat, hunger and distress’

Fadi Sobh, a 30-year-old street vendor, said his family’s tent in a seaside refugee camp west of Gaza City is unbearably hot in the summer.

With fresh water hard to come by, his wife, Abeer, 29, fetches water from the sea. The children stand in a metal basin and scrub themselves as their mother pours the saltwater over their heads.

Nine-month-old Hala cries as it stings her eyes. Abeer gives Hala water from a baby bottle. When she’s lucky, she has lentils that she grinds into powder to mix into the water.

“One day feels like 100 days, because of the heat, hunger and distress,” she said.

Fadi heads to a nearby soup kitchen. Sometimes one of the children goes with him. “But food is rarely available there,” he said.

The kitchen opens roughly once a week, and never has enough for the crowds. Most often, he waits all day but returns to his family with nothing, and the children sleep hungry, without eating.