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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 51 people, including 27 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 boy, 17, dies of Israel-induced starvation in Gaza
A Palestinian teenager with no previous health conditions has starved to death in Gaza after being hospitalised, medical officials and relatives say, as people in the besieged enclave desperately struggle to find food amid Israel’s continued blockade on aid.
Atef Abu Khater, 17, died on Saturday, a source at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City told Al Jazeera.
His weight had dropped from 70kg (154lbs) to just 25kg (55lbs) when he died, his family said – roughly what a nine-year-old child should weigh.
“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,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza City.
“He was one of thousands of severe malnutrition cases throughout Gaza.”
Learn more in our story here.
Families call for Gaza deal to bring back captives during major rally
The families of several Israeli captives still held in Gaza have spoken at huge rallies taking place in Tel Aviv to call for a comprehensive agreement that brings back all captives and ends the war.
“Not only were our children kidnapped, you kidnapped us, too,” Michel Illouz, father of captive Guy Illouz, addressed the government during his speech to the crowds gathered at Hostage Square.
“You stole our identity, I lost everything, I lost hope, the joy of life, my heart, I lost my trust in the country.”
Ilay David, brother of captive Evyatar David, accused Hamas of using his brother and others as “live hunger experiments”.
Organisers said more than 60,000 people attended the rally in Tel Aviv.
Israel reports attacking Gaza many times, claims killing Hamas commander
The Israeli military says “more than 130 terror targets” were attacked in Gaza over the past two days as troops continue to invade the enclave from several directions.
The army also claimed in a statement that it killed the deputy commander of the Sheikh Radwan Battalion in an air strike last week. It said the man was responsible for attacks on Israel and on ground forces in Gaza.
Four Israeli military divisions continue to operate in Gaza, destroying infrastructure in Gaza and killing Palestinians.
Palestinian killed in setter attack in occupied West Bank
Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reports that a 17-year-old boy was shot in the chest by Israeli forces in the town of Aqraba, south of the city of Nablus.
Seven others were wounded in the attack, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
The news agency quoted the mayor of the town, Salah Jaber, who said that settlers from a new outpost built on stolen land nearby attacked the town, and when residents confronted their attack, Israeli troops showed up and began firing live bullets at civilians.
Scenes like this are everyday occurrences in the occupied West Bank, as settlers engage in attacks on Palestinian property and lives under the protection of Israeli soldiers.
Creating chaos in Gaza ‘part of Israel’s day-after plan’
Rob Geist Pinfold, an international security lecturer at King’s College London, says Israel appears to be intentionally sowing chaos in Gaza to make the territory “unlivable”.
“It used to look like this chaos in Gaza was the product of Israel not having a day-after plan,” he told Al Jazeera. “But I think it is now evident that this chaos is … part of the day-after plan, which is a grander strategy to make Gaza unlivable in the long term.”
Yemenis protest in Marib against Israeli-imposed famine in Gaza
After another large-scale weekly protest in the capital, Sanaa, yesterday, a demonstration has now taken place in Yemen’s Marib against Israel’s starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.
Footage verified by Al Jazeera showed protesters raising Palestinian flags and banners condemning the starvation policy against the people of Gaza.
The group of activists organising the protest issued a statement that called on Arab countries to demand the cessation of aggression by all available means.
Five countries complete 90 aid airdrops aid over Gaza, far less than what’s needed
France, Germany, Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have dropped another 90 aid packages over Gaza from aircraft after coordinating with the Israeli military.
As the UN and international aid organisations continue to be sidelined from delivering aid to Palestinians by Israel, the Israeli army claimed in a short statement that the air drops are part of its “series of actions to improve the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip”.
The UN, major international humanitarian NGOs and Palestinians themselves say that aid airdrops are ineffective, dangerous and humiliating for starving people.
Several people have been injured by aid parcels falling from the sky already since this new round of airdrops began, and, earlier this week, we brought you testimony from a Palestinian journalist who said that people were forced to pick through rice mixed with sand after it was airdropped on the ground.
Photos: From Paris to Stockholm – protesters rally against Israel’s war on Gaza
Few remaining operational hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed: Ministry
Gaza’s Health Ministry reports that the al-Shifa Hospital, al-Rantisi Hospital, Nasser Hospital and al-Ahli Arab Hospital are all now hosting several times the number of people than they can accommodate with their existing hospital beds.
“Hospitals resort to spreading beds in corridors and on floors to accommodate the increase in patient and injury numbers,” the ministry said in a statement.
It also renewed its urgent appeal to the international community, UN agencies and humanitarian organisations to provide “immediate and effective support” to assist the collapsed healthcare sector in besieged Gaza.
All states have legal obligations to stop Israel’s war crimes in Gaza: Professor
We have more from international law professor Ralph Wilde on the situation created by Israel in Gaza.
He said it meets the legal test in international law for what is referred to as “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival”.
“This is a serious violation of the laws of war on the parts of Israel and the US and everyone involved including the mercenaries working for the GHF and the Israeli soldiers, and the leaders of Israel and the US,” he told Al Jazeera.
The professor, who also served as senior council on behalf of the Arab League at the International Court of Justice, said “it is not only a war crime, it is also a crime against humanity and it is part of genocide”.
“All states have positive obligations in international law to take action to bring the violations to an end, and they must take every mechanism available to them as a matter of obligation, not discretion,” Wilde said, adding that this requires sanctions against Israel.
Witnesses describe Israeli forces killing, injuring aid seekers at GHF sites
At a GHF distribution site near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, aid seeker Yahia Youssef described chaotic scenes. After helping to carry three people wounded by gunshots, he said he saw others on the ground, bleeding.
“It’s the same daily episode,” Youssef said.
Health workers said at least eight people were killed in the incident. Israel’s military said it fired warning shots at a gathering approaching its forces.
At least two people were killed in the Shakoush area, hundreds of metres (yards) from where the GHF operates another site in the southernmost city of Rafah, witnesses said.
Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis received two bodies and many wounded.
Witness Mohammed Abu Taha said Israeli troops opened fire on the crowds. He saw three people – two men and a woman – shot as he fled.
Risky aid drops ‘a last resort’: Ex-UN humanitarian chief
Martin Griffiths, the former under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator at the UN, has described aid drops as “a last resort”.
“They have lots of risks,” he told Al Jazeera.
“We’ve seen it happen already in this week of airdrops in Gaza; people hurt, wounded, killed on the ground because of the drops,” Griffiths said, adding there is “no system on the ground to … prevent looting and [to] get it to the right people”, he said.
Aid agencies have criticised air drops as ineffective and symbolic.
A plane load can typically only carry a quarter of an average truck’s capacity of 40 tonnes per load.
Israel has no legal right to obstruct aid in Gaza: International law expert
In international law, Israel’s presence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank is in and of itself illegal, according to Ralph Wilde, professor of international law at University College London.
He told Al Jazeera from Montevideo that it is a violation of self-determination and law on use of force, so it is an “aggression”.
“In consequence, Israel has no legal right even to be there in the first place, and no legal right to operate any restrictions preventing others, whether the UN states or aid organisations, from entering Gaza and providing aid.”
Wilde said Israel has an international law obligation to ensure that the Palestinian people of Gaza do not starve.
The only way it can discharge that legal obligation is to either withdraw completely as it is legally required to do, or to provide the necessary aid or allow others to do so.
“Israel is doing neither of those things,” he said, adding that it has been working with the US on the “sham operation” that is GHF to provide limited aid “through this sadistic Hunger Games-style process where people risk being killed or at least maimed by the very actors from whom they must obtain food”.
Israeli troops attack Gaza aid seekers in deadly shooting
Emergency rescue workers tell our colleagues on the ground that at least eight people attempting to receive aid were shot by Israeli forces, who opened fire on a crowd of starving Palestinians in north Gaza.
These eight will be added to the toll of 27 other aid seekers killed by Israeli forces today.
What does international law say about use of starvation as a method of war?
- Under international law, the use of starvation as a method of war or repression is banned.
- People’s right to food is protected under what’s known as “positive and negative” human rights obligations.
- Under positive rights, states have to take steps to ensure access to adequate food through infrastructure, aid and social programmes.
- Negative rights require states and non-state actors to refrain from restricting people’s access to food, such as by destroying farms, blocking aid or imposing sieges.
- In Gaza, Israel has been accused of violating both of these rights.
- Last year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, citing war crimes, including the intentional starvation of civilians.
Qassam Brigades releases extended footage of Israeli captive Evyatar David
Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has released a longer video of Israeli captive Evyatar David, following a 40-second clip shared yesterday.
David, who was taken from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, appears emaciated in a narrow tunnel. In the four-minute video, subtitled in Arabic and English, he describes severe deprivation, saying, “I don’t know what I’m going to eat today … I haven’t eaten in days … I’ve barely got drinking water.” He gives the date as July 27.
At one point, David shows a calendar that he says tracks his July food intake – marking some days with lentils or beans and others with nothing.
Near the end, he holds a shovel and says: “What I’m doing now is digging my own grave … This is the grave where I think I’m going to be buried.”
The video concludes with text over the screen: “Only a ceasefire agreement brings them back alive.”
David’s family had slammed the earlier footage released by Hamas as a “disgusting hunger campaign”.
Sidelining UN is ‘deliberate measure to collectively punish Palestinians’
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said “the manmade famine in Gaza has been largely shaped by the deliberate attempts to replace” UN aid systems through the GHF.
He reminded people in a post on X that Israel has now been actively preventing the UN and international aid agencies from delivering lifesaving aid to Palestinians, in what he described as “a deliberate measure to collectively pressure and punish Palestinians for living in Gaza”.
“No time to waste anymore, a political decision must be made to unconditionally open the crossings”, Lazzarini said, adding that UNRWA has the ability to reverse the famine if allowed.
Amount of aid reaching Gaza ‘very insufficient’
Germany said the aid flow into Gaza – despite limited improvements – remains “very insufficient”.
Government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said in a statement that Germany “notes limited initial progress in the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population of the Gaza Strip, which, however, remains very insufficient to alleviate the emergency situation”.
“Israel remains obligated to ensure the full delivery of aid,” Kornelius added.
Despite being one of Israel’s top allies in Europe, Germany has grown increasingly vocal about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where it airdropped aid for the first time yesterday.
If you’re just joining us
Here’s what you need to know:
- Israel’s attacks across the Gaza Strip continue, with at least 36 people, including 13 aid seekers, killed so far today.
- The director of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital says that hospitals in Gaza have documented seven deaths as a result of starvation and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, including Atef Abu Khater, a 17-year-old Palestinian whose family says the boy’s weight dropped from 70kg (154lb) to 25kg (55lb) before he died.
- A 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.
- Hamas says that US envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to one of the aid distribution sites run by GHF yesterday was nothing more than “a premeditated staged show” designed to mislead public opinion and “polish the image” of the Israeli military.
- The group also said that they would not disarm until the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Photos: Palestinians pray among the remains of a mosque destroyed by Israeli strikes
Hamas says won’t disarm until Palestinian state established
In a short statement issued via Telegram, the Palestinian group says that its weapons and its “resistance” activities are “national and legal entitlements as long as the [Israeli] occupation persists”.
“They cannot be relinquished except by fully restoring our national rights, foremost of which is the establishment of the independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty and its capital Jerusalem”, the statement concludes.
Hamas said that this statement was in response to comments by US envoy Steve Witkoff saying that Hamas had discussed a willingness to disarm during negotiations for a ceasefire.
Three wounded after being hit by Israeli army vehicle in West Bank
Two women and a four-year-old child were wounded after they were hit by an Israeli army vehicle in Jenin.
The Wafa news agency reported that all three were taken to hospital, with the child sustaining facial injuries.
During the raid in Jenin – a known hub of Palestinian resistance in the occupied West Bank – Israeli forces also entered several homes and arrested a young man.
‘Israel seeking to destroy Gaza’s health system through siege, bombing’
The director of al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, has spoken to Al Jazeera about the situation in the besieged enclave:
- Hospitals in Gaza are operating at minimal capacity due to a lack of medicine.
- Hundreds of wounded people are waiting for urgent operations and we cannot help them.
- Israel seeks to destroy the health system in Gaza through siege and bombing.
- Our medical staff are exhausted and starving, just like the rest of our people in Gaza.
- The final and most dangerous stage of famine has been reached.
Iran’s IRGC says two-state solution a ‘diabolical conspiracy’
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have released a statement to mark the first anniversary of the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
The IRGC said the resistance and endurance of the people of Gaza in the face of a “modern genocide” reflects their commitment to taking back their lands, and condemned the “medieval-style atrocities” committed by Israel as instances of war crimes and crimes against humanity that must be stopped by international bodies.
It described the two-state solution as a “diabolical conspiracy” and emphasised that Palestinians must commit to Haniyeh’s thinking that “we do not, and will not, recognise Israel”.
The statement said the dreams of the “Zionist and American criminal gang” for Palestinians will not succeed.
Israel killed a Gaza filmmaker. Now his brother is keeping his legacy alive
When photojournalist Ismail Abu Hatab was killed in an Israeli air attack on Gaza, he left behind a powerful body of work.
Before his killing, Abu Hatab curated an exhibition titled Between Sky and Sea, capturing both the pain and resilience of Palestinians through his lens.
Now, his brother, Ahmed Abu Hatab, is making sure the world sees it. From London to Chicago, the exhibition is travelling globally – so that Gaza’s story and Abu Hatab’s legacy are not forgotten.
Witkoff’s visit to GHF site a ‘staged show’, says Hamas
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to one of the aid distribution sites run by the notorious US- and Israeli-backed GHF yesterday was nothing more than “a premeditated staged show” designed to mislead public opinion and “polish the image” of the Israeli military, Hamas has said in a statement.
The armed group said the visit was also designed to provide “political cover” for Israel’s “starvation campaign and continued systematic killing of defenceless children and civilians in the Gaza Strip”.
“Witkoff’s misleading statements, coupled with the dissemination of targeted propaganda images that attempted to portray the peaceful distribution of aid, are belied by the facts on the ground, where more than 1,300 innocent starving people have been killed by the bullets of the occupation army and employees of the inhumane GHF,” it said.
Captives’ families call for return as Witkoff visits Tel Aviv
Families of Israeli captives have used the loaded term “holocaust” to describe what their loved ones are going through in Gaza without a ceasefire deal.
That is in reference to the picture of the emaciated soldier that was released from Gaza a couple of days ago. A picture that is very similar to the footage that we have been seeing coming out of Gaza that shows starvation among Palestinian children and adults.
But the families are specifically talking about the captives that are still held by Hamas and not referring at all to the Palestinians who are living exactly the same hardships, if not more, because they are also subjected to daily bombings.
US envoy Steve Witkoff had a busy day in Tel Aviv, heading to Hostage Square where he met some of the families.
We heard through them that he told them negotiating with Hamas has because “extremely exhausting”, and that he understood why these families have lost faith in their own government, but they still have the backing of Donald Trump.
Witkoff attends Tel Aviv rally calling for captives’ return
US special envoy Steve Witkoff has paid a visit to a protest in Tel Aviv where relatives of Israeli captives held in Gaza are urging the government to strike a deal to bring their loved ones home.
Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows Witkoff arriving at the rally as demonstrators chant “bring them home,” in reference to the Israeli captives.
While meeting with captives’ families, Witkoff said, “I hear your frustration”, but gave no update on a potential deal, according to Israeli media.
“I wish that I had news for you. But the situation is complicated. There are many reasons [for this] that I cannot detail,” he said in comments carried by The Times of Israel.
The US envoy on Friday toured a GHF site in Gaza amid criticism over US and Israeli coordination in the Strip, particularly over the distribution model of the controversial group.
Footage shows emaciated condition of teen who died of malnutrition
Footage shared online, and verified by Al Jazeera, shows a devastating scene when relatives of 17-year-old Atef Abu Khater, who died of malnutrition, say their farewells.
The emaciated body of Abu Khater can be seen in an open white body bag, his face turned away from the camera, his cheekbones protruding in the absence of any fat, giving him a gaunt appearance.
A relative runs his finger along each bone on his ribcage, which is clearly visible due to malnutrition.
He says the boy’s weight dropped from 70kg (154lb) to 25kg (55lb) before he died.
Journalist Wisam Shabat, who posted the video on his Instagram account, said the boy arrived at the hospital in a very critical condition, suffering from severe complications due to lack of food and medical care, before he passed away.
Photos: Palestinians in Gaza trawl through rubbish dumps in search of food
Israel’s defence minister claims Hamas members ‘surrender’ in Beit Hanoon
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz has shared a video that he claims captures Hamas members surrendering to Israeli forces in Beit Hanoon in northern Gaza.
In the footage, apparently shot from the air, three people emerge from a rubble-strewn area, kneel and raise their arms in the air. A separate photo shared alongside the video on X shows a group of three unarmed men wearing only undergarments.
“They emerge from the tunnels into the destroyed city… [the Israeli military] is destroying both above- and below-ground targets,” Katz wrote in the post.
His claim comes as Israeli forces continue a slew of attacks across the Strip.
‘If the war goes on, I am thinking of taking my life’
Abeer Sobh, a displaced Palestinian mother of six living in a seaside tent camp near Gaza City, sometimes heads to Zikim crossing point for aid trucks entering northern Gaza, alone or with her 10-year-old son Youssef, in the desperate search for food.
Most of the people in the crowds are men – faster and stronger than she is – meaning that “in many cases I return empty-handed”.
If she’s unsuccessful, she appeals to the sense of charity of those who succeeded. Many answer her plea and she gets a small bag of flour.
After a day spent searching for the absolute basics to sustain life – food, water, fuel to cook – she sometimes has enough of all three to make a meal.
Usually, it’s lentil soup. But often, there is nothing and they all go hungry.
Abeer said she’s grown weak and often feels dizzy when she’s out searching for food or water.
“I am tired. I am no longer able,” she said. “If the war goes on, I am thinking of taking my life. I no longer have any strength or power.”
Why has the US sanctioned the Palestinian leadership?
The US has accused and sanctioned members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) of undermining prospects for peace.
The move comes as more Western governments are openly criticising Israel, calling on the country to end the war on Gaza and move towards a two-state solution.
More countries have also announced their intention to recognise Palestinian statehood under certain conditions, including the disarmament of Hamas and PA reform.
So what’s behind the US sanctions? Are they a bargaining chip to further peace talks, or a sign of more hurdles ahead?
Israel says no stop in fighting until captives released
The Israeli army’s chief of staff has said fighting in Gaza will continue if negotiations fail to secure the release of captives still held in the besieged enclave.
“I estimate that in the coming days we will know whether we can reach an agreement for the release of our hostages,” said Eyal Zamir, according to an Israeli army statement.
“If not, the combat will continue without rest.”
The Israeli army says 49 captives remain in Gaza, of which only 22 are believed to be alive.
Photos: More Palestinian aid seekers killed, wounded at Netzarim Corridor
