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Here’s where things stand on Wednesday 6 August 2025:
- Israeli forces killed at least 135 people across Gaza on Tuesday, including 58 aid seekers, as Gaza’s Health Ministry said hospitals recorded eight more hunger-related deaths.
- United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenca told the UN Security Council that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reported push to fully occupy Gaza is “deeply alarming”. European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera also described the plan as an “unacceptable provocation”.
- United States President Donald Trump said it is “pretty much up to Israel” to decide if it proceeds.
- Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,020 people and wounded 150,671. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Situation in Gaza ‘getting worse day by day’: Health official
Gaza’s Health Ministry Director-General Munir al-Bursh says the situation in the Gaza Strip is “getting worse day by day”.
He told Al Jazeera they had 95 patients with “acute flaccid paralysis”, a sudden weakness in the limbs, which was mainly affecting children.
“The sector has become a fertile area for the spread of diseases. We have 45 patients with Guillain-Barre syndrome [a rare illness that targets the nerves]. There are many cases of poisoning in the sector due to water and food contamination,” al-Bursh said.
“The occupation destroyed most of the laboratories in the Gaza Strip. The occupation is killing the people of the Gaza Strip with bombing, starvation and all means.
“Airdropping food is humiliating and people have died because of it,” he added.
WHO says ‘arbitrary denial’ of medical teams to Gaza leading to more deaths
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the “complex” Israeli entry requirements for emergency medical teams (EMT) were “severely impacting availability of health services and leading to more deaths in Gaza”.
In a post on X, the WHO said since March 18, the number of teams getting denied have risen by “nearly 50 percent” with 102 EMT health professionals, including surgeons and specialised doctors, barred from entering Gaza.
“Impeding EMTs from participating in the collective humanitarian response comes at a time when we are receiving daily reports of death due to the ongoing conflict and starvation as Gaza faces the worst-case scenario for famine,” the organisation wrote.
“[The] WHO calls for the urgent and expedited facilitation of EMT entry into Gaza,” it added.
Aid trucks entering Gaza fall significantly below needed levels
As we reported, Gaza’s Government Media Office said that only 85 aid trucks entered the enclave yesterday, the majority of which were looted, in a failure to alleviate the ongoing starvation crisis.
The office and the UN have said that 500-600 trucks need to enter Gaza daily – and quickly – to feed the population, reduce looting and the skyrocketing prices of goods being sold due to scarcity.
But since aid trucks were approved to enter Gaza following a siege on humanitarian assistance, that number has never been met.
Here’s a breakdown of the number of trucks that have entered Gaza in the past two weeks:
- Sunday, July 27, 2025: 73 trucks
- Monday, July 28, 2025: 87 trucks
- Tuesday, July 29, 2025: 109 trucks
- Wednesday, July 30, 2025: 112 trucks
- Thursday, July 31, 2025: 104 trucks
- Friday, August 1, 2025: 73 trucks
- Saturday, August 2, 2025: 36 trucks
- Sunday, August 3, 2025: 80 trucks
- Monday, August 4, 2025: 95 trucks
- Tuesday, August 5, 2025: 84 trucks
Israel bans Sheikh Hussein from Al-Aqsa Mosque over sermon condemning Gaza starvation
As we reported earlier, Israeli authorities issued a six-month ban on Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territory, from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque.
According to the Wafa news agency, the Jerusalem Governorate, quoting lawyer Khaldoun Najm, said the ban on Hussein follows the expiration of his eight-day ban.
This most recent ban was imposed after his Friday sermon, where he condemned Israel’s starvation policy against Palestinians in Gaza.
Last week, Hussein was handed an initial eight-day expulsion order from the mosque. The order has now been extended for six months.
Gaza death toll rises
At least 135 Palestinians, including 87 aid seekers, have been killed and 771 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.
The count includes five people who starved to death in the past 24 hours, it said, raising the hunger-related death toll to 193, including 96 children.
Three bodies were also recovered from the rubble of previous Israeli attacks, the ministry statement said on Telegram.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed a total of 61,158 Palestinians and injured 151,442 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 controversial GHF, has reached 1,655, with more than 11,800 injured, the statement said.
Director of hospital in Gaza City warns of anaesthesia, blood shortages
The director of al-Shifa Hospital, Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, has told our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic that pressure on the Gaza Strip’s medical facilities is severe and patients are dying because the hospitals are overwhelmed.
“Hospital occupancy rate exceeds 300 percent,” he said, adding that “anaesthesia supplies will run out in the sector within 48 hours … we do not have enough blood units in stock.
“Many of the injuries we receive are concentrated in the upper parts of the body … we are losing wounded people due to the lack of sufficient operating rooms,” he said.
Photos: Palestinians sift through sand in search of scattered food from aid drops
Bethlehem village residents receive forced displacement notice amid illegal Israeli settlement expansion
Israeli forces have issued forced displacement notices for residents in the village of Beit Askaria, south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, amid a move to take more Palestinian land for the Gush Etzion settlement bloc.
The head of the Beit Askaria village council, Muhammad Ibrahim Atallah, told the Wafa news agency that forces stormed the village, delivering a verbal order to vacate a plot of land planted with grapevines that belonged to him and his brothers.
Atallah was given a 10-day deadline to vacate the land.
Gaza doctor recounts death of child with ‘tiny little wound’ due to blood shortage
There has not been a single day since Dr Tarek Loubani, an emergency physician, arrived in Gaza two and a half months ago, when there has not been a near-complete shortage of blood.
“Blood is life, and so … without adequate amounts of blood, we make decisions that endanger patients all the time,” he told Al Jazeera from Khan Younis.
“I cannot get out of my mind one of the cases, in which a one-and-a-half-year-old boy was right in front of us with a tiny little wound that happened to hit an artery. He was bleeding quite a bit, but not so much that he had to die,” he said.
“He was small, obviously malnourished, and all he needed was a little bit of blood; however, it was a tent massacre, and so every single member of his family had died. As a result, they weren’t able to donate blood,” he added.
“By the time we were able to find somebody to go and donate blood and bring it, we could see that even if we gave him blood, we weren’t going to be able to follow it up, and that that blood could be used to save somebody else,” the doctor said.
“We had to sit there watching a little boy who we knew was saveable and treatable, die in front of us,” Loubani said.
UN experts call for ‘immediate dismantling’ of the GHF
Thirty-five independent UN human rights experts have called for the “immediate dismantling” of the GHF, which they said is in “serious breach of international law”.
“The GHF, a nongovernmental organisation created by Israel in February 2025, with US support, to allegedly distribute aid in Gaza, is an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas,” the experts said.
The experts added that “at least 859 people have been killed around GHF sites since the beginning of GHF’s operations in late May 2025.
“Calling it ‘humanitarian’ adds on to Israel’s humanitarian camouflage and is an insult to the humanitarian enterprise and standards,” they added.
In a statement shared by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the experts urged governments to “impose a full arms embargo on Israel” and “suspend trade and investment agreements that may result in harming the Palestinians and hold corporate entities accountable”.
Israeli army claims to have struck Hezbollah member operating groups in Syria
The Israeli army says it has struck alleged Hezbollah member, Hossam Qasem Ghorab, last night in an attack directed by the air force, without elaborating on the results.
According to a statement from the army, Ghorab operated from Lebanese territory to “direct terrorist cells in Syria”.
The army claimed the cells had planned to “launch rocket attacks” towards the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
At least 30 Palestinians arrested by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank
The Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs says Israeli forces have arrested at least 30 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem overnight.
“Among the detainees are a female journalist, two women, and former prisoners”, it said in a statement.
“The arrests and field investigations were concentrated in the city of Dura/Hebron, while the rest were distributed among the governorates of Nablus, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Tulkarem, and Salfit.”
The commission said that since Israel began its war on Gaza, more than 18,500 Palestinians have been arrested or detained in the occupied West Bank.
Jordan slams Israeli settler attack on Gaza aid convoy
Jordan says Israeli settlers have attacked a Gaza-bound aid convoy in the second type of incident in days.
Government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani told the Reuters news agency that the convoy, which was carrying 30 trucks of humanitarian aid, was delayed.
“This requires a serious Israeli intervention and no leniency in dealing with those who obstruct these convoys,” al-Momani said.
Hunger-related deaths near 200 in Gaza: Ministry
Gaza’s Health Ministry has reported that five people have died “due to famine and malnutrition” in the past 24 hours.
The latest count pushed the total number of hunger-related deaths to 193, including 96 children.
The United Nations and aid agencies have repeatedly warned that the aid going into the enclave is minuscule and not nearly enough to alleviate the ongoing hunger crisis.
Father of captive asks Netanyahu to ‘explain why he wants to kill my son’: Report
Israeli newspaper Haaretz says that Itzik Horn, the father of Israeli captive Eitan Horn, said the families of the captives being held in Gaza were against the expansion of the war on Gaza.
He questioned Netanyahu’s motives, as Israel’s defence establishment said an expansion would endanger the lives of the captives.
“I expect the prime minister to speak to the public, to explain the implications of this idea to the country and the price we’ll pay,” he said, according to Haaretz.
“We are the people. I want the prime minister to explain why he wants to kill my son.”
The families of Israeli captives held in Gaza have intensified their criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent months amid large protests across the country, as the expanded military ground offensive and deadly bombardment in the Palestinian territory continue to put the release of their loved ones at risk.
Photos: Protesters call for Free Gaza at 80th anniversary of Hiroshima bombing
Twenty people killed after aid truck overturned in central Gaza: Government Media Office
Gaza’s Government Media Office says Israel is exacerbating the humanitarian crisis affecting the enclave and reinforcing the “engineering of chaos”.
In a statement last night, the office reported that 20 people had been killed and dozens were injured attempting to access food aid after a truck overturned while travelling through unsafe roads in central Gaza.
“[The] truck carrying food overturned on them after the occupation forces forced the truck to enter through unsafe roads, which had previously been bombed and were not suitable for passage. This reveals the occupation’s deliberate attempts to force civilians into danger and death as part of its ‘engineering of chaos and starvation’,” the office wrote.
“We condemn in the strongest terms this deliberate criminal policy practised by the occupation forces, which amounts to a full-fledged crime of genocide under international humanitarian law,” the statement read.
It added that the situation in Gaza had crossed “all red lines”.
Israeli forces arrest five Palestinians from Bethlehem
Israeli forces arrested five Palestinians from the Bethlehem governorate in the occupied West Bank.
According to security sources quoted by the Wafa news agency, forces arrested four of the men from the town of al-Khader and one from the city of Beit Jala, after raiding and searching their family homes.
Moreover, Israeli troops handed the man who was arrested in Beit Jala a notice to report to their intelligence.
Israel issues latest forced displacement order in Gaza City
The Israeli army’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, has issued the latest forced displacement order for civilians living in nine areas in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, in northern Gaza.
Adraee said the army was expanding its operation westward and called on residents to evacuate southward towards the al-Mawasi area.
So-called safe zones, including al-Mawasi near the city of Khan Younis, are routinely attacked by Israel, despite the army forcing Palestinians to move to those areas.
Algeria’s UN envoy says Israel legally required to allow food into Gaza
Algerian Ambassador to the UN Amar Bendjama has warned the UN Security Council (UNSC) that Israel is legally required to allow aid into Gaza as “famine thresholds have been crossed.
“Let me be clear, humanitarian access is a legal obligation under the Geneva Conventions. It is not a favour. It is not negotiable. It cannot be used as a bargaining chip in exchange for those held in captivity,” Bendjama said.
“Malnutrition is rampant among all people in Gaza, including, unfortunately, including those in captivity,” he added.
“Today, the images that shocked some should surprise no one,” he added, as he held up photographs of children starving in Gaza, in the UNSC chamber in New York on Tuesday.
Two children, woman among 5 killed in Israeli attack on central Gaza
A source at al-Awda Hospital has reported that the bodies of five Palestinians, including a woman and two children, were recovered in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting.
They were killed in an Israeli air attack on a house in the camp overnight.
A recap of recent developments
Here’s what you need to know:
- Israeli forces killed at least 83 people, including 58 people seeking food aid, on Tuesday.
- Gaza’s Ministry of Health said hospitals had recorded eight new hunger-related deaths within 24 hours, including one child.
- The Palestinian Civil Defence and UN warned Gaza was running out of fuel, with people burning waste for energy and emergency vehicles unable to operate.
- US President Donald Trump said it is “pretty much up to Israel” to decide how it proceeds as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met top security officials to discuss war options, including the full occupation of Gaza.
- European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera has slammed reports of Netanyahu’s push to fully occupy Gaza, referring to it as an “unacceptable provocation”.
- An Israeli drone attack killed at least one person near the village of Brital, Lebanon.
Welcome
Hello, and welcome to our live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Stay with us for the latest news, reactions and analyses.
You can find all our updates from Tuesday, August 5, here.
