Amnesty warned on Tuesday that women and girls in Gaza have been pushed “to the brink” as the Israeli war has spurred a series of hardships, from mass displacement to the destruction of the local healthcare system.

Pregnant  women, as well as those who need treatment for cancer and other illnesses, have been particularly hard-hit by the lack of adequate health services in the territory, Amnesty said in a statement.

“This systematic erosion of their rights to health, safety, dignity and a future is not an unfortunate by-product of war; it is a deliberate act of war targeting women and girls,” the group said.

“It is also the foreseeable consequence of Israel’s calculated policies and practices of multiple mass displacement, deliberate restrictions on basic and essential items, as well as humanitarian relief, and two years of relentless bombardment that have devastated Gaza’s health system and decimated entire families.”

More than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Israeli attacks have continued despite a US-brokered “ceasefire” that came into effect in October of last year, killing more than 600 people, according to the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Israel  also continues to impede the steady flow of humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced across the Strip due to the Israeli bombardment.

Last  week, the United Nations humanitarian office (OCHA) said the health sector in Gaza remains “under significant constraints” as a result of the restrictions on medical supplies and equipment, as well as fuel.

“Sexual and reproductive health services remain severely disrupted due to damaged infrastructure, shortages of essential medicines and supplies and limited referral capacity,” OCHA said, noting that as many as 180 women give birth daily in Gaza.

“Severe bed shortages mean women undergoing major procedures, including Caesarean sections, are often discharged within hours and return to overcrowded displacement settings, increasing risks of complications and infection,” the agency said.

Maternal, neonatal health problems

That was echoed by Amnesty, which said on Tuesday that medical workers in Gaza reported “an exponential increase in maternal and neonatal health conditions over the past 29 months” as a result of Israel’s genocide.

That includes pre-term births, low-weight babies and babies suffering from respiratory conditions, malnutrition of pregnant women, and postpartum depression, the rights group said.

“Displacement conditions have led to infectious diseases,” Dr Nasser Bulbol, a neonatologist at Al Helou Hospital hospital in Gaza City, told Amnesty, noting that there has been an increase in high-risk pregnancies due to conditions in the Strip.

“And most women come here under stress, trauma and uncertainty, having suffered multiple displacements, lost loved ones, unable to obtain the nutritious food they require.”

The agency, citing a statement from the Palestinian Health Ministry, on Sunday said the attack occurred overnight on the village of Abu Falah in the northeast of Ramallah.

It identified the victims as Fare’ Jawdat Hamayel, 57, and Thaer Farouq Hamayel, 24. Both were shot in the head, the agency reported.

A third resident died later from the fumes of a tear gas canister fired by Israeli soldiers who accompanied the settlers to disperse residents when they tried to confront the attackers, WAFA said. It identified him as Muhammad Hassan Murrah, 55.

In a post on X, Palestinian Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh condemned the “brutal attack on innocent citizens”, saying three were killed and seven others injured.

The Israeli military said forces were dispatched to the Abu Falah area “following a report of Palestinians being attacked by Israeli civilians near homes”, the AFP news agency reported.

“Later, it was reported that two Palestinians were killed as a result of gunfire. Additionally, it was reported that another Palestinian died from suffocation,” it said in a statement, according to the report.

The Israeli military said it was “looking into” the incidents, the AFP news agency reported.

Exploiting the United States-Israeli war on Iran, the settlers have stepped up harassment and attacks on Palestinians, particularly in rural areas of the West Bank. WAFA said the killings in Abu Falah raised to at least six the number of Palestinians killed by settlers in the West Bank since the US-Israeli assault on Iran began a week ago.

On Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry, based in Ramallah, and a local mayor said Israeli settlers shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded his brother in an attack on the village of Wadi al-Rakhim in the southern West Bank.

Mohammad Rabai, head of the village council in nearby at-Tawani, told AFP that settlers had entered homes in the area and attacked the family of 27-year-old Amir Mohammad Shnaran, who later died.

The Israeli military said soldiers and police were dispatched to the scene after reports of a “violent confrontation” between Israelis and Palestinians. It said an investigation was under way.

Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, both members of resistance groups as well as civilians, in the occupied West Bank since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, according to Palestinian Health Ministry figures.

At least 45 Israelis, including both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period, according to official Israeli figures.

In a statement on Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the recognition of a Palestinian state and offered “our partnership in building the promise of a peaceful future for both the State of Palestine and the State of Israel”.

Carney added that the Israeli government was working “methodically to prevent the prospect of a Palestinian state from ever being established”.

“Recognising the State of Palestine, led by the Palestinian Authority, empowers those who seek peaceful coexistence and the end of Hamas. This in no way legitimises terrorism, nor is it any reward for it,” Carney said.

He added that the Palestinian Authority provided “direct commitments” to Canada on reforming its governance; holding general elections next year, which Hamas “can play no part” in; and demilitarising the Palestinian state.

At the same time, Australia announced that it was also recognising Palestinian statehood.

In a statement by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Australia said its recognition alongside Canada’s and the UK’s was part of an international effort for a two-state solution.

Albanese said in a joint statement with Foreign Minister Penny Wong that the decision was meant to revive momentum for a two-state solution that begins with a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of captives held in Gaza.

But the statement reiterated that Hamas must have “no role in Palestine”.

Later on Sunday Portugal’s Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel confirmed that his country had also recognised Palestinian statehood.

“The  recognition of the state of Palestine is the realisation of a fundamental, constant, and fundamental line of Portuguese foreign policy,” Rangel said at the UN headquarters in New York.

Canada’s  and Australia’s recognition of Palestinian statehood appears to have been coordinated with the UK, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that his country was formally recognising a Palestinian state shortly after the announcements from Ottawa and Canberra.

Starmer said recognition would “revive hope for peace for the Palestinians and Israelis and a two-state solution”.

In a video statement on X, the prime minister said: “In the face of the growing horror in the Middle East we are acting to keep alive the possibility of peace and a two-state solution.”

Australia and Canada also announced formal recognition of the state of Palestine, with Portugal and France expected to follow.

The decision has drawn fierce criticism from the Israeli government, families of hostages held in Gaza and some Conservatives. Responding on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a Palestinian state “will not happen”.

Saying he had “a clear message” to the leaders who had declared recognition, he added: “You are giving a huge reward to terrorism”.

Both the Israeli and US governments say recognition is a diplomatic gift for Hamas following its attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023 in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Sir Keir insisted the decision “is not a reward for Hamas” because it means Hamas can have “no future, no role in government, no role in security”.

“Our call for a genuine two-state solution is the exact opposite of [Hamas’s] hateful vision,” he said.

The move is a “pledge to the Palestinian and Israeli people that there can be a better future”, he continued, adding the “starvation and devastation [in Gaza] are utterly intolerable” and the “death and destruction horrifies all of us”.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the decision, which Sir Keir had confirmed in a letter to the leader, saying it would help pave the way for the “state of Palestine to live side by side with the state of Israel in security, peace and good neighbourliness”.

The Foreign Office said it means the UK “recognises Palestinian statehood over provisional borders, based on 1967 lines with equal land swaps, to be finalised as part of future negotiations”.

The two-state solution refers to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, broadly along the lines that existed prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

A state of Palestine is currently recognised by around 75% of the UN’s 193 member states, but has no internationally agreed boundaries, capital or army – making recognition largely symbolic.

Due to Israel’s military occupation in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority, set up in the wake of peace agreements in the 1990s, is not in full control of its land or people. In Gaza, where Israel is also the occupying power, Hamas has been the sole ruler since 2007.

Announcing Canada’s recognition on Sunday, Prime Minister Mark Carney offered “partnership in building the promise of a peaceful future” for both Palestine and Israel, while Australia’s Anthony Albanese said it was “part of a co-ordinated effort to build new momentum for a two-state solution”.

In July, Sir Keir set a deadline of the UN General Assembly meeting, which takes place next week, for the UK to announce recognition unless Israel took “substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a two-state solution”.

Efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza – let alone a long-term solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict – have faltered. Israel sparked international outrage when it recently carried out an air strike on a Hamas negotiating team in Qatar.

Government sources said the situation on the ground had worsened significantly in the last few weeks, citing images showing starvation and violence in Gaza that Sir Keir previously described as “intolerable”.

On Sunday, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said 71 people were killed and 304 injured in Israeli attacks in the past 24 hours.

Israel’s latest ground operation in Gaza City, described by a UN official as “cataclysmic”, has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee.

It is the latest Israeli offensive in the nearly two-year war which has seen much of the Palestinian territory’s population displaced, its infrastructure destroyed, and at least 65,208 people killed, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Earlier this week, a UN commission of inquiry concluded Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, which Israel denounced as “distorted and false”.

UK ministers have also highlighted the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law, as a key factor in the decision to recognise Palestinian statehood.

Here’s where things stand on Friday 8 August 2025:

• Israel’s security cabinet has approved a plan by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the military occupation of Gaza City.
• The Israeli military operation reportedly involves “all Palestinian civilians” being displaced from the northern city to camps in central Gaza.
• News of the plan comes after Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel will “take control of all of Gaza”.
• The spectre of forced mass displacement from Gaza City follows after four more people died from starvation and malnutrition across the Strip – including two children – bringing the total number of victims from Israel’s man-made famine to 197.
• Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,258 people and wounded 152,045. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.

Far-right Israeli protesters block trucks carrying Gaza aid at Jordan crossing

Far-right Israeli protestors blocked trucks carrying humanitarian aid destined for Gaza for several hours on Friday morning at the Allenby Bridge, known in Jordan as the King Hussein Bridge, separating the occupied West Bank and Jordan.

A post on X with footage of the group said they were blocking the Jordanian trucks carrying much-needed supplies to Palestinians in Gaza as aid is the “oxygen of Hamas in the fight against our soldiers”.

Far-right protestors regularly impede aid trucks crossing through Israel to reach Gaza, where an ongoing starvation crisis caused by Israel’s ongoing blockade has resulted in almost 200 deaths.

Gaza City occupation plan ‘formalises’ situation that exists on the ground

Rami Khouri, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, told Al Jazeera earlier that the plan to occupy Gaza City had been expected and the operation would likely not change the situation much from what exists currently on the ground in the war-torn enclave.

“Israel controls all of Gaza, from all the borders in the air and sea. It is already totally in control of anything that comes in and out of Gaza – the very little they allow in. So this just formalises, a little bit, the nature of the Israeli presence,” Khouri told Al Jazeera.

“It means they are going to go into some of the areas where there are still dense urban conglomerations of people in Gaza City and in the centre of the Strip,” Khouri said.

The plan is not “a big difference from the situation that already exists”, he said.

“Israel controls about 80, 85 percent of all of Gaza now,” he added.

Israeli opposition leader says move to occupy Gaza City a ‘disaster’

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has labelled a decision by Israel’s security cabinet to back Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plan to occupy Gaza City a “disaster that will lead to many more disasters”.

Lapid said far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had “dragged Netanyahu into a move that will take many months, lead to the deaths of hostages and soldiers, cost tens of billions for the Israeli taxpayer, and result in a diplomatic collapse”.

“This is exactly what Hamas wanted: for Israel to be trapped in the territory without a goal, without defining the picture of the day after, in a pointless occupation that no one understands where it is leading,” he said.

Australia urges Israel not to ‘go down path’ of military control of Gaza

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong has urged Israel “not to go down this path”, after Israel’s security cabinet backed Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plan for a military takeover of Gaza City.

In a statement issued soon after the Israeli government’s announcement on Friday, Wong said the move “will only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”.

“A two-state solution is the only pathway to secure an enduring peace – a Palestinian state and the State of Israel, living side-by-side in peace and security within internationally recognised borders,” she said.

Israel military has experience that occupation of Gaza ‘almost impossible to do’

Former US intelligence officer Glenn Carle spoke to Al Jazeera earlier about Israel’s plan to occupy Gaza City and how the Israeli military should know “better than anybody” what happened during their previous occupation of Gaza.

“It was a terrible dilemma and almost impossible to do, so I think that’s what the military is confronted with now,” Carle said, adding that some Israeli military officials have reportedly assessed that it could take up to five years to completely defeat Hamas in Gaza.

While Carle said he was surprised at such a timeline, he said that Israel’s military occupation could face an “infinite number of problems”.

“Humanitarian, civil, political, and military. Because there will be probably endless disaffected young men who – whether organised or not – will lash out,” he said.

Israel’s security cabinet adopts ‘five principles’ for ending war

As we have been reporting, Israel’s security cabinet backed Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plan to militarily occupy Gaza City and impose a siege on Hamas fighters there.

As part of the hours-long meeting on Thursday night, the cabinet also agreed in a majority vote upon “five principles” for ending its deadly assault on Gaza, according to a statement from Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office.

Those principles are:

• The disarming of Hamas.
• The return of all the captives – the living and the deceased.
• The demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip.
• Israeli security control in the Gaza Strip.
• The establishment of an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.

Occupation of Gaza City seen as Israel’s ‘institutionalisation of domination’ over population

Many Palestinians, in fact, in the early hours of this morning, said the Israeli decision to occupy Gaza City is not seen as a strategic or tactical manoeuvre, but is seen as the institutionalisation of domination … that people have been enduring more than 22 months of displacement, fear and relentless bombardment.

Now their misery is about to be complicated further by Israel’s potential step to expand its ground operations to focus primarily on Gaza City, which right now holds hundreds of thousands of people who are living in makeshift tents and partially destroyed buildings and schools, UN-run clinics and shelters.

Many of those who were given the chance to return to northern Gaza did so after the former ceasefire agreement that was brokered between Hamas and Israel.

Now they are facing the same threat, which is to be forcibly displaced from their homes and towns to other parts of the Strip under the pretext of fighting Hamas and armed factions in these areas.

People say that this has been the fear … and right now it has become a looming reality that Israel will control Gaza City.

Netanyahu’s plan to fully occupy Gaza is both cynical and stupid

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara says Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing an unprecedented struggle in Gaza.

Despite massive destruction and displacement, he has failed to declare victory, enforce a ceasefire, or offer an exit plan.

Bishara suggests that Netanyahu is cornered – if he withdraws, Hamas could quickly return to power; if he stays, he faces growing dissent from Israeli military leaders opposed to a prolonged occupation of the Palestinian territory.

A recap of recent developments

Here’s what you need to know:

• Israel’s security cabinet has approved Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to militarily occupy Gaza City and impose a siege on Hamas fighters there.
• Netanyahu’s office said in a statement early on Friday that “the [Israeli military] will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones”.
• Axios reporter Barak Ravid, who first reported the plan had been approved, quoted an unnamed Israeli official as saying the operation will involve the forced displacement of “all Palestinian civilians from Gaza City to the central camps and other areas by October 7”.
• Four more people died of hunger-related deaths in Gaza, bringing the total number of fatalities caused by Israel’s brutal siege to 197 people, including 96 children.
• The WHO says about 12,000 children in Gaza under the age of five were acutely malnourished at the end of July, the highest number on record.
• Lebanon’s government approved a US-backed proposal to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year. Hezbollah officials said it would not disarm before Israeli forces, still occupying Lebanese territory, left.

Welcome to our live coverage

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 Thursday, August 7, here.

As the security cabinet prepared to meet to discuss the proposals, Netanyahu gave an interview to Fox News in which he said Israel intended to take full control of Gaza to assure Israel’s security, remove Hamas from power and enable the transfer of civilian governance to another party, without giving details.

But he suggested that Israel did not want to keep the territory.

“We don’t want to govern it,” Netanyahu said, in English. “We don’t want to be there as a governing body. We want to hand it over to Arab forces.”

He did not give details about possible arrangements or which countries could be involved; still, this was a rare indication of what he might be envisioning for a post-war Gaza.

For now, however, Netanyahu wants an expanded offensive that is likely to see the Israeli military, which says it controls about 75% of the territory, operating in Gaza City and the camps in the central part of the strip, where around one million Palestinians live and the hostages are thought to be held.

The potential operations, which could take months, would mean the mass displacement of people with the potential to worsen the humanitarian crisis there.

This could spark fresh condemnation from countries that have expressed anger over the situation in Gaza and urged Israel to end the nearly two-year war, which started as a response to the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023.

In a sign of major divergencies between the political and military leadership, the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, told Netanyahu that the full occupation of Gaza was “tantamount to walking into a trap”, according to reports in Israeli media.

Zamir, the reports said, warned that the offensive would endanger the lives of the 20 hostages who are believed to be alive and soldiers, who are exhausted.

Many of the hostage families share those concerns, and say the only way to guarantee the release of the hostages is through a negotiated deal with Hamas.

According to the Maariv newspaper, the “prevailing assessment is that most and possibly all of the living hostages [will] die” during an expanded offensive, either killed by their captors or accidentally by Israeli soldiers.

Speculation over an expanded offensive have also exposed divergences between some of Israel’s international allies.

The British ambassador to Israel, Simon Walter, said the full occupation of Gaza would be a “huge mistake”, while also pushing back against US and Israeli allegations that a possible recognition of Palestinian statehood by the UK was a reward for Hamas.

Meanwhile, the US envoy, Mike Huckabee, a staunch supporter of Israel, said it was up to the Israeli government to decide whether to fully take over the Strip. “It’s not our job to tell them what they should or should not do,” he told CBS News.

Netanyahu has, so far, failed to offer a vision for Gaza after the war apart from refusing to accept a governing role for the Palestinian Authority, the body that governs the occupied West Bank and recognises Israel.

Polls suggest most of the Israeli public favours a deal with Hamas for the release of the hostages and the end of the war.

Israeli leaders say Hamas, for now, is not interested in negotiating as, in their view, the group is feeling emboldened by the international pressure on Israel.

The threat of a full occupation could be part of a strategy to try to force the group into making concessions in stalled talks.

But many here believe that Netanyahu is prolonging the conflict to guarantee the survival of his coalition, which relies on the support of ultranationalist ministers who have threatened to quit the government if there is any deal with Hamas.

Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have also publicly defended expelling Palestinians from Gaza – which could amount to the forced displacement of civilians, a war crime – and resettling it with Jews.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.

The Hamas 7 October attacks on Israel killed about 1,200 people, while 251 were taken to Gaza as hostages.

Here’s where things stand on Thursday 7 August 2025:

• PM Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will “take control of all of Gaza” in an interview, claims authority to be handed over to a third party upon military victory.
• Gaza’s hospitals have recorded four new deaths “due to famine and malnutrition over the past 24 hours”, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, raising the total number of hunger-related deaths to 197, including 96 children.
• Head of UN children’s fund, UNICEF, says 12,000 children in Gaza are experiencing “acute malnutrition”, as Israel continues its starvation policy.
• Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,258 people and wounded 152,045. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.

Ireland calls for accountability for Palestinian activist killed by Israeli settler

The Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Ireland has said that it condemns the slaying of Palestinian rights activist Awdah Hathaleen by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank, where such acts of violence largely go unpunished by Israeli authorities.

“We condemn the killing of human rights defender [Hathaleen] in the West Bank,” the ministry said in a social media post. “Those responsible must be held accountable. There can be no impunity for perpetrators of settler violence. Ireland will continue to advocate for sanctions against individuals and entities involved.”

Israeli authorities released the shooter, Israeli settler Yinon Levi, who has said he is “glad” he killed Hathaleen and is reported to have returned to the scene of the shooting to continue harassing Palestinian residents. Israeli authorities have withheld Hathaleen’s body from his family.

WHO says acute malnutrition among children in Gaza reached new high in July

Global health officials say that July saw the number of children suffering from acute malnutrition in Gaza rise to the highest levels yet, as Israel’s siege continues to fuel rising deaths from starvation in the Gaza Strip.

“In July, nearly 12,000 children under five years were identified as having acute malnutrition in Gaza, the highest monthly figure ever recorded,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at WHO headquarters in Geneva.

He added that at least 2,500 of those children have reached a level of severe malnutrition, and that 29 children under the age of five had died from hunger as of July 29.

Many questions remain after Netanyahu’s Fox News interview

That interview gives us a bit of an inkling into the thinking of the prime minister.

He said something that we haven’t heard before, at least directly from him – which is that Israel is not interested in governing Gaza but rather, would hand it over to an Arab force that would not pose a threat to the security of Israel.

That is quite different from what we’ve been hearing from Israeli media about a full-blown occupation of Gaza.

But again, this is an interview that he gave to one of the American networks.

The [Israeli] security cabinet is meeting, and I think we’ll have to wait until after that to know exactly in which direction Israel is heading when it comes to Gaza.

If you’re just joining us…

Let’s bring you up to speed:

• A child has died while attempting to retrieve airdropped aid in Khan Younis, the latest death in a delivery method that UN agencies have condemned as dangerous and inefficient.
• In northern Gaza, a Palestinian man who recently visited an airdrop site described the desperation on the ground. “People are tearing each other apart for [the aid], and the amount is so limited,” the man told Al Jazeera.
• Land deliveries also remain critically low. According to the Gaza Government Media Office, only 92 aid trucks entered the enclave yesterday, and most were looted. The office has previously said that at least 600 trucks are needed to stave off Israel’s famine.
• British police say they have charged the first three people in England and Wales with supporting activist group Palestine Action since it was banned under “anti-terrorism” laws.

Netanyahu trying to cover up real goal of ethnic cleansing

Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist at local newspaper Haaretz, says the Israeli prime minister’s remarks about another governing body taking over Gaza are “far-fetched” and not realistic.

“What does he mean, another force will take over Gaza? Who is going to get into Gaza, who will be willing to do so, except for the Israeli military, obviously?” Levy said to Al Jazeera.

“That’s another way of covering up the real intention – and I’m afraid that the intention is quite transparent: There is a goal for this war … to push all the people of Gaza to this ‘humanitarian’ concentration camp and then offer them to leave Gaza,” he said.

“Practically, [Israel is] aiming at an ethnic cleansing of Gaza.”

Israel is currently setting things in motion to carry out that plan, Levy added. “[Israel is] preparing an ethnic cleansing – we have to face it.”

Israel already controls all of Gaza

As we’ve just reported, Netanyahu says Israel plans to move forward with plans to control “all of Gaza” – the latest threat from Israeli officials to fully “occupy” the territory.

But legal experts stress that the enclave has been occupied by Israel since 1967 despite the withdrawal of Israeli forces and settlers in 2005. The International Court of Justice, the UN’s top tribunal, reaffirmed that position in a ruling last year.

“The Court notes that, for the purpose of determining whether a territory remains occupied under international law, the decisive criterion is not whether the occupying Power retains its physical military presence in the territory at all times but rather whether its authority has been established and can be exercised,” the ruling said.

The court also underscored that Israel continued to exercise key elements of authority over Gaza after the 2005 withdrawal, “including control of the land, sea and air borders, restrictions on movement of people and goods” and the collection of import and export taxes. “This is even more so since 7 October 2023,” it added.

Former UN official Michael Lynk likened Gaza to a prison where Israel retains control, making it the occupying power. “It’s like if the guards leave the prison, but they take all the keys with them; they’re still controlling how much food goes inside the prison each day and how much electricity goes into the prison each day,” Lynk told Al Jazeera in 2023.

“The people inside the prison are free to roam wherever they want within the confines of the prison but have no ability to be able to leave – that would be ‘effective control’ over the prison.”

US consulting firm helped model expulsion of Palestinians in Gaza to African nations: Report

The US firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG) helped model plans for a possible expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza to the African nations of Somalia and Somaliland, according to a report by the Financial Times newspaper.

The British paper reported that BCG helped with that modelling as part of a post-war planning project for Israeli businessmen. The plan included the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to countries such as Somalia, the breakaway region of Somaliland, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan.

The Financial Times first reported on BCG’s involvement in such efforts last month. BSG responded by disavowing the work and saying that the person in charge had been told not to do it.

The Associated Press also reported in March that the US and Israel had discussed expelling Palestinians in Gaza to Sudan, Somalia, and Somaliland.

Experts have said that the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, which Israeli officials have consistently called for, would be an act of ethnic cleansing and a likely war crime.

Netanyahu says Israel intends to take control of ‘all of Gaza’

The Israeli prime minister has been asked in an interview with Fox News if Israel will “take control of all of Gaza”.

“We intend to,” Netanyahu answered, “in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of [sic] Gaza and to pass it to civilian governance that is not Hamas and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel.

“That’s what we want to do. We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas.”

Netanyahu also said in the interview that Israel doesn’t want to be “a governing body” in Gaza.

“We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it.”

‘Hunger the latest killer in Gaza’: UNRWA

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) is once again calling to be allowed to do its job, distributing humanitarian aid freely in Gaza.

“Before the siege and the famine, UN and partners supported 2 million people across the Gaza Strip through community-based aid distribution,” the group wrote on X.

“Five months on, hunger is the latest killer. Four militarized distribution points cannot replace a coordinated humanitarian response.”

Israel continues to enforce a humanitarian blockade on Gaza, only allowing limited aid into the territory via airdrops and the notorious Israel and US-backed GHF.

The UN and other humanitarian groups have slammed the GHF as a militarised scheme that puts Palestinians in danger and does not adhere to humanitarian principles. More than 1,300 people have been killed while seeking aid at GHF-run distribution sites in the Strip since May.

Israeli army details northern Gaza operations over last month

The military has released a statement outlining a series of operations by the Givati Brigade in the Beit Hanoon area of northern Gaza.

It said the brigade struck “numerous targets” in coordination with the Israeli Air Force, including observation posts and sniper positions. Israeli troops also “dismantled dozens of tunnel shafts and several underground tunnel routes”.

The military claimed that as a result of the operations, Hamas’s battalion in Beit Hanoon “has ceased to function as an organised military force”.

‘People are tearing each other apart’ for limited aid

We’ve spoken to displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza as they scramble to try to secure a portion of the limited aid being airdropped into the besieged enclave.

Ismail al-Fayoumi said he walked a long distance to try to get food for his family. He came away with a single bag of milk.

“May God ease our situation,” he told Al Jazeera. “We hope they start bringing aid officially, through proper warehouses, not through airdrops. People are tearing each other apart for it, and the amount is so limited. What can a single pack like this do for an entire family?”

Another displaced man, Mustafa Tanani, likened the situation to “a battle”.

“We come from far away and end up with nothing,” he said.

“The planes are dropping aid for nothing – look where they threw it, up there between the buildings. It’s dangerous for us. There’s even a box hanging up high – it’s too risky to go and get it.”

UK police charge three people after Palestine Action ban

British police has said they had charged the first three people in England and Wales with supporting activist group Palestine Action since it was banned under “anti-terrorism” laws.

Jeremy Shippam and Judit Murray, both 71, and Fiona Maclean, 53, were charged under Britain’s Terrorism Act of 2000 following their arrest at a protest in central London on July 5, the capital’s Metropolitan Police force said.

A spokesperson for the force said there had already been seven charges in Scotland, which has a separate legal system.

The announcement comes ahead of a planned protest in support of the group outside the UK Parliament on Saturday, with organisers saying more than 500 people are expected to attend.

“I would strongly advise anyone planning to come to London this weekend to show support for Palestine Action to think about the potential criminal consequences of their actions,” Met Police Commander Dominic Murphy said in a statement.

Israeli army claims to have killed dozens of Hamas fighters in Gaza

The Israeli military says its troops killed dozens of fighters and dismantled tunnel shafts in Gaza City’s Daraj and Tuffah areas.

It claimed the soldiers located weapons in the area, including missile launchers, pistols, and ammunition. An additional missile launcher and launch canisters were also found in a cemetery in the area, the military said.

“Troops of the Southern Command continue to operate in the Gaza Strip against the terrorist organizations in order to protect the civilians of Israel,” it said.

As we have reported earlier, our team on the ground said “civilians are bearing the brunt of this conflict” with the Israeli forces continuing to target residential areas across the enclave.

Israeli army claims to have killed dozens of Hamas fighters in Gaza

The Israeli military says its troops killed dozens of fighters and dismantled tunnel shafts in Gaza City’s Daraj and Tuffah areas.

It claimed the soldiers located weapons in the area, including missile launchers, pistols, and ammunition. An additional missile launcher and launch canisters were also found in a cemetery in the area, the military said.

“Troops of the Southern Command continue to operate in the Gaza Strip against the terrorist organizations in order to protect the civilians of Israel,” it said.

As we have reported earlier, our team on the ground said “civilians are bearing the brunt of this conflict” with the Israeli forces continuing to target residential areas across the enclave.

Photos: People rush to get aid packages airdropped in Gaza

Here’s where things stand on Wednesday 6 August 2025:

• Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip continued in the early hours of Thursday morning, with at least 23 people killed in attacks across the enclave since dawn, medical sources tell Al Jazeera.
• At least 44 Palestinians were killed across the enclave on Wednesday, including 18 aid seekers. The number of people who have died from starvation and malnutrition rose to 193, with five new confirmed hunger-related deaths in the past day.
• The UN said Israel’s blockade of Gaza means the lives of more than 100 premature babies are in “imminent danger”, as a lack of fuel impedes “life-saving” operations in hospitals.
• Slovenia has announced a ban on all imports from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
• Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,158 people and wounded 151,442. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.

Ex-Israeli military spy chief speaks out against full Gaza occupation

Former Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin says he opposes a full-scale occupation of Gaza, warning it would require astronomical resources and likely “doom” the Israeli captives still held in the enclave.

“We’re talking about two million people and military rule; desperate people with destroyed homes, no hospitals or schools,” Yadlin, who served as the military intelligence head in 2011-2012, told Israel’s Maariv newspaper. “The responsibility for them will fall on us.”

“If I were in the cabinet today, I would lay out the implications of occupying Gaza,” he added. “In my view, it would doom the hostages. After 22 months, the [Israeli military] knows how to conquer above-ground Gaza, but it doesn’t know how to conquer underground Gaza or rescue the hostages.”

Another Palestinian child starves to death

A child from Khan Younis has died of malnutrition, the latest hunger-related death in Israel’s war on Gaza, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic have quoted Nasser Hospital as saying.

The latest death adds to at least 193 hunger-related deaths in the enclave.

Israeli forces arrest 5 Palestinians in occupied West Bank: Report

Israeli forces have carried out another wave of arrests across the occupied West Bank, a near-daily occurrence since the Gaza war began.

One raid targeted the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, where Israeli special forces stormed several homes and arrested one man, according to the Wafa news agency. Two others were detained in the nearby town of Burin, the agency said.

Elsewhere, Israeli forces arrested two men near Hebron and another in Beitunia, near Ramallah, Wafa said.

Israeli drone attack kills 6 displaced people in southern Gaza’s al-Mawasi

At least six Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli drone attack on a displaced people’s tent in the al-Mawasi area, west of Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis.

That’s according to a Nasser Hospital source speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic.

As we have reported earlier, Israeli attacks have already killed 17 Palestinians in the enclave since dawn.

The latest count raises the day’s death toll to 23.

Israel demolishes Palestinian prisoner’s family home in Hebron: Report

Israeli forces have stormed Hebron’s Abu Katila neighbourhood and raided the family home of a Palestinian prisoner before demolishing it, according to the Wafa news agency.

During the operation, Israeli forces sealed off roads in the area and fired stun grenades, tear gas and bullets in the area, the report said.

Rights groups have long criticised Israel’s policy of demolishing homes of some Palestinian prisoners as a form of “collective punishment” that may amount to war crimes.

Suspect in murder of Israel embassy staffers in US indicted for hate crime

A man accused of shooting dead two Israeli embassy staff members in Washington, DC, in May has been indicted on federal hate crime and murder charges, as President Donald Trump suggested he may call on the National Guard to bring down crime rates in the United States capital.

Court documents filed in federal court in Washington and unsealed on Wednesday show that defendant Elias Rodriguez has been charged with nine counts, including a hate crime resulting in death.

The 30-year-old is accused of shooting dead Israeli embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, a young couple who were about to become engaged, as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, in May.

Rodriguez, who witnesses described as pacing outside the museum before the attack, approached the couple and opened fire.

Human Rights Watch condemns ‘widespread carnage’ at Gaza’s schools

During the war in Gaza, Israeli air attacks have hit more than 500 school buildings, many serving as shelters for displaced people, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its report.

In two of the school strikes it investigated – which hit the Khadija girls’ school in Deir el-Balah on July 27 last year, killing at least 15 people, and the Zeitoun C school in Gaza City on September 21 last year, killing another 34, HRW found “no evidence of a military target”, thus making them “unlawfully indiscriminate”.

“Israeli strikes on schools sheltering displaced families provide a window into the widespread carnage that Israeli forces have carried out in Gaza,” said Gerry Simpson, associate crisis, conflict and arms director at HRW.

“Other governments should not tolerate this horrendous slaughter of Palestinian civilians merely seeking safety,” he added.

Death toll rises for Israeli attacks across Gaza

As we have been reporting, the Israeli military has continued its deadly assault on Gaza over recent hours, killing at least 13 people.

Citing medical sources in the besieged enclave, Al Jazeera Arabic now reports that at least 17 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military attacks in the early hours of Thursday morning.

We will bring you further updates when we have them.

Are sovereign wealth funds dumping Israeli investments?

The Norwegian government is reviewing its sovereign wealth fund’s investment in Israel after it was revealed that the nearly $2 trillion fund had a stake in an Israeli company aiding Israel’s war on Gaza.

Norway’s leading newspaper, Aftenposten, identified the company as the Bet Shemesh Engines Ltd (BSEL) group, which provides parts to Israeli fighter jets.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said the investment was “worrying”.

“We must get clarification on this because reading about it makes me uneasy,” Stoere said.

Israeli military carries out deadly attacks across Gaza

As we have been reporting, Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Thursday morning have killed at least 13 people so far.

Attacks over recent hours include:

• An Israeli air strike on a residential apartment in the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, has killed at least four people, including a child.
• In the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, north of Gaza City, an Israeli air strike on an apartment has killed at least three people.
• A drone strike on a tent housing displaced Palestinians west of Khan Younis, southern Gaza, killed at least two women.
• An Israeli aircraft has attacked a group of Palestinians in al-Ma’askar, west of Khan Younis, wounding several people.

We will bring you further updates when we have them.

Israel bombs UN clinic where hundreds of displaced Palestinians were sheltering

Israeli fighter jets bombed a UN clinic-turned-shelter in Gaza City for the third time on Wednesday.

Hundreds of displaced Palestinians were sheltering inside at the time of the attack, which injured dozens of people. The strike followed forced evacuation orders issued by Israeli forces, prompting many families to flee.

A recap of recent developments

Here’s what you need to know:

• The Israeli military has carried out several deadly attacks across Gaza over recent hours, killing at least 13 people, medical sources in the besieged enclave told Al Jazeera.
• Israeli attacks across Gaza on Wednesday killed 44 Palestinians, including 18 aid seekers, while five more people died of starvation caused by Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid.
• Hamas has called for global protests in the coming days to demand that Israel open all border crossings to allow aid to enter Gaza.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli leader would convene his security cabinet on Thursday night to discuss the next steps in his war on Gaza.
• Sixteen media organisations and press freedom groups, including Al Jazeera Media Network and the Committee to Protect Journalists, have called for an end to Israel’s “forced starvation and targeting of journalists in Gaza”.
• Israel said it targeted Hezbollah infrastructure after launching air strikes across southern Lebanon, which killed an 11-year-old child and injured three other people.

Welcome to our live coverage

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 Wednesday, August 6, here.

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.

“The die has been cast. We’re going for the full conquest of the Gaza Strip – and defeating Hamas,” local journalists quote a senior official as saying.

Responding to reports that the army chief and other military leaders oppose the plan, the unnamed official said: “If that doesn’t work for the chief of staff, he should resign.”

The families of hostages fear such plans could endanger their loved ones, with 20 out of 50 believed to be alive in Gaza, while polls suggest three in four Israelis instead favour a ceasefire deal to return them.

Many of Israel’s close allies would also condemn such a move as they push for an end to the war and action to alleviate a humanitarian crisis.

Within Israel, hundreds of retired Israeli security officials, including former heads of intelligence agencies, issued a joint letter to US President Donald Trump on Monday, calling for him to pressure Netanyahu to end the war.

One of the signatories, ex-domestic intelligence agency chief Ami Ayalon, said that further military action would be futile.

“From the military point of view, [Hamas] is totally destroyed. On the other hand, as an ideology it is getting more and more power among the Palestinian people, within the Arab street around us, and also in the world of Islam.

“So the only way to defeat Hamas’s ideology is to present a better future.”

The latest developments come after indirect talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage deal broke down and Palestinian armed groups released three videos of two Israeli hostages looking weak and emaciated.

The footage of Rom Blaslavski and Evyatar David, both kidnapped from the Nova music festival on 7 October 2023, has shocked and appalled Israelis. David is shown digging what he says is his own grave in an underground tunnel.

There has been some speculation that the latest media announcements are a pressure tactic to try to force Hamas into a new deal.

Israel’s military says it already has operational control of 75% of Gaza. But under the proposed plan it would occupy the entire territory – moving into areas where more than two million Palestinians are now concentrated.

It is unclear what that would mean for civilians and for the operations of the UN and other aid groups. About 90% of Gaza’s 2.1 million people have been displaced, some repeatedly, and are living in overcrowded and dire conditions. Humanitarian groups and UN officials say many are starving, accusing Israel of impeding the distribution of crucial aid.

Israel meanwhile says it will allow local businesspeople in Gaza to restart entry of some goods as part of efforts to improve conditions there. Approved items include baby food, fruit and vegetables and hygiene products. Private imports were previously stopped because of claims that Hamas was benefitting.

The Israeli military has previously held back from taking over some areas of Gaza, including central parts, because of an assumption that there are living hostages held there. Last year, six Israeli hostages were executed by their captors after ground forces moved in.

There has not been a formal response but officials from the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, denounced the Israeli proposal, calling on the international community to intervene to prevent any new military occupation.

Palestinians point out that far-right Israeli ministers have been openly advocating for the full occupation and annexation of Gaza and ultimately want to build new Jewish settlements there.

In 2005, Israel dismantled settlements in the Gaza Strip and withdrew its forces from there.

But alongside Egypt, it maintained a tight control of access to the territory.

The new occupation idea comes amid growing international moves to revive the two-state solution – the long-time international formula to resolve the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict. It envisages an independent Palestinian state being created alongside Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Last week, the UK and Canada joined France in announcing conditional plans for recognising a Palestinian state.

The Israeli PM is now expected to meet with key ministers and military leaders to decide next steps in Gaza. Israeli army radio says they are due to discuss initial army plans to surround the central refugee camps and carry out air strikes and ground raids.

Netanyahu said he would convene a full security cabinet meeting this week.

Israeli media commentators have voiced scepticism and drawn attention to the practical military, political and diplomatic challenges. Writing in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Nahum Barnea says: “Netanyahu has never taken a gamble on this scale before.”

He notes that the Israeli PM has repeated his vow to achieve all of his war goals.

“But after 22 months of bloody fighting, it is hard to take those kinds of promises seriously. It seems that Netanyahu has just one objective in the war in Gaza, to prolong the war.”

Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken to Gaza as hostages.

At least 61,020 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since then, the Hamas-run health ministry says.