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At least 72 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire and strikes in past 24 hours, health ministry says
Gaza’s health ministry said on Tuesday at least 72 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and military strikes in the past 24 hours, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
A six-week-old infant was among 15 people who have died of starvation in Gaza in the past 24 hours, local health officials said, with malnutrition now killing Palestinians faster than at any point in the 21-month war.
The infant died at a hospital ward in northern Gaza, the health officials said, naming him as Yousef al-Safadi. Three of the others were also children, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. The other two children were not named.
Palestinian health officials say at least 101 people have died of hunger during the conflict, including 80 children, with most of them in recent weeks.
Israel controls all aid supplies into the war-ravaged settlement, where most of the population has been displaced multiple times and faces acute shortages of basic necessities.
There has been international condemnation of mass killings of civilians and dire shortages of aid in Gaza, but no action that has yet stopped the conflict, or significantly increased supplies.
Israel’s military said that it “views the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza as a matter of utmost importance”, and works to facilitate its entry in coordination with the international community.
It has denied accusations it is preventing aid from reaching Gaza and has accused Palestinian militant group Hamas of stealing food, an allegation Hamas denies.
Tank shelling killed another 16 people living in tents in Gaza City on Tuesday, as Israeli troops launched attacks across the strip, health officials said. The Israeli military said it wasn’t aware of any incident, or artillery in the area at that time.
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The Norwegian Refugee Council told Reuters on Tuesday its aid stocks are completely depleted in Gaza, with some of its staff now starving, and accused Israel of paralysing its work.
“Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left,” Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the council told Reuters in an interview via video link from Oslo.
The council’s comments echo those made earlier on Tuesday by the head of the Palestinian refugee agency, who said UNRWA’s staff were fainting on the job from hunger and exhaustion.
The NRC says that for the last 145 days it has not been able to get its hundreds of truckloads containing tents, water, sanitation, food and education materials into Gaza.
The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on what it said was a Houthi-linked petroleum smuggling and sanctions evasion network across Yemen and the United Arab Emirates in fresh action targeting the Iran-backed militant group.
The US Treasury Department in a statement said the two individuals and five entities sanctioned on Tuesday were among the most significant importers of petroleum products and money launderers that benefit the Houthis.
“The Houthis collaborate with opportunistic businessmen to reap enormous profits from the importation of petroleum products and to enable the group’s access to the international financial system,” said deputy secretary of the Treasury Michael Faulkender.
“These networks of shady businesses underpin the Houthis’ terrorist machine, and Treasury will use all tools at its disposal to disrupt these schemes.”
Malnourishment is soaring and starvation is knocking on every door in Gaza, United Nations secretary-general António Guterres said on Tuesday, describing the situation in the Palestinian territory as a “horror show”.
“And now we are seeing the last gasp of a humanitarian system built on humanitarian principles,” Guterres told the UN security council.
“That system is being denied the conditions to function. Denied the space to deliver. Denied the safety to save lives.”
Below is a video published by the Guardian of individuals at the al-Shati camp in Gaza after the encampment was shelled overnight.
Gaza’s civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Israeli strikes on the al-Shati camp west of Gaza City killed at least 13 people and wounded more than 50.
Medics said the tanks were stationed north of al-Shati camp and fired two shells at tents sheltering displaced families. There has been no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the incident.
The Guardian has published an article on the journey Palestinians face when attempting to receive aid in Gaza.
Hundreds of people have died while seeking food since delivery was taken over by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in May. But Palestinians facing extreme hunger have no choice but to take the risk.
You can read the full article here: Eleven-minute race for food: how aid points in Gaza became ‘death traps’ – a visual story
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch, said on Tuesday he and church leaders had returned from a visit to Gaza with “broken hearts”, calling the spiralling humanitarian crisis there “morally unacceptable”, Reuters reports.
Pizzaballa and Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, on Friday visited the Holy Family Church compound in Gaza City, where an Israeli strike last week killed three people and injured several more including the parish priest.
“It is time to end this nonsense and the war,” the cardinal, who is the most senior Catholic authority in the region, told a press conference in Jerusalem.
He called for more humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip, calling it “a matter of life or death.”
He added:
Every hour without food, water, medicine and shelter causes deep harm. It is morally unacceptable and unjustifiable.
It is extremely rare for foreign officials to be allowed entry into Gaza as Israel has essentially sealed its borders since launching its war against Hamas after the Palestinian militant group’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday blamed “stray ammunition” for the strike on the church and said Israel was “investigating the incident and remains committed to protecting civilians and holy sites.”
Pizzaballa and a Vatican official have questioned Israeli explanations for the incident.
When asked about his stance after his visit to the damaged church, Pizzaballa said on Tuesday that it was not clear what happened and they could not “prove anything.”
Netanyahu called Pope Leo on Friday and in their exchange the pontiff renewed appeals for an end to the war, protection of civilians and places of worship while voicing concern for “the dramatic humanitarian situation” in Gaza, the Vatican said.
At least 72 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire and strikes in past 24 hours, health ministry says
Gaza’s health ministry said on Tuesday at least 72 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and military strikes in the past 24 hours, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
A six-week-old infant was among 15 people who have died of starvation in Gaza in the past 24 hours, local health officials said, with malnutrition now killing Palestinians faster than at any point in the 21-month war.
The infant died at a hospital ward in northern Gaza, the health officials said, naming him as Yousef al-Safadi. Three of the others were also children, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. The other two children were not named.
Palestinian health officials say at least 101 people have died of hunger during the conflict, including 80 children, with most of them in recent weeks.
Israel controls all aid supplies into the war-ravaged settlement, where most of the population has been displaced multiple times and faces acute shortages of basic necessities.
There has been international condemnation of mass killings of civilians and dire shortages of aid in Gaza, but no action that has yet stopped the conflict, or significantly increased supplies.
Israel’s military said that it “views the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza as a matter of utmost importance”, and works to facilitate its entry in coordination with the international community.
It has denied accusations it is preventing aid from reaching Gaza and has accused Palestinian militant group Hamas of stealing food, an allegation Hamas denies.
Tank shelling killed another 16 people living in tents in Gaza City on Tuesday, as Israeli troops launched attacks across the strip, health officials said. The Israeli military said it wasn’t aware of any incident, or artillery in the area at that time.
Here are some of the latest photos of Gaza coming to us through the wires:
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that the images of civilians being killed in Gaza during humanitarian aid distributions are “unbearable” and reiterated the EU’s call for the safe and swift slow of humanitarian aid and respect for international law.
She said in a post on X:
Civilians cannot be targets. Never.
The images from Gaza are unbearable.
The EU reiterates its call for the free, safe and swift flow of humanitarian aid.
And for the full respect of international and humanitarian law.
Civilians in Gaza have suffered too much, for too long. It must stop now.
Israel must deliver on its pledges.
Haroon Siddique
Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent.
An intelligence assessment before Palestine Action was banned under anti-terrorism laws found that the vast majority of its activities were lawful, a court has heard.
Raza Husain KC, appearing for Huda Ammori, a co-founder of the group, said Yvette Cooper’s decision to proscribe the group on 5 July was “repugnant” and an “authoritarian and blatant abuse of power”.
In written submissions for Monday’s high court hearing, Husain and Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC said: “On ‘nature and scale’, the home secretary accepts that only three of Palestine Action’s at least 385 actions would meet the statutory definition of terrorism (… itself a dubious assessment).”
Husain said it was for the court to consider “whether that’s sufficient or whether it’s de minimis (too small to be meaningful) for a group that’s been going for five years”.
He added that the vast majority of the group’s actions were assessed by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre to be lawful.
You can read more of Haroon Siddique’s piece here: UK ban on Palestine Action is an abuse of power, high court told
The head of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City said on Tuesday that 21 children had died across the Palestinian territory in the past three days “due to malnutrition and starvation”, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, head of the hospital, told reporters:
These deaths were recorded at hospitals in Gaza, including Al-Shifa in Gaza City, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah and Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis... over the past 72 hours.
UN secretary general António Guterres warned on Monday evening that “the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing” in Gaza, and that there were growing reports of children and adults with malnutrition.
Abu Salmiya told reporters that new cases of malnutrition and starvation were arriving at Gaza’s remaining functioning hospitals “every moment”.
He added:
We are heading towards alarming numbers of deaths due to the starvation inflicted on the people of Gaza.
After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on 2 March this year, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted at a trickle in late May.
But stocks accumulated during the ceasefire gradually depleted, leaving the territory’s more than 2 million inhabitants experiencing the worst shortages since the start of the war in October 2023.
World Food Programme director Carl Skau, who visited Gaza City in early July, called the situation “the worst” that he had ever seen.
Last Sunday, Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that at least three infants died from “severe hunger and malnutrition” in the past week.
Summary of the day so far
The head of the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (Unrwa) said on Tuesday that its staff members as well as doctors and humanitarian workers are fainting on duty due to hunger and exhaustion, describing the situation in Gaza as “hell on earth”. The Unrwa estimates that 1,000 starving people have been reported killed while seeking food aid since the end of May.
Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini also called the Israeli-backed logistics group run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation a “sadistic death trap”. He said snipers opened fire randomly on crowds at aid sites as if they are given a “licence to kill”. The GHF responded by claiming the UN was “refusing” to deliver aid in Gaza that could help end the desperation in the region.
Israeli strikes killed at least 20 people in Gaza, Palestinian health officials said on Tuesday, as Israel pushed on with a new incursion in Deir al-Balah, which had largely been spared heavy fighting during the 21-month war. The expansion of Israel’s ground invasion comes as Israel and Hamas have been considering terms for a ceasefire for Gaza that would pause the fighting and free at least some hostages.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the Israeli military attacked its staff residence and main warehouse in Deir al-Balah on Monday, compromising its operations in Gaza. The WHO said its staff residence was attacked three times, with airstrikes causing a fire and extensive damage, and endangering staff and their families, including children.
Amnesty on Tuesday called for a war crimes investigation into Israel’s deadly air attack on Tehran’s Evin prison during last month’s 12-day war. The strike, confirmed by Israel, killed 79 people, according to a provisional tally by Iranian authorities.
At least 1,062 people died in Iran in its 12-day war with Israel last month, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday, Reuters reports. There were 102 women and 38 children among the dead. The previous official death toll was 935.
Iran said on Tuesday that 27 inmates are still at large after an Israeli airstrike last month targeted Evin prison in the north of the capital, Tehran, local media reported.
Regarding the possibility of reimposing international sanctions on Iran, state media quoted the country’s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi as saying on Tuesday that the Iranian government feels the “snapback” mechanism lacks any legal ground. He was speaking ahead of a meeting on Friday with three European states known as the E3 – Britain, France and Germany. The E3 have said that if no progress is reached by the end of August over Iran’s nuclear programme, they will invoke a “snapback” mechanism – a process that would reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under a 2015 deal in return for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Government offices in at least 10 Iranian provinces, including the capital, have been ordered to close on Wednesday in a bid to conserve water and electricity, as temperatures in parts of southern and south-western Iran soared above 50C (122F). At least 10 provincial capitals recorded temperatures above 40C on Monday, including Tehran, which reached 40C for the first time this year, the meteorological agency said.
The Israeli-backed logistics group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), has responded to earlier claims made by the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (Unrwa) about the emergency messages it claimed to be receiving from its staff on the conditions in Gaza, Reuters reports.
The GHF told Reuters in a statement:
UN has enough aid sitting in Gaza that they refuse to deliver and that could help end the desperation and help reduce or eliminate the violence around all aid distribution efforts if they would collaborate with us
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), told reporters on Tuesday that claims that the UN has stopped working are “manifestly incorrect”.
The GHF also claimed that the “deadliest attacks” on aid distribution in Gaza have been linked to UN convoys.
