LONDON — Former British Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said Thursday he is forming a new left-leaning political party to advocate “mass redistribution of wealth and power” and take on his former colleagues at the ballot box.
The new formation has a website — yourparty.uk — but does not yet have a name.
“It’s your party,” Corbyn said. “We’re going to decide [a name] when we’ve had all the responses, and so far the response rate has been massive.”
Corbyn said he hoped the new party would have its inaugural conference in the fall.
Corbyn, 76, led Labor to election defeats in 2017 and 2019, but the veteran socialist campaigner remains popular with many grassroots supporters. and the new party has the potential to further fragment British politics. The long-dominant Labor and Conservative parties now have challengers on both left and right, including the environmentalist Green Party and hard-right Reform UK.
Plans for a new party emerged earlier this month when lawmaker Zarah Sultana, who has been suspended from Labor for voting against the government, said she would “co-lead the founding of a new party” with Corbyn.
At the time, Corbyn did not confirm the news.
On Thursday he denied the party launch had been messy, saying the process was “democratic, it’s grassroots and it’s open.”
A longtime supporter of the Palestinians and critic of Israel, Corbyn was suspended from Labor in 2020 after Britain’s equalities watchdog found anti-Jewish prejudice had been allowed to spread within Labor while he was leader.
He was suspended after failing to fully accept the findings¸ claiming opponents had exaggerated the scale of antisemitism in Labor for “political reasons.”
Corbyn was reelected to Parliament last year as an independent.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer succeeded Corbyn as Labor leader in 2020 and dragged the party back toward the political center ground. He dropped Corbyn’s opposition to Britain’s nuclear weapons, strongly backed sending weapons to Ukraine and stressed the party’s commitment to balancing the books.
Starmer won a landslide election victory a year ago, but has struggled to maintain unity among Labor lawmakers as the government struggles to get a sluggish economy growing and invest in overstretched public services. He has been forced into a series of U-turns by his own lawmakers, including one on welfare reform that left his authority severely dented.
Two Palestinian teenage boys have been killed by Israeli forces in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, according to the Wafa news agency, in the latest deadly violence in the territory continuing in tandem with Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
The bodies of 15-year-old Ahmad Ali Asaad Ashira al-Salah and 17-year-old Muhammad Khaled Alian Issa, who were killed at dawn, were withheld by the Israeli army, the report said, adding that two more children were also injured in the gunfire.
The deadly incident came as Israeli forces arrested at least 25 Palestinians in multiple raids across the occupied West Bank, according to Wafa.
The arrests include 10 Palestinians in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron; two in the town of Idhna, west of Hebron; three in the town of Dura al-Qari, north of Ramallah; one in the city of Ramallah; five in the village of al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, east of Ramallah; and four in the city of Nablus.
‘Making Palestinian lives impossible’
Since the start of the war on Gaza, Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank has escalated dramatically, with near-daily reports of mass arrests, killings and Israeli settler attacks, often supported by Israeli soldiers. Settlers have been rampaging with impunity, attacking and killing Palestinian civilians and burning their properties and olive groves.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least 948 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli soldiers since October 7, 2023. Of that figure, at least 204 are children.
Meanwhile, from the beginning of 2024 until the end of June 2025, more than 2,200 Israeli settler attacks were reported, resulting in more than 5,200 Palestinian injuries, according to OCHA figures. In that same period, nearly 36,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced across the occupied West Bank due to Israeli military operations, settler violence or home demolitions carried out by the Israeli government.
The Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank is part of the Israeli government’s strategy for preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, according to Amjad Abu El Ezz, a lecturer of international relations at the Arab American University.
The increased number of killings, and the destruction of Palestinian homes and vehicles by Israeli settlers in coordination with the Israeli army, aim to encourage Palestinians to leave their land, Abu El Ezz told Al Jazeera from Ramallah.
Israel is weakening the governing Palestinian Authority, “making Palestinian lives impossible”, while at the same time “building Israeli facts on the ground” to prevent the Palestinians from building their own state, he added.
“We are talking about more than 700,000 Israeli settlers. They have weapons, they are acting as an army in parallel to the Israeli army,” Abu El Ezz said.
On Wednesday, Israel’s parliament approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank.
Knesset lawmakers voted 71-13 in favour of the motion on Wednesday, a non-binding vote which calls for “applying Israeli sovereignty to Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley” – the Israeli terms for the area.
The motion, advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, is declarative and has no direct legal implications, though it could place the issue of annexation on the agenda of future debates in the parliament.
The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement has called the Israeli parliament’s non-binding vote on the annexation of the occupied West Bank a “dangerous escalation”.
In a statement on Telegram, the group said the move was a “clear disregard for the international community” and a way for Israel to implement “its criminal plans targeting the land of Palestine and its people”.
The West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. Since then, Israeli settlements have expanded exponentially, despite being illegal under international law and, in the case of settlement outposts, Israeli law.
It is the child who wakes up asking for biscuits that no longer exist. The student who studies for exams while faint from hunger.
It is the mother who cannot explain to her son why there is no bread.
And it is the silence of the world that makes this horror possible.
Children of the famine
Noor, my eldest sister Tasneem’s daughter, is three; she was born on May 11, 2021. My sister’s son, Ezz Aldin, was born on December 25, 2023 – in the early months of the war.
One morning, Tasneem walked into our space carrying them in her arms. I looked at her and asked the question that wouldn’t leave my mind: “Tasneem, do Noor and Ezz Aldin understand hunger? Do they know we’re in a famine?”
“Yes,” she said immediately. “Even Ezz, who’s only known war and ruins, understands. He’s never seen real food in his life. He doesn’t know what ‘options’ are. The only thing he ever asks for is bread.”
She imitated his baby voice: “Obz! Obza! Obza!” – his way of saying “khobza” (a piece of bread).
She had to tell him, “There’s no flour, darling. Your dad went out to look for some.”
Ezz Aldin doesn’t know about ceasefires, borders, or politics. He doesn’t care about military operations or diplomatic statements.
He just wants one small piece of bread. And the world gives him nothing.
Noor has learned to count and recite the alphabet from her mother. Before the war, she loved chocolate, biscuits. She was the first grandchild in our family, showered with toys, snacks, and little dresses.
Now, every morning, she wakes up and turns to her mother with wide, excited eyes. “Go buy me 15 chocolates and biscuits,” she says.
She says 15 because it’s the biggest number she knows. It sounds like enough; enough to fill her stomach, enough to bring back the world she knew. But there’s nothing to buy. There’s nothing left.
Where is your humanity? Look at her. Then tell me what justice looks like.
[Omar Houssien/Al Jazeera]
Killed after five days of hunger
I watched a video that broke my heart. A man mourned over the shrouded bodies of seven of his family. In despair, he cried, “We’re hungry.”
They had been starving for days, then an Israeli surveillance drone struck their tent near al-Tabin School in Daraj, northern Gaza.
“This is the young man I was raising,” the man in the video wept. “Look what became of them,” as he touched their heads one last time.
Some people still don’t understand. This isn’t about whether we have money. It’s about the total absence of food. Even if you’re a millionaire in Gaza right now, you won’t find bread. You won’t find a bag of rice or a can of milk. Markets are empty. Shops are destroyed. Malls have been flattened. The shelves are not bare – they are gone.
We used to grow our own food. Gaza once exported fruits and vegetables; we sent strawberries to Europe. Our prices were the cheapest in the region.
A kilo (2.2 pounds) of grapes or apples? Three shekels ($0.90). A kilo of chicken from Gaza’s farms? Nine shekels ($2.70). Now, we can’t find a single egg.
Before: A massive watermelon from Khan Younis weighed 21 kilos (46 pounds) and cost 18 shekels ($5). Today: The same watermelon would cost $250 – if you can find it.
Avocados, once considered a luxury fruit, were grown by the tonne in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis and Rafah. They used to cost a dollar a kilo. We had self-sufficiency in dairy, too – cheeses and yoghurts made in Shujayea by local hands.
Our children were not spoiled – they just had basic rights. Breakfast meant milk. A sandwich with cheese. A boiled egg. Now, everything is cut off.
And no matter how I explain it to the children, they cannot grasp the words “famine” or “price hike”. They just know their bellies are empty.
Even seafood – once a staple of Gaza’s diet – has disappeared. Despite strict fishing restrictions, we used to send fish to the West Bank. Now, even our sea is silent.
And with all due respect to Turkish coffee, you haven’t tasted coffee until you’ve tried Mazaj Coffee from Gaza.
It had a strength you could feel in your bones.
This is not a forecast. Famine is now. Most of us are displaced. Unemployed. Mourning.
If we manage one meal a day, we eat it at night. It’s not a feast. It’s rice. Pasta. Maybe soup. Canned beans.
Things you keep as backup in your pantries. Here, they are luxury.
Most days, we drink water and nothing more. When hunger becomes too much, we scroll through old photos, pictures of meals from the past, just to remember what life once tasted like.
Starving while taking exams
As always, our university exams are online, because the campus is rubble.
We are living a genocide. And yet, we are trying to study.
I’m a second-year student.
We just finished our final exams for the first semester. We studied surrounded by hunger, by drones, by constant fear. This isn’t what people think university is.
We took exams on empty stomachs, under the scream of warplanes. We tried to remember dates while forgetting the last time we tasted bread.
Every day, I talk with my friends – Huda, Mariam, and Esraa – on WhatsApp. We check on each other, asking the same questions over and over:
“What did you eat today?”
“Can you even concentrate?”
These are our conversations – not about lectures or assignments, but about hunger, headaches, dizziness, and how we’re still standing. One says, “My stomach hurts too much to think.” Another says, “I nearly collapsed when I stood up.”
And still, we keep going. Our last exam was on July 15. We held on, not because we were strong, but because we had no choice. We didn’t want to lose a semester. But even saying that feels so small compared to the truth.
Studying while starving chips away at your soul.
One day, during exams, an air strike hit our neighbours. The explosion shook the walls.
A moment before, I was thinking about how hungry I felt. A moment after, I felt nothing.
I didn’t run.
I stayed at my desk and kept studying. Not because I was OK, but because there is no other choice.
They starve us, then blame us
Let me be clear: The people of Gaza are being starved on purpose. We are not unlucky – we are victims of war crimes.
Open the crossings. Let aid enter. Let food enter. Let medicine enter.
Gaza doesn’t need sympathy. We can rebuild. We can recover. But first, stop starving us.
Killing, starving, and besieging are not just conditions – they are actions forced upon us. Language reveals those who try to hide who is responsible.
So we will keep saying: We were killed by the Israeli occupation. We were starved by the Israeli occupation. We were besieged by the Israeli occupation.
At least 10 more Palestinians have starved to death in the besieged Gaza Strip, health officials say, as a wave of hunger crashes over the enclave.
The latest starvation deaths bring the death toll from malnutrition since Israel’s war began in October 2023 to 111, most of them in recent weeks.
At least 100 other Palestinians, including 34 aid seekers, were killed in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Wednesday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that 21 children under the age of five were among those who died of malnutrition so far this year. It said it had been unable to deliver any food for nearly 80 days, between March and May, and that a resumption of food deliveries was still far below what is needed.
In a statement, 111 organisations, including Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Refugees International, said that “mass starvation” was spreading even as tonnes of food, clean water and medical supplies sit untouched just outside Gaza, where aid groups are blocked from accessing them.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said that “hunger has become as deadly as the bombs. Families are no longer asking for enough, they are asking for anything”.
He said that Gaza residents have described “a slow, painful death playing out in real time, an engineered famine that the Israeli military has orchestrated”.
Israel cut off all goods from entering the territory in March, but has allowed in a trickle of aid starting in May, mostly distributed by the controversial United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The United Nations and aid groups trying to deliver food to Gaza say Israel, which controls everything that comes in and out, is choking delivery, while Israeli troops have shot dead hundreds of Palestinians close to aid distribution points since May.
“We have a minimum set of requirements to be able to operate inside Gaza,” Ross Smith, the director of emergencies at the UN World Food Programme, said. “One of the most important things I want to emphasise is that we need to have no armed actors near our distribution points, near our convoys.”
Recurring attacks on aid seekers have turned the few remaining hospitals in Gaza “into massive trauma wards”, Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, said.
The food scarcity is so extreme that people cannot do their work, including journalists, teachers and even their own staff, Peeperkorn added.
Nour Sharaf, an American doctor from al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, also warned that people “haven’t eaten anything for days and are dying of hunger”.
“Doctors sometimes don’t get food, but they still do their jobs,” she told Al Jazeera, adding that medical workers often work long hours.
Two more journalists killed
Israeli strikes have continued to pound various parts of the enclave, including Gaza City, where the Israeli army said it was “intensifying operations”.
The area has come under intense bombardment in recent days.
Gaza’s Government Media Office also announced the Israeli killing of two Palestinian journalists, Tamer al-Za’anin and Walaa al-Jabari, raising the number of media workers killed in the enclave since October 2023 to 231.
The statement said that al-Za’anin was a photojournalist with various media organisations, while al-Jabari worked as a newspaper editor with several media outlets.
Meanwhile, US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is heading to Europe for “very sensitive negotiations” over a Gaza ceasefire and captive release deal, the White House said.
During the visit, Witkoff “will meet with key leaders from the Middle East to discuss the ongoing ceasefire proposal to end this conflict in Gaza and to release the hostages”, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
Talks on a proposal for a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which would include the release of more of the 50 captives still being held in Gaza, are being mediated by Qatar and Egypt, with Washington’s backing.
A Palestinian official close to the Gaza ceasefire talks and the mediation efforts said that Hamas had handed its response on the ceasefire proposal to mediators, declining to elaborate further.
Successive rounds of negotiations have achieved no breakthrough since Israel broke a ceasefire in March.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog told soldiers during a visit to Gaza that “intensive negotiations” about returning the captives held there were under way and that he hoped that they would soon “hear good news”, according to a statement.
A senior Palestinian official earlier said that Hamas might give mediators a response to the latest proposals in Doha later on Wednesday, on the condition that amendments be made to two major sticking points: details on an Israeli military withdrawal and how to distribute aid during a truce.
Knesset lawmakers vote 71-13 in favour of annexation, raising questions about the future of a Palestinian state.
Israel’s parliament has approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank.
Knesset lawmakers voted 71-13 in favour of the motion on Wednesday, a non-binding vote which calls for “applying Israeli sovereignty to Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley” – the Israeli terms for the area.
It said that annexing the West Bank “will strengthen the state of Israel, its security and prevent any questioning of the fundamental right of the Jewish people to peace and security in their homeland”.
The motion, advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is declarative and has no direct legal implications, though it could place the issue of annexation on the agenda of future debates in the parliament.
The idea was initially brought forward last year by Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who himself lives in an illegal Israeli settlement and holds a position within Israel’s Ministry of Defence, where he oversees the administration of the West Bank and its settlements.
The West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. Since then, Israeli settlements have expanded, despite being illegal under international law and, in the case of settlement outposts, Israeli law.
Palestinian leaders want all three territories for a future state. Some 3 million Palestinians and more than 500,000 Israeli settlers currently reside in the West Bank.
Annexation of the West Bank could make it impossible to create a viable Palestinian state, which is seen internationally as the most realistic way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Last year, the Israeli parliament approved a similar symbolic motion declaring opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Hussein al-Sheikh, deputy to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said the motion was “a direct assault on the rights of the Palestinian people”, which “undermines the prospects for peace, stability and the two-state solution”.
“These unilateral Israeli actions blatantly violate international law and the ongoing international consensus regarding the status of the Palestinian territories, including the West Bank,” he wrote in a post on X.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement that it strongly rejects any motion for annexation.
The ministry stressed that the “colonial measures” reinforce a system of apartheid in the West Bank and reflect a “blatant disregard” for many United Nations resolutions and the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which was issued in July 2024.
The statement, carried by the official Palestinian Wafa news agency, also warned that such actions deliberately undermine the prospects of implementing a two-state solution.
The ministry added that while settlement expansion continues, de facto annexation is already occurring on a daily basis.
Following Israel’s deadly war on Gaza, Israeli forces have intensified attacks on Palestinian towns and villages in the occupied West Bank, displacing thousands of Palestinians and killing hundreds. Settlers, often backed by Israeli soldiers, have also escalated assaults on Palestinians, their land, and property.
Scotland’s former First Minister Humza Yousaf and his wife say their relatives in Gaza, including a baby, are being deliberately starved. In an Instagram video, the couple plead for borders to open and aid to reach Palestinians.
A confrontation unfolded between ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and Israeli police in West Jerusalem on Wednesday. The ultra-Orthodox demonstrators were protesting the recent arrests of several men from their group for refusing military conscription orders.
A former security guard who worked at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation ‘aid distribution sites’ described to Israeli media abuses he witnessed firsthand, including the potentially lethal use of pepper spray and tear gas.
Three Israeli strikes hit homes and a tent in Gaza City on Tuesday, killing at least 21 people, mostly women and children. The attacks come as the besieged territory faces extreme hunger and ongoing bombardment.
Israel’s blockade has plunged Gaza into an increasingly dire malnutrition crisis. As hunger spreads across the Strip, children are dying from malnutrition, aid workers are collapsing, and hospitals are overwhelmed.
At least 15 people, including a six-week-old baby, have starved to death in the last 24 hours in the besieged Gaza Strip, according to health officials, who say a wave of hunger that has loomed over the bombarded enclave for months is now finally crashing down.
Six-week-old Yousef’s family could not find baby formula to feed him, said his uncle, Adham al-Safadi.
“You can’t get milk anywhere, and if you do find any, it’s $100 for a tub,” he told the Reuters news agency.
Three other children were among the 15 people who died from starvation on Tuesday, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 101 people, including 80 children, have died from hunger and malnutrition since Israel launched its assault on Gaza in October 2023. Most of the deaths have come in the last few weeks.
Gaza has seen its food stocks run out since Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March. Israel then partially lifted the blockade in May, allowing a trickle of aid supplies to enter the territory and be distributed by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), largely bypassing the United Nations.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since May while trying to get aid, mostly near the GHF distribution sites, according to the UN rights office.
The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, Phillipe Lazzarini, said the aid distribution scheme was a “sadistic death trap”.
“The so called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill,” Lazzarini said on Tuesday on X.
Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid, without providing evidence of widespread diversion, and blames UN agencies for failing to deliver food it has allowed in.
The GHF has rejected what it said were “false and exaggerated statistics” from the UN.
‘Horror show’
Lazzarini also warned that the UN agency’s staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, were fainting on duty in Gaza due to hunger and exhaustion.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the situation for the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza facing bombardment, malnutrition and starvation a “horror show”, with “a level of death and destruction without parallel in recent times.
“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.”
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 101 people have died from hunger and malnutrition so far, including 80 children [Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu Agency]
Speaking to reporters, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, said malnourished Palestinians were arriving at Gaza’s remaining functioning hospitals “every moment”, and warned that there could be “alarming numbers” of deaths due to starvation.
“Hospitals are already overwhelmed by the number of casualties from gunfire. They can’t provide much more help for hunger-related symptoms because of food and medicine shortages,” said Khalil al-Daqran, the spokesperson for Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Deqran said some 600,000 people were suffering from malnutrition, including at least 60,000 pregnant women. Symptoms among those going hungry include dehydration and anaemia, he said.
While Gaza has widespread shortages of goods due to the Israeli restrictions, baby formula, in particular, is in critically short supply, according to aid groups, doctors and residents.
In a statement, Hamas said it was time to “break the restrictions” and allow for more aid to enter Gaza, adding that it was surprised by the “silence” of Arab and Islamic countries in light of the “systematic genocide and criminal starvation” in the enclave.
Deadly attacks continue
Medical sources told Al Jazeera that at least 81 other Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Tuesday, including 31 people who were seeking aid.
Mahmoud Bassal, the spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defence, said Israeli strikes on the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City killed at least 13 people and wounded more than 50.
In Gaza City, an Israeli attack on a building housing displaced Palestinians killed 15 people, including six children, according to a source at al-Shifa Hospital.
Palestinians carry wounded people after Israeli forces attack a crowd gathered to receive aid at the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza [Hamza ZH Qraiqea/Anadolu]
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said Israeli air strikes hit residential clusters in the eastern part of the city, particularly the Zeitoun neighbourhood. A “group of people” was hit, he said.
The attacks come a day after Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern parts of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza for the first time since the deadly assault began.
According to Mahmoud, “many Palestinians are unable to go back to their homes as they are in the firing line of heavy artillery”, despite claims by the Israeli army that it has concluded its assault in Deir el-Balah.
“Quadcopters and surveillance drones also hover over the area, creating an atmosphere of intimidation and fear,” Mahmoud said.
The Civil Defence agency’s Bassal said two people were killed in Deir el-Balah on Tuesday.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that between 50,000 and 80,000 people were living in the area, which, until the Israeli offensive this week, had been considered the only relatively safe area in the tiny Strip.
Some 30,000 were living in displacement camps.
OCHA said that nearly 88 percent of the entire Gaza Strip was now either under evacuation threats or within Israeli militarised zones, forcing the population into an ever-shrinking space.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, meanwhile, accused Israeli troops of entering its staff residence and forcing women and children to evacuate, as they handcuffed, stripped and interrogated male staff at gunpoint.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to health officials.
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III condemned Israel’s bombardment and blockade of Gaza as “morally unacceptable” after a rare visit to the besieged territory on July 18. Their trip followed an Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church, which killed three people.
Sebastia, occupied West Bank – When Israeli military vehicles approach, news of the latest incursion begins cascading through Sebastia from one person to another, and the young people run home as fast as possible.
They try to get back before invading soldiers reach their street, knowing all too well the potentially grave consequences if they don’t.
The warning cries often originate from those walking near the vantage point of Sebastia archaeological park’s scenic summit.
From here, people can spot army vehicles on the roads below before they reach the town and its ancient ruins, giving people a chance to hide their young.
Soon after, walking prevention warnings are often circulated on social media, and the residents of Sebastia – once a religious pilgrimage site and a tourism hotspot – have the choice of hunkering down at home or facing soldiers who no longer show any restraint.
‘He celebrated killing my son’
In January this year, an Israeli soldier shot dead 14-year-old Ahmed Jazar and then raised his rifle in the air triumphantly after hitting the unarmed boy in the chest, piercing his heart.
Witnesses saw the soldier “celebrating” as Ahmed slowly bled to death on the ground, his father, Rashid, aged 57, told Al Jazeera.
Ahmed was mature beyond his years, his parents say, and made caring for his poverty-stricken family his vocation.
He was also a talented painter and wanted to train as a decorator. He aspired to open a shop so he could make enough money to buy his family a permanent home – something better than the overcrowded rental apartment they lived in.
“They shot Ahmed and killed all his dreams, right there and then,” his mother, Wafaa, said.
“The army treats us like we’re in a state of war – but we’ve done nothing.
“Soldiers are here every day, and no one feels their children are safe unless they are at home.”
Ahmed woke up in the early afternoon on the Sunday he was killed, Wafaa and Rashid say, having stayed up late playing with his friends in the neighbourhood the night before. He liked to play football in the schoolyard, cycle near the archaeological park, and eat at the town’s once-busy cafes.
He came back after seeing his friends and spent some time with his family, unaware that they would be sharing their final moments.
Then, as the dinner hour neared, his parents sent Ahmed out to buy bread.
“It was always a habit of his to come and go in this way,” Rashid said. “He was very sociable … everyone loved him.
“But this time, he left and never came back.”
Wafaa holds a photo of her with her murdered son. To her right are her husband Rashid Jazar and Ahmed’s aunt Etizaz Azim [Al Jazeera]
The Israeli soldiers’ frequent raids on occupied West Bank towns prompt some children and young people into acts of defiance, like throwing stones towards the heavily armed soldiers or their armoured vehicles, or shining laser pointers at them.
According to some neighbours, Ahmed and his friends did shine laser pens on the fatal January day, hiding behind a wall near a nursery as some soldiers walked towards them.
His family denies Ahmed’s part in this. Rashid and Wafaa said they were awaiting his return from the shops so they could eat dinner together.
“He was just a child,” Rashid said. “The Israeli soldier knew he was a young boy – and that he was no threat to the army in any way.
“He was hundreds of metres away from them when they shot him!”
The bullet-dented door and facade of the nursery, established by charity Save The Children, still stand as a reminder of what happened when Ahmed was shot dead.
Speaking to Israeli newspaper Haaretz in March, a military spokesperson said: “In the wake of the incident, an investigation was launched by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division. Naturally, we cannot elaborate on an ongoing investigation.”
Palestinians, including residents of Sebastia, say they are used to what they call “sham” investigations that usually have no result, and almost certainly no punishment for perpetrators.
Rashid was contacted by the military to provide information for the investigation into Ahmed’s killing, but he refused.
“They killed my son and then call me to talk about justice?” he said.
Al Jazeera sent written inquiries to Israeli authorities, asking for comment on the investigation into Ahmed’s shooting but no response had been received by time of publication.
The Israeli army often raids cities and towns in the West Bank, but few are targeted like Sebastia, where it has stepped up attacks since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu established his far-right ultranationalist government in late 2022.
Since then, the military killed Fawzi Makhalfeh, aged 19, in July 2023, and Ahmed on January 19 this year.
There have been at least 25 gunshot injuries in Sebastia since Netanyahu’s coalition government came to power, a handful of which involved children. A 22-year-old man from the nearby town of Attil was shot in the chest while driving through Sebastia earlier this month.
Violent settlers also wreak havoc on Palestinian landowners around the town, which is dependent on agriculture and tourism, and yet more settlements, official and unofficial, are set to be built around Sebastia.
Soldiers attack anyone who fights back and circulate threatening messages using residents’ mobile phones. One recording, heard by Al Jazeera, by what is ostensibly an Israeli soldier, accuses townspeople of being “involved in terrorism”, and warns they will “pay the price”.
The Save The Children nursery sign, riddled with bullets [Al Jazeera]
Justice
Wafaa and her husband sat on either side of a memorial to their slain son in the humble living room of the rented home they can barely afford. Ahmed left behind four brothers and three sisters aged between seven and 20.
Rashid used to work as a painter in Israel, but, like thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, he has been unable to go to work across the border since October 7, contributing to the family’s perilous financial situation.
The eldest son, Rushdi, 19, works as a carpenter intermittently, and, other than Rashid, is the only family member in employment.
Ahmed had dropped out of school, they said, to help his father by doing odd jobs such as painting and olive picking to generate money for the family. Wafaa, who used to make dresses, is also unable to find work and still has five young children dependent on her care.
Two of Ahmed’s remaining siblings, Amir, aged six, and Adam, 11, clung on to their mother as she spoke.
“I sit by Ahmed’s grave and cry for hours,” Wafaa told Al Jazeera, weeks after her son’s killing. “I cry there as much as I can, so that my children don’t see me – I have to be strong for them.”
Israeli soldiers stand next to a military vehicle during an Israeli raid in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on March 4, 2025 [Raneen Sawafta/Reuters]
The 40-year-old was incapable of keeping eye contact, as if tears would overcome her at any moment. She held up Ahmed’s blood-stained clothes, torn by bullets.
After the soldiers left that day, Rashid recalled rushing to the scene and pushing his way through a crowd, only to find Ahmed collapsed in a pool of blood, metres away from where he was shot.
Rashid then drove with Ahmed to An-Najah Hospital in Nablus, but his son did not survive the journey. He was pronounced dead on arrival.
His mother fell unconscious after hearing of Ahmed’s killing, and says she awoke feeling “defeated”, as if her life was over.
She says Israel wants Sebastia residents to feel this way, so they resist no longer and leave.
Rashid, with a vacant expression, said his son’s killing had terrorised his family into staying indoors – and when invasions take place, they lock their doors, hide in a back room, and turn off the lights.
He says similar precautions are taken by many in Sebastia, who are “living in fear” after his son’s killing sent out a chilling message to those who call the ancient town home.
“The army comes here daily – and now we fear to go out,” Wafaa added. “Soldiers are prepared to shoot children now.
“I let my son go to the shops, but I got him back [covered] in blood.”
My brother recently sent me a copy of an Israeli military order that was found by farmers on our land and nearby plots in the occupied West Bank. The document, accompanied by a map, states that the land is being seized for military purposes.
It does not specify how long the land will be held and offers the landowners and users only seven days from an upcoming field visit – coordinated between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority (PA) liaison office – to file an objection with the Israeli army’s legal adviser. This field visit typically serves to demarcate the boundaries of the confiscated land.
From our family’s past experience, confiscation under the guise of “security reasons” often precedes the establishment of a colonial settlement. This happened in 1973 when our family received a similar military order for land along the Jerusalem-Hebron Road. Within a week, a military post was established. Months later, a civilian settlement, Elazar, was erected in the same location.
What’s shocking this time is that this new order has barely made headlines despite the size of the land being slated for confiscation. According to the military order, it amounts to 5,758 dunums, or more than 5.7sq km (2.2sq miles). The confiscation is not arbitrary. At the centre of this particular area is the outpost of Sde Boaz, which was illegally established on private Palestinian land in 2002. The residents – about 50 families – are not fringe extremists. They’re middle-class professionals, including doctors, engineers and accountants.
This confiscation is one of many that have taken place in the past 21 months. Under the shadow of the genocidal war in Gaza, Israel has accelerated its annexation drive in the West Bank. The objective is to formally annex parts of what the Oslo Peace Accords designated as Area B, which is 21 percent of the West Bank, and the whole of Area C, which constitutes 60 percent of the West Bank and includes the whole of the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem countryside as well as other areas.
Most Palestinian farmland and pastures fall within this area as do a large number of Israel’s illegal settlements. My town, al-Khader (St George), owns more than 22,000 dunums (22sq km/8.5sq miles) of land, of which more than 20,500 (20.5sq km/7.9sq miles) are classified as Area C, 500 (half a square kilometre/0.2sq miles) as Area B, and less than 1,000 dunums (1sq km/0.4sq miles) as Area A.
Israeli settlers play an active role in advancing this annexation plan. This is not limited to seizing strategic hilltops but also includes systematic violence against Palestinians. The settler attacks on Palestinian property, the torture and killings of Palestinians are all part of an organised campaign intended to uproot Palestinians from Areas B and C to facilitate annexation. This strategy aligns with what Israeli policymakers refer to as “voluntary transfer”, a euphemism for ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their homeland.
All of this is illegal, according to international law, and goes against repeated resolutions by the United Nations and a 2024 ruling of the International Court of Justice. So who will stop Israel?
The PA, which nominally administers Area A in the occupied West Bank, will certainly not. Since its establishment as part of the Oslo peace process, the PA has not only failed to resist Israeli moves towards annexation, but it has also arguably facilitated them by working with Israel to stem out armed and even peaceful resistance that does not support its political agenda.
The international community is also unlikely to take decisive action. For decades, Western governments, in particular, have offered rhetorical condemnations while simultaneously providing security and economic support to Israel. These same actors who have failed to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza are unlikely to object if Israel formalises its de facto annexation.
This was most recently evident during a diplomatic visit to Taybeh, a Palestinian village located northeast of Jerusalem and Ramallah. The visit, which included more than 20 diplomats from around the world, including European and American representatives, came in response to repeated attacks by Jewish settlers, who burned parts of the village’s land, including property belonging to the local church. That was all these countries were willing to do – send representatives to the area for a couple of hours to utter a few words of condemnation. Beyond that, it is business as usual in their relations with Israel.
What remains then is the resilience and agency of the Palestinian people and their principled political movements. In the current context, the mere presence of Palestinians on their land is an act of resistance.
To sustain this presence and strengthen their struggle, Palestinians must continue to mobilise global progressive and freedom-oriented movements to support their cause – not only in solidarity but also as part of a broader global fight against the far-right, racist, anti-justice forces that support Israel and simultaneously threaten civil rights and social justice in their own countries.
Solidarity activities at the global level should be strategic and impactful. They should focus on disrupting all components of the supply chain that benefit the Israeli occupation in general and settler colonialism in particular. This means citizens around the world in different sectors of society can contribute to the struggle for Palestine as both producers and consumers by heeding the call to boycott and divest from Israel.
Direct actions from the working class are crucial. Workers can integrate the Palestinian cause into their demands for better working conditions. For instance, public strikes in solidarity with Palestine, such as those organised by rail workers in European countries, might pressure governments to reconsider their support for Israel.
Similarly, port workers could strike to disrupt shipping linked to Israel, pushing governments to reassess their positions. Employees in high-tech industries can play a critical role in supporting Palestinians by demanding their companies align products, services and partnerships with international law, refusing to support technologies complicit in the Israeli occupation or settler violence. If companies refuse, workers can escalate to protest action, such as disrupting supply chains and whistleblowing.
In addition to expanding and strengthening Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) activities, there are other solidarity actions that could be carried out. In Palestine, individuals and groups can organise to accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, serving as witnesses to settler and soldier attacks while helping to protect communities.
They can also help Palestinian farmers and other communities by assisting them in selling their products. This challenges the dominant business model that exploits small-scale producers. I can attest to the importance of such initiatives as I have begun facilitating the connection of local Palestinian producers with the European market through the Palestine General Cooperatives Union and Cooperatives UK.
With governments abrogating their legal obligations to stop genocide and colonisation, grassroots mobilisation for impactful actions is the only way to disrupt Israeli colonial activities. An active global movement can force Israeli citizens to confront and relinquish the racist, apartheid, and colonialist foundations of their society, prompting them to seek real change.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Deir el-Balah, Gaza – “There is no voice louder than hunger,” the Arabic proverb goes.
Now it has become a painful truth surrounding us, drawing closer with each passing day.
I never imagined that hunger could be more terrifying than the bombs and killing. This weapon caught us off-guard, something we never thought would be more brutal than anything else we’ve faced in this endless war.
It’s been four months without a single full meal for my family, nothing that meets even the basic needs on Maslow’s hierarchy.
My days revolve around hunger. One sister calls to ask about flour, and the other sends a message saying all they have is lentils.
My brother returns empty-handed from his long search for food for his two kids.
We woke up one day to the sound of our neighbour screaming in frustration.
“I’m going mad. What’s happening? I have money, but there’s nothing to buy,” she said when I came out to calm her down.
My phone doesn’t stop ringing. The calls are from crying women I met during fieldwork in displacement camps: “Ms Maram? Can you help with anything? A kilo of flour or something? … We haven’t eaten in days.”
This sentence echoes in my ears: “We haven’t eaten in days.” It is no longer shocking.
Famine is marching forwards in broad daylight, shamelessly in a world so proud of its “humanity”.
A second birthday amid scarcity
Iyas has woken up asking for a cup of milk today, his birthday.
He has turned two in the middle of a war. I wrote him a piece on his birthday last year, but now I look back and think: “At least there was food!”
A simple request from a child for some milk spins me into a whirlwind.
I’d already held a quiet funeral inside me weeks ago for the last of the milk, then rice, sugar, bulgur, beans – the list goes on.
Only four bags of pasta, five of lentils and 10 precious kilos (22lb) of flour remain – enough for two weeks if I ration tightly, and even that makes me luckier than most in Gaza.
Flour means bread – white gold people are dying for every single day.
Every cup I add to the dough feels heavy. I whisper to myself: “Just two cups”. Then I add a little more, then a bit more, hoping to somehow stretch these little bits into enough bread to last the day.
But I know I’m fooling myself. My mind knows this won’t be enough to quell hunger; it keeps warning me how little flour we have left.
I don’t know what I’m writing any more. But this is just what I’m living, what I wake up and fall asleep to.
With little more than flour and lentils left, the author struggles to make supplies last and feed her family [Maram Humaid/Al Jazeera]
What horrors remain?
I now think back on the morning bread-making routine I used to resent.
As a working mother, I once hated that long process imposed by war, which made me miss being able to buy bread from the bakery.
But now, that routine is sacred. Thousands of people across Gaza wish they could knead bread without end. I am one of them.
Now I handle flour with reverence, knead gently, cut the loaves carefully, roll them out and send them off to bake in the public clay oven with my husband, who lovingly balances the tray on his head.
A full hour under the sun at the oven just to get a warm loaf of bread, and we’re among the “lucky” ones. We are kings, the wealthy.
These “miserable” daily routines have become unattainable dreams for hundreds of thousands in Gaza.
Everyone is starving. Is it possible that this war still has more horrors in store?
We complained about displacement. Then our homes were bombed. We never returned.
We complained about the burdens of cooking over a fire, making bread, handwashing clothes and hauling water.
Now those “burdens” feel like luxuries. There’s no water. No soap. No supplies.
Iyas’s latest challenge
Two weeks ago, while being consumed by thoughts of how to stretch out the last handfuls of flour, another challenge appeared: potty training Iyas.
We ran out of diapers. My husband searched everywhere, returning empty-handed.
“No diapers, no baby formula, nothing at all.”
Just like that.
My God, how strange and harsh this child’s early years have been. War has imposed so many changes that we could not protect him from.
His first year was an endless hunt for baby formula, clean water and diapers.
Then came famine, and he grew up without eggs, fresh milk, vegetables, fruit or any of the basic nutrients a toddler needs.
I fought on, sacrificing what little health I had to continue breastfeeding until now.
It was difficult, especially while undernourished myself and trying to keep working, but what else could I do? The thought of raising a child with no nutrients at this critical stage is unbearable.
And so my little hero woke up one morning to the challenge of ditching diapers. I pitied him, staring in fear at the toilet seat, which looked to him like a deep tunnel or cave he might fall into. It took us two whole days to find a child’s seat for the toilet.
The author’s daughter, Banias, demonstrates how her father carries the bread to be baked at the public oven [Maram Humaid/Al Jazeera]
Every day was filled with training accidents, signs he wasn’t ready.
The hours I spent sitting by the toilet, encouraging him, were exhausting and frustrating. Potty training is a natural phase that should come when the child is ready.
Why am I and so many other mothers here forced to go through it like this, under mental strain, with a child who I haven’t had a chance to prepare?
So I fall asleep thinking about how much food we have left and wake up to rush my child to the toilet.
Rage and anxiety build up as I try to manage our precious water supply as soiled clothes pile up from the daily accidents.
The famine we’re seeing in Gaza now is the most horrific stage of Israel’s starvation campaign, a UN expert on food has told Al Jazeera. He’s calling on countries to stop Israel starving Palestinians to death.
We look at the struggle of people in Gaza to avoid starvation when even aid carries the risk of death.
Starvation or bullets. That’s the grim choice facing many in Gaza today. Since late May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has led aid distribution, operating just four centres, compared with the UN’s former network of more than 400. At least 900 Palestinians have been killed in attacks at these GHF sites. Critics say GHF is nothing but a front for genocide, offering a deadly illusion of help. As Gaza’s people scrape for food, they face an impossible question: Risk the “death trap” for a few sacks of flour, or watch loved ones starve?
Presenter: Stefanie Dekker
Guests: Tamara Al Rifai – UNRWA director of external relations and communications Eman Hillis – Fact-checker and writer Afeef Nessouli – Journalist
On Monday, 28 countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan, and numerous European nations, issued a joint statement calling on Israel that the war on Gaza “must end now”, marking the latest example of intensifying criticism from Israel’s allies.
The joint statement, signed by the foreign ministers of these countries, condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food”.
The statement comes as global pressure mounts on Israel over civilian casualties at aid sites, obstruction of humanitarian aid, and violations of international humanitarian law – as the occupied Palestinian territory simmers with starvation.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 59,000 people and wounded 140,000 since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, in which 1,139 people were killed and more than 200 were taken captive.
So, what does the joint statement say? Who are these countries? And how have Israel and its closest ally, the United States, reacted?
What did the statement say?
The joint statement said the countries are coming together “with a simple, urgent message: The war in Gaza must end now.”
The statement underlined that the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached “new depths” and that the Israeli government’s aid delivery model is “dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity”.
They called on the Israeli government to “comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law” and immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid.
The group of countries also noted that the captives “cruelly held” by Hamas continue to “suffer terribly” and called for their immediate and unconditional release.
They said in the statement that a negotiated ceasefire offers “the best hope of bringing [the captives] home and ending the agony of their families”.
Demographic change, settler violence: What else did the countries say?
The countries criticised Israel’s plan to establish a concentration zone – Israel’s vision of relocating the entire Palestinian population into a fenced, heavily controlled zone built on the ruins of Rafah – as “completely unacceptable”.
“Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law,” the joint statement said.
The group of countries also marked its opposition to “any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” and noted that the E1 settlement plan announced would divide a Palestinian state in two, “marking a flagrant breach of international law and critically [undermining] the two-state solution”.
They also called out that the “settlement building across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has accelerated while settler violence against Palestinians has soared. This must stop.”
Which countries signed the joint statement?
The joint statement was signed by the foreign ministers of a total of 28 countries:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.
These governments, many of them allies of Israel, issued some of their strongest language yet, condemning the obstruction of aid in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Palestinian houses and buildings lying in ruins in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 22, 2025 [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]
Which of those countries recognise Palestine?
Out of these 28 countries from the joint statement, nine recognise the State of Palestine as a sovereign state.
Cyprus, Malta, and Poland recognised Palestine shortly after the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988.
Iceland followed in 2011, and Sweden in 2014. Ireland, Norway, Slovenia, and Spain recognised Palestine in 2024.
How did Israel respond?
Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on X that Israel rejects the joint statement published by the group of countries, “as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas”.
Israel further claimed that instead of agreeing to a ceasefire, “Hamas is busy running a campaign to spread lies about Israel” and deliberately acting to increase friction and harm to civilians who come to receive humanitarian aid.
The statement further said there is a “concrete proposal for a ceasefire deal” and Hamas “stubbornly refuses to accept it”.
What does Hamas say about the ceasefire?
The spokesperson of the military wing of Hamas said Israel was the one that rejected a ceasefire agreement to release all captives held in Gaza.
Qassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Obeida said in a prerecorded video, released on Friday, that the group had in recent months offered a “comprehensive deal” that would release all captives at once – but it was rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right ministers.
“It has become clear to us that the government of the criminal Netanyahu has no real interest in the captives because they are soldiers,” he said, adding that Hamas favours a deal that guarantees an end to the war, a withdrawal of Israeli forces, and entry of humanitarian aid for besieged Palestinians.
Hamas is still holding 50 people in Gaza, about 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
Demonstrators hold a banner featuring an image of US President Trump, at a protest to demand the release of all captives held in Gaza, near the US consulate in Tel Aviv, Israel, July 7, 2025 [Ammar Awad/Reuters]
What is Israel blocking from entering Gaza, claiming that Hamas can use it?
Israel continues to block the entry of essential humanitarian supplies into Gaza, claiming that Hamas could divert or repurpose them for military use.
Among the items withheld are: Baby formula, food, water filters, and medicines.
Medicine and medical supplies face blocks as part of Israel’s “dual-use” restrictions, where items like painkillers and dialysis equipment are held back, ostensibly for possible Hamas exploitation in military contexts.
Other medical equipment, such as oxygen cylinders, anaesthetics, and cancer medications, has been restricted.
Israeli authorities argue that some items, like certain chemicals or electronics, could have dual-use potential.
Aid groups report that the blanket denial of crucial medical items is pushing Gaza’s health system towards total collapse, and say that these restrictions are collective punishment and violations of international humanitarian law.
Tehran, Iran – The wave of Afghan refugees and migrants being sent back from Iran has not stopped, with more than 410,000 being pushed out since the end of the 12-day war with Israel on June 24.
More than 1.5 million Afghan refugees and migrants have been sent back in 2025, according to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM), while the Red Cross says more than one million people more could be sent back by the end of the year.
Iran has been hosting Afghans for decades. While it has periodically expelled irregular arrivals, it has now taken its efforts to unprecedented levels after the war with Israel that killed more than 1,000 people in Iran, many of them civilians.
Iran has also been building a wall along its massive eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan to stem the flow of irregular migration, and smuggled drugs and fuel.
The parliament is also planning for a national migration organisation that would take over its efforts to crack down on irregular migration.
‘I’m afraid’
“I feel like we’re being singled out because we’re easy targets and don’t have many options,” said Ahmad*, a 27-year-old undocumented Afghan migrant who came to Iran four years ago.
Like others, he had to work construction and manual labour jobs before managing to get hired as the custodian of an old residential building in the western part of the capital, Tehran.
At the current rate of Iran’s heavily devalued currency, he gets paid the equivalent of about $80 a month, which is wired to the bank card of an Iranian citizen because he cannot have an account in his name.
He has a small spot where he can sleep in the building and tries to send money to his family in Afghanistan whenever possible.
“I don’t really leave the building that much because I’m afraid I’ll be sent back. I don’t know how much longer I can live like this,” he told Al Jazeera.
Vahid Golikani, who heads the foreign nationals’ department of the governor’s office in Tehran, told state media last week that undocumented migrants must not be employed to protect local labour.
Daily returns, which include expulsions and voluntary returns, climbed steeply after the start of the war, with average daily returns exceeding 29,600 in the week starting July 10, said Mai Sato, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran.
She was among four special rapporteurs who decried the mass returns on Thursday, adding their voice to rights organisations such as Amnesty International.
“Afghanistan remains unsafe under Taliban rule. These mass returns violate international law and put vulnerable people, especially women, children, and minorities, at severe risk of persecution and violence,” Sato said.
Alleged security risks
Authorities and state media have said undocumented immigrants may pose a security risk, alleging that some of them were paid by Israel to carry out tasks inside Iran.
Afghan refugees arrive from Iran at Islam Qala border between Afghanistan and Iran, on July 5, 2025 [Mohsen Karimi/AFP]
While state television has aired confessions from a handful of unidentified imprisoned Afghans, but their numbers do not seem to match the scale of the expulsions.
The televised confessions featured men with covered eyes and blurred-out faces saying they had sent photographs and information online to anonymous handlers linked with Mossad.
Hundreds of Iranians have also been arrested on suspicion of working for Israel, and several Iranians have been executed over the past weeks as the government works to increase legal punishments for spying.
Mohammad Mannan Raeesi, a member of parliament from the ultraconservative city of Qom, said during a state television interview last week, “We don’t have a single migrant from Afghanistan among the Israeli spies.”
He pointed out that some Afghans have fought and died for Iran, and that attempts to expel irregular arrivals should avoid xenophobia.
Economic pressures
Before the latest wave of forced returns, Iranian authorities reported the official number of Afghan refugees and migrants at a whopping 6.1 million, with many speculating the real number was much higher.
Only about 780,000 have been given official refugee status by the government.
Supporting millions of refugees and migrants, regular and irregular, takes a toll on a government that spends billions annually on hidden subsidies on essentials like fuel, electricity and bread for everyone in the country.
Since 2021, there have been complaints among some Iranians about the economic impact of hosting millions who poured into Iran unchecked in the aftermath of the Taliban’s chaotic takeover of Afghanistan.
Amid increasing hostility towards the Afghan arrivals over the past years, local newspapers and social media have increasingly highlighted reports of crimes like theft and rape allegedly committed by Afghan migrants. However, no official statistics on such crimes have been released.
That has not stopped some Iranians, along with a large number of anonymous accounts online, from cheering on the mass returns, with popular hashtags in Farsi on X and other social media portraying the returns as a “national demand”.
Again, there are no reliable statistics or surveys that show what portion of the Iranian population backs the move, or under what conditions.
Some tearful migrants told Afghan media after being returned from Iran that security forces beat or humiliated them while putting them on buses to the border.
Others said they were abruptly deported with only the clothes on their back, and were unable to get their last paycheques, savings, or downpayments made for their rented homes.
Some of those with legal documentation have not been spared, as reports emerged in recent weeks of Afghan refugees and migrants being deported after having their documents shredded by police.
Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani and Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni have separately said the government is only seeking undocumented migrants.
“In cases where legal residents have been deported, those instances have been investigated,” Momeni said last week, adding that over 70 percent of those returned came forward voluntarily after the government set a deadline to leave for early July.
Afghan returnees who fled Iran to escape deportation and conflict gather at a UNHCR facility near the Islam Qala crossing in western Herat province, Afghanistan, on June 20, 2025 [Omid Haqjoo/AP Photo]
‘I sense a lot of anger among the people’
For those Afghans who remain in Iran, a host of other restrictions make life difficult.
They are barred from entering dozens of Iranian cities. Their work permits may not be renewed every year, or the renewal fees could be hiked suddenly. They are unable to buy property, cars or even SIM cards for their mobile phones.
They are seldom given citizenship and face difficulties in getting their children into Iranian schools.
Zahra Aazim, a 22-year-old teacher and video editor of Afghan origin based in Tehran, said she did not truly feel the extent of the restrictions associated with living in Iran for Afghans until a few years ago.
Her family migrated to Iran about 45 years ago, shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution that brought the incumbent theocratic establishment to power.
“What really bugs me is the fact that I was born in Iran, and my family has been living here for over four decades, but I’m still unable to get something as basic as a driver’s licence.
Zahra Aazim says she is concerned things will worsen for refugees and migrants in Iran [Courtesy of Zahra Aazim]
“That’s not to mention fundamental documents like a national ID card or an Iran-issued birth certificate,” she told Al Jazeera.
By law, those documents are reserved for Iranian nationals. Afghan-origin people can apply if their mother is Iranian or if they are a woman married to an Iranian man.
Aazim said Iran’s rules have only gotten stricter over the years. But things took a sharp turn after the war, and she has received hundreds of threatening or insulting messages online since.
“I’ve been hearing from other Afghan-origin friends in Iran … that this is no longer a place where we can live,” she said.
“A friend called me with the same message after the war. I thought she meant she’s thinking about moving to another country or going back to Afghanistan. I never thought her last resort would be [taking her own life].”
Aazim also said her 23-year-old brother was taken by police from a Tehran cafe – and later released – on suspicion of espionage.
The incident, along with videos of violence against Afghans that are circulating on social media, has made her feel unsafe.
“I sense a lot of anger among the Iranian people, even in some of my Iranian friends. When you can’t lash out against those in power above, you start to look for people at lower levels to blame,” she said.
“I’m not saying don’t take any action if you have security concerns about Afghan migrants … I just wish they would treat us respectfully.
“Respect has nothing to do with nationality, ethnicity or geography.”
*Name has been changed for the individual’s protection.
