Middle East

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested earlier this week that Israel will ‘take control of all Gaza’.

Israel’s security cabinet has approved Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to occupy Gaza City, located in the north of the Palestinian enclave, according to news reports.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office has yet to publicly confirm the plan, which is a major escalation in the war-torn Palestinian territory and was first reported by the news site Axios on Friday.

Axios reporter Barak Ravid quoted the prime minister’s office as saying: “The Political-Security Cabinet approved the Prime Minister’s proposal to defeat Hamas. The [Israeli military] will prepare to take over Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones”.

Al Jazeera correspondent in Washington, DC, Shihab Rattansi, said Israel’s move to occupy Gaza has been “telegraphed for several days now”.

“Donald Trump has all but green lit whatever Benjamin Netanyahu wants to do. He said it would be up to the Israelis,” he said

On Thursday, Netanyahu said Israel would “take control of all Gaza” in a television interview with American outlet Fox News.

Netanyahu also said in the interview that Israel doesn’t want to be “a governing body” in Gaza and would hand over responsibility to an unspecified third party.

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

This followed reports in Israeli media earlier this week that the Israeli leader would imminently announce plans to fully occupy the entirety of the Gaza Strip.

“The decision has been made [to occupy Gaza],” Israel’s Channel 12 news outlet reported on Monday, quoting an unnamed senior official in Netanyahu’s office.

This is a breaking news story. More information to follow soon. 

Palestinian football star Suleiman al-Obaid was killed in an Israeli air strike on Wednesday while waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza. Known as the “Pele of Palestinian football,” he is among 321 people in the football industry killed during Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Gaza health authorities say nearly 200 people, including 96 children, have died of hunger in Gaza, as the starving population battles against the odds to get food from dangerous airdrops and deadly aid hubs run by the GHF.

As Israel’s man-made famine under the ongoing blockade tightened its grip on the enclave, hospitals recorded four more deaths from “famine and malnutrition” on Thursday – two of them children – bringing the total to 197.

Amid the mounting death toll, World Health Organization (WHO) director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that about 12,000 children younger than five were suffering from acute malnutrition in July – the highest monthly figure ever recorded.

The scenes in Gaza City are “apocalyptic”, said Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili, with hundreds of people scrambling for scraps from aid pallets airdropped among the rubble of destroyed buildings.

“Here the fight is not over food, but for survival,” he said.

Mustafa Tanani, a displaced Palestinian at the scene, said that some of the food had failed to land and was “hanging up high” between the buildings, making it “too risky” to try to reach. “It’s like a battle here. We come from far away and end up with nothing,” he said.

“Everyone is carrying bags of aid, and we don’t even manage to get anything. The planes are dropping aid for nothing. Look where they threw it. Up there, between the buildings. It’s dangerous for us,” he said.

Children at risk

Two children died of hunger in Gaza on Thursday, including a two-year-old girl in the al-Mawasi area, according to Nasser Hospital.

Raising the alarm over chronic child malnutrition, the United Nations said that its partners were able to reach only 8,700 of the 290,000 children under age five who desperately needed food and nutritional supplements.

Amjad Shawa, the head of the NGO Network in Gaza, told Al Jazeera Arabic that at least 200,000 children in the Gaza Strip suffer from severe malnutrition, with many deaths caused by a lack of baby formula and nutritional supplements under Israel’s blockade, in place since March.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said that only 92 aid trucks entered the enclave on Wednesday, far less than the 500-600 that the United Nations estimates are needed daily to meet basic needs.

Most of the aid that did make it in was prevented from reaching its intended recipients due to widespread “looting and robbery”, as a result of “deliberate security chaos” orchestrated by Israel, said the office.

‘Orchestrated killing’

As the hunger crisis deepened, Doctors Without Borders, better known by its French-language acronym MSF, called for the closure of the notorious US- and Israeli-backed GHF, which runs deadly aid hubs where more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed trying to reach food.

The NGO published a report on Thursday featuring testimony from front-line staff that Palestinians were being deliberately targeted at the sites, which they said amounted to “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation”, not humanitarian aid.

MSF operates two healthcare centres – al-Mawasi and al-Attar clinics – in direct proximity to GHF sites in southern Gaza, which received 1,380 casualties within seven weeks, treating 71 children for gunshot wounds, 25 of whom were under the age of 15.

“In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians,” said the report.

MSF patient Mohammed Riad Tabasi told Al Jazeera he had seen 36 people killed in the space of 10 minutes at a GHF site. “It was unbearable,” he said. “War is one thing, but this … aid distribution is another. We’ve never been humiliated like this.”

Deadly strikes

As the population battled for survival, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News his country intended to take military control of all of Gaza.

On Thursday, Israel continued to launch deadly air strikes on residential areas, killing at least 22 people.

In Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported that a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed five civilians.

An attack on the municipality of Bani Suheila, east of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis city, killed at least two people, according to a source from Nasser Hospital.

Six others were killed in earlier attacks in the Khan Younis area. One child died while attempting to retrieve airdropped aid there.

In northern Gaza’s Jabalia, at least one person was killed, according to a local medical source.

Palestine’s Wafa news agency reported several deadly attacks in Gaza City, one targeting a tent in the city’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood that killed at least six people.

The second attack targeted a separate residential area in the city, killing a woman and injuring others, said Wafa.

“Israel’s military escalation continues without any sign of abating. And civilians are still bearing the brunt of this conflict,” said Abu Azzoum.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,258 people.

Families and supporters of the Israelis held captive by Hamas sailed toward the Gaza coast to warn against a ground invasion of the strip. They tossed swim rings as a symbolic life saver for their loved ones, who they say would be hurt by a ground assault.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand that their government reach a deal to release two Israeli captives held in Gaza who have been shown as starving in Hamas footage.

The video showed that captives have been as badly affected by the blockade Israel imposed on Gaza in March as the rest of the population trapped there.

So far, at least 197 people have starved to death in Gaza, 96 of them children and global outrage about the famine Israel is imposing on Gaza has mounted.

However, a poll from the Israel Democracy Institute (PDF) found more than half of Jewish Israeli respondents were “not at all troubled” by the reports of Palestinians starving and suffering in Gaza.

Front pages of international newspapers previously accused of backing Israel’s war on Gaza have carried images showing the massive human cost of Israel’s actions.

Yet, in the past 24 hours, gangs of far-right Israeli agitators have blocked aid trucks from reaching a starving Gaza, in apparent defiance of global anger.

Formerly stalwart allies, such as Canada, France and the United Kingdom, have condemned Israel and its actions in Gaza, committing to recognising Palestinian statehood if some kind of resolution is not reached.

I guess Israeli settlers are stopping and destroying aid meant for starving Palestinians, so that Israel-first politicians in the West can accuse Hamas of stealing the aid… pic.twitter.com/6ECMP23g8r

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) August 6, 2025

Domestically, two of Israel’s leading NGOs – B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, Israel – have labelled Israel’s war on Gaza a genocide, and protests against the war have grown.

A week earlier, hundreds of demonstrators led by wounded soldiers and the families of some of the captives marched on the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem, demanding that the war on Gaza be continued.

Widespread awareness of the extent of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and their government’s role in inflicting it, has yet to dawn upon the bulk of Israeli society, Orly Noy, journalist and editor of the Israeli Hebrew-language magazine Local Call, told Al Jazeera.

This is particularly the case because Gaza’s suffering has not been featured in mainstream media.

“I avoid Israeli TV,” Noy told Al Jazeera. “However, I was round at my mother’s yesterday, and they were covering the story of the video of the two captives.

“So, for once, starvation and famine in Gaza was finally on Israeli news,” she said, adding that, instead of denying that starvation existed in Gaza, the wider Israeli public was being told that the only two people starving there were the captives in the Hamas film.

For months now, the mainstream media narrative in Israel has been that the widespread hunger documented by numerous aid agencies is “a Hamas-orchestrated starvation campaign”.

This perception runs deeper than the framing by Israel’s nationalistic television channels, political analyst and former government adviser Daniel Levy told Al Jazeera.

“It comes from decades of self-justification and dehumanisation,” Levy said.

“Most Israelis would be uncomfortable setting out some kind of moral critique of the country, but still have the feeling that something has gone very seriously wrong. There’s a kind of cognitive dissonance at play that helps them make sense of it.”

Then there is the language used by politicians, the media and, ultimately, the public to discuss the war, Israeli sociologist Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani said.

“They’ve corrupted language. Instead of ‘concentration camps‘, they say ‘humanitarian city’. Instead of talking about ‘killing’, they say ‘elimination’. Every military operation has a biblical name, which we now use to measure time.

“We don’t say ‘such and such a thing’ happened in June. We say, ‘during Operation Whatever’. It helps people make sense of everything. The jargon’s become a new type of speech. It’s become Orwell’s 1984,” he said, referring to the dystopian novel in which language is dictated by the state.

Changing tides

However, while most Israelis have continued to see Gaza’s starvation through the lens of its media and politicians, there are signs that, at its fringes, the mood is beginning to shift, observers say.

“This isn’t going to hold up,” Aida Touma-Suleiman, a member of the Israeli parliament representing the left-wing Hadash-Ta’al party, said.

“More and more, people are beginning to understand that there is real hunger in Gaza, and if Israel is making such a big deal of sending food now, then how can it not have been responsible for the hunger before?”

Meanwhile, activists such as Alon-Lee Green of the Israeli-Palestinian group Standing Together say resistance to the war is growing across all parts of Israeli society – albeit for often widely differing reasons.

“We don’t care why people are protesting the war. We don’t care if it’s because you don’t want to do another tour with the army, or you don’t want your children to go to Gaza and kill people. If you’re against the war, you’re welcome,” he said.

However, despite the killing of more than 61,000 Palestinians since October 2023 – and thousands more lost under the rubble and presumed dead – much of Israeli society has yet to accept that the suffering Israel is inflicting on Gaza is real. 

“From my perspective, we’ve reached the point where the Israeli state and society has lost whatever moral claims they had as a result of the Holocaust,” Shenhav-Shahrabani said.

“They’ve spent whatever symbolic capital that was associated with it.”

Palestinian boy Ahmed Aaed takes care of stray cats in Gaza, which brings him comfort and purpose. He’s shared his grief over one kitten he was unable to save due to the Israeli-imposed shortage of food and medicine.

Israel’s elite cyber-intelligence unit stored vast volumes of intercepted Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft’s cloud servers, according to a joint investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call.

The surveillance system, operational since 2022, was built by Unit 8200, the Israeli military’s secretive intelligence branch. It enables the unit to collect and retain recordings of millions of daily phone calls from Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The revelations initially reported on Wednesday stem from leaked Microsoft documents and testimonies from 11 sources, including from Israeli military intelligence and the company.

According to the leaks, a large amount of the data appeared to be stored on Microsoft’s Azure servers located in the Netherlands and Ireland, the Guardian reported.

Three sources from Unit 8200 said that the cloud-based system helped guide deadly air strikes and shaped operations across the occupied Palestinian territories.

Microsoft said that CEO Satya Nadella, who met with Unit 8200’s commander Yossi Sariel in 2021, was unaware of the nature of the data to be stored. The company has said an internal review found “no evidence to date” that Azure or its artificial intelligence (AI) tools were “used to target or harm people”.

The revelations come after the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, issued a report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in its occupation and war on Gaza.

The report noted that Microsoft, which has operated in Israel since 1991, has built its largest hub outside the US in Israel and began integrating its technologies across the country’s military, police, prisons, schools, and settlements.

Since 2003, the company has deepened ties with Israeli defence, acquiring surveillance and cybersecurity start-ups and embedding its systems in military operations. In 2024, an Israeli colonel called cloud technologies such as those offered by Microsoft “a weapon in every sense”.

The Guardian reported that internal records at Microsoft showed that Nadella offered support for Sariel’s aim to move large volumes of military intelligence into the cloud.

A Microsoft statement cited by the Guardian said it “is not accurate” to say he provided his personal support for the project.

Microsoft engineers later worked closely with Israeli intelligence to embed security features within Azure, enabling the transfer of up to 70 percent of Unit 8200’s sensitive data to the platform.

While Israeli officials claim the technology helps thwart attacks, Unit 8200 sources said the system collects communications indiscriminately, which are often used to detain or blackmail Palestinians. “When they need to arrest someone and there isn’t a good enough reason … that’s where they find the excuse,” one source was cited as saying.

Some sources alleged the stored data had been used to justify detentions and even killings.

The system’s expansion coincided with a broader shift in Israeli surveillance, moving from targeted tracking to bulk monitoring of the Palestinian population. One AI-driven tool reportedly assigns risk scores to text messages based on certain trigger words, including discussions of weapons or martyrdom.

Sariel, who resigned in 2024 after Israel’s intelligence failure on October 7, 2023, had long championed cloud-based surveillance.

As Israel’s war on Gaza continues, with more than 61,250 Palestinians killed, including 18,000 children, the surveillance programme remains active. Sources said the existing data, combined with AI tools, continues to be used in military operations.

Microsoft claimed it had “no information” about the specific data stored by Unit 8200.

Khan Younes, Gaza – A dear companion doesn’t have to be human to be deeply missed when lost.

Sometimes, it’s a phone – a loyal witness to your joys and sorrows, your moments of sweetness and darkest chapters of pain.

In the harshness of life in the world’s largest open-air prison, it becomes more than a device. It’s an extension of yourself; your portal to the world, your way of reaching loved ones scattered across the prison or outside it.

Through its lens, you sometimes capture joy and beauty, but more often, it only captures falling rockets or the rubble of houses covering the corpses of their residents.

But what are you left with when that loyal companion is disappeared by the genocidal chaos?

My phone succumbed to its injuries

My phone succumbed to its injuries.

I can’t believe I’m describing it this way, with the same phrase I use when reporting on thousands of my people killed after being denied urgent medical treatment, punished simply for surviving Israeli bombs.

But in its own way, my phone endured its share of this prolonged Israeli cruelty, the technocide of power-starvation, corrosion by dust and sand, suffocation in overheated tents, and the constant torment of poor connection.

It tried to hold on, but everyone has a limit of endurance. It fell the day we left our damaged home for our 14th displacement amid chaotic stampeding crowds.

Somehow it survived the heavy blow, but it only lasted 70 days after its screen cracked, its body blistered, until its wounds spread too far to bear.

And then it went dark for good.

Oddly, I felt consoled. Not because it wasn’t painful, but because I wasn’t alone. I’ve seen the same happen to others: Friends, relatives watching their phones slowly perish, just like the people they loved.

Strangely, we find comfort in these small shared losses. Our loved ones have perished, and our wellbeing is shattering, and yet we expect our phones not to. The real miracle is that they lasted this long at all.

Smartphone addiction is thrown around as a buzzword. But in Gaza, if you’re lucky enough to still have one, it’s not an addiction, it is survival.

It’s an escape. A small, glowing portal you cling to. It helps you slip briefly into the past, scrolling through memories, staring at the faces of loved ones who are now names on graves or names you still whisper in hope.

Your phone’s emotionless memory still holds their beautiful smiles. It connects you to people you can’t reach, voices you can’t otherwise hear. It dulls the pain not by healing it, but by distracting you.

Like a hunger you can’t satisfy, so you scroll through reels of mouth-watering food, mocking your emptiness.

You watch strangers at family dinners while your table is buried under rubble. You wonder, how dare they post such scenes, knowing that children are being starved to death a few kilometres away? And yet you keep scrolling, because for a moment, it’s a brutal soothing sedative.

‘Are you alive?’

When you’re someone who reports daily on the ongoing genocide to the world, finding a new companion becomes an inevitable must. Yet the quest is disastrous in Gaza.

You might think it’s impossible to find one here, where life has become ruins and even bread is scarce, but surprisingly, there are plenty of options, even the latest high-end brands that somehow found their way through the blockade.

But this is Gaza, where a bag of flour costs $700, so the cost of a phone is on a whole different level.

Even the lowest-quality phones in makeshift shops sell for more than what it costs to build the shop itself, inflated by genocidal conditions.

And it doesn’t stop there. You must pay in cash, in a place where almost nothing is free except the air you breathe.

An iPhone might cost $1,000 elsewhere, but here it costs $4,200.

So you turn to cheaper options, hoping for something more affordable, but the calculations remain the same.

But that’s not me – because either way, by spending such unthinkable amounts, you’re solidifying the very reality your captors are trying to impose, and doing it with your own money.

You realise that you’re feeding into their design. We’re already draining whatever’s left in our pockets just for flour during this genocidal siege, and we don’t know how long it will last.

So you cling to what you have, to avoid paying your soul at a GHF centre for deadly “aid” you’ll never get.

For a while now, I’ve felt paralysed, a helplessness especially familiar during June’s two-week total communication blackout imposed by Israel – during which my phone finally died in total silence.

When the captor cuts yet another lifeline, it’s more than just being unable to check on loved ones. It means ambulances can’t be called. It means a wounded person might die in the dark, unheard.

It’s like someone is out there, cruelly deciding when you’re allowed to contact the world or to be contacted, to receive the now-typical: “Are you alive?”

There’s a cruel irony in Israel issuing expulsion orders online even as it cuts off the networks people in Gaza need to receive them. You only find out when you see thousands flooding the streets, the earth trembling beneath their feet from Israeli attacks.

The hand that controls your digital lifeline is the same one that’s been blockading and colonising your land for years.

And you realise, with certainty, that if they could block the very air you breathe, they would not hesitate.

So, you rise

There are still moments when, instinctively, I reach out to call someone or check something – but my hand touches nothing.

My companion is gone. I remain phoneless, helpless under blockade, both digital and physical.

And then, you start to compare your shackles to the abundance your captors enjoy, genociding you with full access to every technological privilege, every luxury.

You, on the other hand, are being hunted down with the world’s most advanced weapons, under the watchful eye and silent complicity of the tech giants whose tools are backing your erasure.

While they use satellites and precision-guided missiles, you just want to tell the world you’re still here.

How vital your lost companion was. It wasn’t just a phone. It was your sword, your shield, your witness.

And in the face of this tyranny, surrendering is something you cannot afford. So, you rise.

You whisper, “Rest in power, my companion,” because we refuse to be slaughtered in silence.

We will keep telling our truth, even if all we have left is a scrap of paper and a drop of ink.

‘People are being shot like animals.’ Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is calling for Gaza’s GHF aid sites to be shut down after its report found Israeli troops are deliberately killing Palestinians trying to access food, in what it describes as ‘orchestrated killings’.

Italy has approved a $15.5bn suspension bridge which will connect the mainland to the island of Sicily.

Italy has given final approval to a long-delayed plan to construct the world’s longest suspension bridge, connecting the mainland to Sicily in a project worth €13.5bn ($15.5bn).

Transport Minister Matteo Salvini hailed the Strait of Messina Bridge as “the biggest infrastructure project in the West” after a key government committee cleared the path on Wednesday. He said the project would generate 120,000 jobs annually and revitalise southern Italy through wider investment in infrastructure.

Preliminary work could begin as early as October, pending a green light from Italy’s court of audit, with construction expected to start in 2026. Salvini estimated the bridge could be completed by 2033.

With a span of 3.3km, the bridge would surpass Turkey’s Canakkale Bridge and carry six lanes of traffic and two railway lines, cutting the current 100-minute ferry crossing to just 10 minutes by car.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the bridge would become “an engineering symbol of global significance”.

The project, first proposed in 1969, has stalled repeatedly due to environmental objections, mafia fears and seismic risks. The design is inspired by Turkiye’s Canakkale structure, featuring a wing-shaped deck meant to improve stability in high winds.

Defence or development?

Rome says the bridge could help it meet NATO’s defence spending goals by classifying it as “dual-use” infrastructure, a designation that has caused controversy.

More than 600 academics warned that such a move would require further military safety assessments and could make the bridge a potential target.

Salvini said it was up to the defence and economy ministries to decide, but insisted “keeping organised crime out of the project is the top priority”.

Environmental groups, meanwhile, have raised complaints with the European Union, warning of potential disruption to migratory birds and a lack of proof that the project meets public interest thresholds.

The bridge contract was awarded to Webuild, the same firm that won the initial bid in 2006 before the plan was cancelled. The company says its design will withstand earthquakes, pointing to similar bridges in Japan and California.

“The bridge will be transformative for the whole country,” said Webuild CEO Pietro Salini.

Human Rights Watch says US arms were used in ‘unlawful indiscriminate’ Israeli attacks that killed Palestinian civilians.

Israel has used US-made bombs in “unlawful attacks” on schools sheltering displaced civilians in Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

In a report released Thursday, HRW said Israel had carried out hundreds of strikes on schools since the start of its war on Gaza in October 2023, including “unlawfully indiscriminate attacks” using US munitions, which violated international law.

In its report, HRW investigated two incidents in 2024 in which it found that GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs supplied by the United States were used. One attack on the Khadija girls’ school in Deir el-Balah on July 27, 2024, killed at least 15 people, and another attack on the Zeitoun C school in Gaza City on September 21, 2024, left at least 34 dead.

Israeli authorities have not publicly shared information relating to the attacks. Israel has often said that its attacks on schools were targeting Hamas fighters. It has provided no evidence to indicate the presence of military targets at the sites of the attacks documented by the rights group.

In both attacks, HRW and that there was no evidence of a military presence at the schools on the days of the attacks.

The rights group also warned that recent Israeli attacks on schools sheltering displaced people were worsening the dire humanitarian situation in the territory.

HRW said that from July 1-10, 2025, Israeli forces struck at least 10 schools where displaced people were sheltering, killing 59 people and displacing dozens of families, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The group emphasised that schools used to house civilians remain protected under international law unless used for military purposes.

The rights group called for an immediate halt to arms transfers to Israel, warning of potential complicity by governments providing military support.

“These strikes on schools sheltering displaced families are just one window into the carnage in Gaza,” said Gerry Simpson, associate director at HRW. “Other governments should not tolerate this horrendous slaughter of Palestinian civilians merely seeking safety.”

It also urged states to uphold their obligations under international law, including the Genocide Convention.

“Governments supporting Israel militarily can’t say they didn’t know what their weapons are being used for,” said Simpson.

According to the United Nations, nearly 1 million displaced Palestinians have taken shelter in Gaza’s schools since October 2023.

HRW said the repeated targeting of civilian infrastructure, including shelters, hospitals and schools, showed a pattern of attacks that may amount to war crimes.

HRW noted that nearly all of Gaza’s 564 schools have sustained damage, with 92 percent requiring full reconstruction or major repairs.

The UN has reported that at least 836 people sheltering in schools have been killed.

French political analyst Francois Burgat was charged with supporting terrorism over a social media post he shared, which included a statement by Hamas. He was later acquitted. Burgat joins Centre Stage to unpack the case, the politics behind it and what he believes it reveals about free speech and support for Palestine in the West.

This episode is produced in partnership with the Islam and Muslims Initiative, an international platform that connects Muslims and non-Muslims in the realms of religion, politics, business, media, academia and civil society.

The Norwegian government on Tuesday said it would review its sovereign wealth fund’s investment in Israel after the Scandinavian country’s leading newspaper revealed that the nearly $2 trillion fund had a stake in an Israeli company aiding Israel’s war in Gaza.

The newspaper, Aftenposten, identified the company as the Bet Shemesh Engines Ltd (BSEL) group, which provides parts to Israeli fighter jets that are being deployed in its devastating war on Gaza.

In recent weeks, Israeli-induced starvation deaths have caused a global outcry, with Western countries ramping up pressure on Israel to end the war that has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians and ravaged Gaza – home to 2.3 million people.

More than 200 people have died of starvation as Israel has obstructed the entry of humanitarian aid despite its so-called “tactical pause” in its nearly two years of war.

So, what did Norway say, and are Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestinian territory turning the tide of public opinion against it?

What did Norwegian leaders say?

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said that the investment in the Israeli firm was “worrying”. “We must get clarification on this because reading about it makes me uneasy,” Stoere told public broadcaster NRK.

Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who manages the world’s largest fund, ordered the central bank to conduct a review of the fund portfolio to make sure Israeli companies aiding the occupation of the West Bank or the war in Gaza are barred from investments.

“The war in Gaza is contrary to international law and is causing terrible suffering, so it is understandable that questions are being raised about the fund’s investments in Bet Shemesh Engines,” Stoltenberg, a former NATO chief, said, referring to the growing public and political pressure.

The decision came weeks after Norway’s parliament rejected a proposal for the fund to divest from all companies with activities in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“In light of … the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the West Bank, I will today ask Norges Bank and the Council on Ethics to conduct a renewed review of the fund’s investments in Israeli companies and Norges Bank’s work on responsible management,” Stoltenberg said. Norges Bank is Norway’s central bank.

The independent ethics council, which provides recommendations on which companies should be banned from the oil fund’s portfolio, has since 2009 suggested excluding nine Israeli groups.

How much investment is at stake?

Norges Bank, which manages the $1.9 trillion wealth fund, took a 1.3 percent stake in BSEL in 2023 and raised this to 2 percent by the end of 2024, holding shares worth $15m, the latest available NBIM records show.

The fund held shares in 65 Israeli companies at the end of 2024, valued at $1.95bn, its records show.

The value of its stake was more than four times higher than it was at the end of 2023, shortly after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. At least 1,139 people were killed in that attack.

The sovereign fund, which owns stakes in 8,700 companies worldwide, has sold its stakes in an Israeli energy company and a telecom group in the last year, and its ethics council has said it is reviewing whether to recommend divesting holdings in five banks.

In May, the sovereign fund decided to divest from Israel’s Paz Retail and Energy for its involvement in supplying infrastructure and fuel to illegal Israeli settlements.

In December 2024, the fund sold all its shares in the Israeli company, Bezeq, for its services provided to the illegal settlements, which are considered the biggest impediments in the realisation of a sovereign Palestinian state as part of the so-called two-state solution.

Moreover, Norway’s largest pension fund has decided to sever its ties with companies doing business with Israel.

KLP, which manages a fund worth about $114bn, said in June that it will no longer do business with two companies – the US Oshkosh Corporation and ThyssenKrupp from Germany, which sell equipment to the Israeli military that is possibly being used in the war in Gaza.

According to the pension fund, it had investments worth $1.8m in Oshkosh and almost $1m in ThyssenKrupp until June 2025.

Last year, KLP also divested from US-based Caterpillar, which makes bulldozers.

Which other funds and companies have severed ties with Israel?

French insurance giant AXA last August reportedly divested from its remaining investments in Israeli banks for funding illegal settlements, according to a report by advocacy group Eko.

Norwegian asset manager Storebrand has also sold shares in some Israeli firms.

The move came after sustained campaigning by human rights groups, who highlighted Israeli rights violations against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Another major pension fund from Denmark, its largest, divested from several Israeli banks and companies last February over fears that the investment could be used to fund the illegal Israeli settlements.

The fund has sold its stocks and shares to the tune of 75 million krone ($7.4m) in value.

Last month, Ireland’s sovereign wealth fund divested shareholdings worth more than 1 million euros ($1.2m) from two accommodation companies linked to Israeli settlements. The two companies have been identified as Expedia Group and TripAdvisor, according to media reports.

The Irish government, which has been vocal against Israel’s war on Gaza, divested 2.95 million euros ($3.43m) worth of shares from six other Israeli companies.

Amid pressure from campaigners and activists from Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), several corporations have been forced to sever ties with Israel. Shipping giant Maersk was forced to cut ties with companies linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank in June.

The BDS, a grassroots organisation inspired by the anti-apartheid South Africa movement, calls for economic pressure on the Israeli government to end its occupation of Palestinian lands.

Several of Europe’s biggest financial firms have cut back their links to Israeli companies or those with ties to the country, a Reuters analysis of filings shows, as pressure mounts from activists and governments to end the war in Gaza.

Which countries have taken action against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza?

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in July, banned exports of coal to Israel until the genocide stops. “We cannot allow Colombian coal to be turned into bombs that help Israel kill children,” the left-wing president said.

He has also pledged to cease all arms trade with Israel. Under Petro, Colombia has helped set up the Hague Group of 12 countries aimed at pressuring Israel to end its war on Gaza and the occupation of the Palestinian territory.

Spain’s left-wing coalition government in June cancelled a contract for antitank missiles from Israeli company Rafael over the war atrocities in Gaza. The decision will affect a deal worth an estimated 285 million euros ($325m).

Few months earlier, Spain halted a controversial $7.5m deal to buy ammunition from an Israeli company, following criticism from far-left allies within the coalition government.

Madrid has also called for sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel over its Gaza war.

Several Western countries have sanctioned Israeli settlers in the West Bank amid record violence against Palestinians.

In July 2024, Australia sanctioned Israeli settlers, joining France, the UK.

The sanction came after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a nonbinding opinion that all Israeli settlement activity on Palestinian land is illegal and must stop as soon as possible.

In June, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom formally sanctioned far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for “incitement of violence” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

In the same month, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia called for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Sweden has also asked the European Council to adopt sanctions “against Israeli ministers who promote illegal settlement activities and actively work against a negotiated two-state solution”.

The EU provides millions of dollars in funds to Israel as part of its Horizon Europe research projects, while Western leaders have defended Israel for its war atrocities in Gaza and also shielded it from the United Nations resolutions critical of its abuses.

Western countries have also been criticised for failing to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who face warrants from the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Gaza.

Last month, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, released a new report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law.

Medical relief agency has treated more than 1,300 patients for gunshot wounds sustained near notorious GHF aid sites in Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders, better known by its French-language acronym MSF, has called for the immediate end to Israel’s militarised food distribution scheme in Gaza, which it described as “institutionalised starvation and dehumanisation”.

In a grim report released on Thursday, titled “This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing”, the medical nonprofit said that it operates clinics in Rafah, southern Gaza, near two GHF aid distribution sites under the control of the Israeli military and private US contractors.

Since those sites opened in May, they have become synonymous with “stampedes, suffocating crowd surges, violent looting and lethal ‘crowd control’ measures”, MSF said in its reports.

“The GHF distribution sites fall dangerously short of any recognised standard for safe and dignified humanitarian distributions,” the report said.

“Nowhere else in the world where MSF operates – including in the most volatile conflict zones – would this level of violence around an ‘aid distribution’ site be tolerated. This must stop now,” the organisation said.

MSF teams were “mentally prepared for responding to conflict – but not to civilians killed and maimed while seeking aid”, it said.

MSF’s primary care clinics have turned into mass casualty units since GHF took control of aid distribution in Gaza, it added.

Over a seven-week period in June and July, MSF received 1,380 injured people and 28 dead bodies at its two primary care clinics in Gaza’s al-Attar and al-Mawasi areas, which are close to two GHF distribution sites.

The patients included 174 suffering from gunshot wounds, among them women and children, the report said, but most patients were young men and teenage boys.

A significant number of patients from GHF sites in Khan Younis arrived with gunshot wounds to their lower limbs bearing a precision that “strongly suggests intentional targeting of people within the distribution sites, rather than accidental or indiscriminate fire”, MSF said.

The report noted that many patients had also sustained injuries from “crowd control” measures, including pepper spray and other kinds of physical assault.

Patients injured at GHF sites typically arrived covered in sand and dust “from time spent lying on the ground while taking cover from bullets”, the report adds.

“People are being shot like animals,” an MSF coordinator said in the report.

“They’re not armed. They’re not soldiers. They’re civilians carrying plastic bags, hoping to bring home some flour or pasta. And my question is: how high is the price they have to pay for one bag of food?”

Authorities charged the defendant with carrying out a hate crime, with the murder of the embassy officials described as calculated and planned.

A man accused of shooting dead two Israeli embassy staff members in Washington, DC, 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 in May.

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

Surveillance footage then showed him advance on Lischinsky and Milgrim as they fell to the ground, firing additional shots as he stood over them. Rodriguez appeared to reload before jogging off, according to officials.

Two other people who were standing with the couple at the time of the attack escaped unharmed.

Rodriguez then entered the museum and confessed to the killings. He was heard shouting “Free Palestine” as he was led away. Rodriguez also told police, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza “, according to federal authorities.

Prosecutors described the killings as calculated and planned in court papers, alleging that Rodriguez flew to Washington from Chicago with a handgun in his checked luggage. Authorities also claimed Rodriguez purchased a ticket for the American Jewish Committee-organised event at the museum three hours before it started.

Rodriguez was previously charged with the murder of foreign officials and other crimes. Prosecutors added the hate crimes charges after bringing the case to a grand jury.

Also included in the indictment is a notice of special findings allowing the Department of Justice to potentially pursue the death penalty.

Prosecutors are now tasked with proving that Rodriguez was motivated by anti-Semitism when he opened fire on Lischinsky and Milgrim.

Lischinsky was a research assistant at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, while Milgrim organised trips to Israel for the embassy. Lischinsky, a German-Israeli citizen, had reportedly bought an engagement ring days before he and Milgrim, a Jewish US citizen, were killed.

Also on Wednesday, President Trump said he may deploy the National Guard to police Washington’s streets, telling reporters outside the White House that the capital is “very unsafe” and it “has to be the best-run place in the country”.

“We’re going to beautify the city. We’re going to make it beautiful. And what a shame, the rate of crime, the rate of muggings, killings and everything else. We’re not going to let it,” Trump said.

“And that includes bringing in the National Guard, maybe very quickly, too,” he added.

Trump made his latest threat of a federal takeover of the US capital after a staffer who was part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was assaulted during a carjacking over the weekend.

According to records on the police department’s website, violent crime in Washington was down 26 percent in the first seven months of 2025 compared with last year, while overall crime was down some 7 percent.

Gaza’s already battered healthcare system is in a state of collapse as blood banks run dry and Israeli forces continue targeting clinics and facilities housing patients and displaced families while maintaining an aid blockade.

Healthcare officials in the besieged enclave reported on Wednesday that there is a severe shortage of blood as many would-be donors are too malnourished due to a severe Israeli-induced hunger crisis that has so far claimed the lives of 193 Palestinians, including five in the past 24 hours.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said blood donations are desperately needed across the remaining operational medical facilities in Gaza – al-Shifa Hospital, Al-Aqsa Hospital, and Nasser Hospital.

“We’ve seen at the blood banks many people who were begging doctors to allow them to give blood donations to save their loved ones, but they had to be turned away because they were not fit to donate blood due to the enforced dehydration and starvation,” Mahmoud said.

Amani Abu Ouda, head of the blood bank at al-Shifa Hospital, said most would-be donors who arrive are malnourished, which affects the safety and quality of blood donations.

As a result, she said, “when they donate blood they could lose consciousness within seconds, which not only endangers their health but also leads to the loss of a precious blood unit.”

More than 14,800 patients in Gaza are still in urgent need of specialised medical treatment, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned, calling on the international community to act swiftly.

“We urge more countries to step forward to accept patients and for medical evacuations to be expedited through all possible routes,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement posted on X on Wednesday.

Israeli attacks have continued to pound Gaza, killing at least 44 people on Wednesday.

An overnight attack in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood injured dozens of people. The attack targeted the Sheikh Radwan Health Centre, previously run by the UN refugee agency for Palestinians.

“Last night, while we were having dinner, we suddenly heard people shouting, calling for evacuation. There was no time to take anything no food, no clothes, no bedding. We just ran,” Ghaleb Tafesh, a displaced Palestinian resident, told Al Jazeera.

Among those killed Wednesday were 18 hungry aid seekers, who were shot dead as they approached UN aid trucks and aid distribution sites operated by the United States and Israeli-backed GHF.

So far, more than 1,560 Palestinians seeking aid have been killed by Israeli forces while trying to receive food since GHF began operating in late May.

This week, a group of UN special rapporteurs and independent human rights experts called for the GHF to be disbanded, saying it is “an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law”.

Israel’s air and ground assault has also destroyed nearly all of Gaza’s food production capabilities, leaving its people reliant on aid.

A new report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN satellite centre found that just 8.6 percent of Gaza’s cropland is still accessible following sweeping Israeli forced evacuation orders in recent months. Just 1.5 percent is accessible and undamaged, it said.

Israel blockade extends to medical supplies and fuel

Hamas, meanwhile, called for protests across the world against the starvation in Gaza.

“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in the cities, capitals and squares on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and all the upcoming days with marches, protests and demonstrations in front of the Zionist and US embassies,” Hamas said in a statement.

Israel’s blockade extends to medical supplies and much-needed fuel – shortages that have forced several medical facilities to shut down in recent months.

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, warned that Israel’s continued blockade on the entry of fuel into Gaza is affecting “lifesaving” operations.

“In the past two days, the UN collected some 300,000 litres from the Karem Abu Salem [Kerem Shalom] crossing,” Haq told reporters.

“This is far less than what is needed to sustain operations,” he said. “For example, our partners working in health warned today that the lives of more than 100 premature babies are in imminent danger due to the lack of fuel.”

Haq also said that, since March, more than 100 health workers, including surgeons and specialised staff, had been denied entry into the Strip.

Fears mount over possible plans for expanded military offensive in Gaza

The latest deaths came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to announce further military action – and possibly plans for Israel to fully reoccupy Gaza. Experts say Israel’s ongoing offensive and blockade are already pushing the territory of some 2 million Palestinians into famine.

The UN has called reports about a possible expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza “deeply alarming” if true.

Despite international pressure for a ceasefire, efforts to mediate a truce between Israel and Hamas have collapsed.

An expansion of the military offensive in heavily populated areas would likely be devastating.

“Where will we go?” said Tamer al-Burai, a displaced Palestinian living at the edge of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

“Should people jump into the sea if the tanks rolled in, or wait to die under the rubble of their houses? We want an end to this war; it is enough, enough.”

More than 61,158 Palestinians, including at least 18,430 children, have been killed in Gaza since the war began in October 2023, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Forty-nine captives, including 27 who are believed to be dead, are still being held by Hamas, according to Israeli authorities.

To Governments, International Organisations, Media Institutions, and Civil Society:

We, the undersigned press freedom organisations, media organisations, journalists’ unions, and advocates of truth and transparency, demand an end to the forced starvation and targeting of journalists in Gaza by Israel.

Journalists in Gaza are being starved to death.

Not metaphorically. Not slowly. But deliberately, and in real time, while the world watches.

One in three people in Gaza now goes days without food. Among the starving are journalists, the last independent voices still reporting from inside Gaza. These are the individuals whose courage keeps the world informed of the sheer humanitarian impact of Israel’s war on Gaza. Now, they are being forced to die from hunger.

This is not incidental. This is a tactic.

The suffering of journalists is not an accident; Israel is employing deliberate tactics to silence the truth by starving them.

Since October 2023, over 230 journalists and media workers in Gaza have been killed. Those who remain, and their families, are subjected to constant targeting, intimidation, and denied their basic needs, and are now forced to choose between death by air strike or starvation. Their situation is dire and worsening day by day. Without immediate intervention by the international community, their lives are under serious threat, and they may not be able to continue reporting; their voices may fall silent.

The journalistic community and the world bear an immense responsibility; it is our duty to raise our voices and mobilise all available means to support our colleagues in this noble profession.

If the international community fails to act, the death of these journalists will not only be a moral catastrophe, but it will also be the death of truth itself in Gaza. Our inaction will be recorded in history as a monumental failure to protect our fellow journalists and a betrayal of the principles that every journalist strives to uphold.

We, the undersigned, demand:

Immediate Food and Medical access: Urgent delivery of food, clean water and medical supplies to all journalists in Gaza through protected humanitarian corridors.

International Media Access: End the blockade on foreign press entry into Gaza and allow global journalists to operate freely and independently.

Accountability: Investigate and prosecute those responsible for the starvation and killing of journalists in accordance with international law.

Sustained Protection and Aid: Commit to long-term protection mechanisms for journalists operating in conflict zones, with specific support for those reporting under siege.

We refuse to stand by while truth dies. We refuse to let our colleagues perish from hunger.

Signed:

Al Jazeera Media Network

Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK

Aidan White, Founder, Ethical Journalism Network

Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ)

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Federation of African Journalists

Geneva Global Media Center (GGMC)

International Press Institute (IPI)

International Media Support (IMS)

Index on Censorship

James Foley Foundation

John Williams, Executive Director, The Rory Peck Trust

National Press Club (NPC) & NPC Media Freedom Center

National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ)

Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

We call for immediate action. Now.

#justice4journalists

The families are demanding that military action not be taken in areas of Gaza where their relatives may be held.

Physical confrontations have taken place outside Israel’s Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv between security forces and family members of captives held in Gaza during a rally calling for their release, as the Israeli government appears on the verge of escalating its genocidal war to full occupation of the besieged enclave.

Protesters surrounding the Kirya, Israel’s central military headquarters, demanded on Wednesday that the Israeli government not go ahead with its plan, as they were pushed back by police.

“Time is running out – our loved ones can’t wait any longer,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. “We either bring them home now, or we lose them for good. There are moments in history when we must stand up and do what’s right – this is that moment.”

The families of Israeli captives 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.

Protesters, including the father of captive Guy Illouz, tried to force their way into the entrance of military headquarters as seen in this video verified by Al Jazeera.

שוטרים תוקפים באלימות מחוץ לשערי הקריה מפגינים למען שחרור החטופים

📌*חדר מלחמה* • עדכונים שוטפים בווטסאפ 🪖 > https://t.co/QYJBOcgAKq מלחמת אחים pic.twitter.com/dqJYxPyf43

— ישפנסיון לכלבים (@sari12222) August 6, 2025

Translation: Police violently attack protesters outside the Kirya gates demonstrating for the release of the hostages. 

An estimated 1,139 people were killed during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel, and more than 200 were taken captive. Some 50 captives remain in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to still be alive. In Israel’s ensuing war on Gaza, at least 61,158 Palestinians have been killed and 151,442 wounded.

The families also addressed a message directly to Israeli army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir on Wednesday: “You know this war has run its course, and the only path to real victory is a single deal that brings everyone home.”

The local police chief requested that family members of captives speak to him, saying, “We understand your frustration.” He acknowledged they could protest, but asked that they leave the police alone.

Protesters were attempting to enter the headquarters, demanding that military action not be taken in areas where the captives are suspected to be located in Gaza.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Wednesday 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 reportedly 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,” Itzik Horn said, according to Haaretz. “We are the people. I want the prime minister to explain why he wants to kill my son.”

Meanwhile, there were minor clashes at the anti-war demonstration organised by Standing Together, the largest Arab-Israeli grassroots movement in Israel, in the Gaza Envelope, situated 7km (4.3 miles) from the Gaza border. A protester was arrested and flour was scattered on the police from the display brought by the protesters.

An earlier video recorded from the Yad Mordechai Junction, a kibbutz in southern Israel, showed Standing Together activists gathering to march to the Gaza border.

Syria’s fledgling government has sought investment to reconstruct the country after its devastating yearslong civil war.

Syria has signed a series of investment deals with international companies, covering 12 major strategic projects in infrastructure, transportation and real estate valued at a total of $14bn, the latest lifeline aimed at reviving its war-ravaged economy.

The plans included a $4bn investment project for Damascus airport signed with Qatar’s UCC Holding and a $2bn deal with the United Arab Emirates national investment corporation to establish a metro in the Syrian capital, Talal al-Hilali, head of the Syrian Investment Authority, said during the ceremony at the presidential palace in Damascus on Wednesday.

It’s a welcome development for President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s new government as it has been grappling with the heavy fallout from sectarian violence that broke out on July 13 in the southern province of Suwayda between Bedouin and Druze fighters. Government troops were deployed to quell the conflict. The bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and also bombed the heart of the capital Damascus, under the pretext of protecting the Druze.

Other major developments on the investment front destined for Damascus include the $2bn Damascus Towers project signed with the Italian-based company UBAKO, a $500m deal for the Baramkeh Towers project and another $60m agreement for Baramkeh Mall.

Since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December in a lightning rebel offensive, Syria’s new authorities have worked to attract investment for the reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed in the country’s devastating, nearly 14-year-long civil war.

The projects “will extend across Syria and represent a qualitative shift in infrastructure and economic life”, al-Hilali said on Wednesday, adding that the agreements were “a turning point” for Syria’s future.

Al-Sharaa and United States special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack were both present at the signing ceremony, Syria’s official SANA news agency reported on Wednesday.

Barrack congratulated Syrian authorities on “another great accomplishment”, saying they will witness the rise of a “new hub” in “trade and prosperity”.

The United Nations has put Syria’s post-war reconstruction costs at more than $400bn. Several deals have already been announced.

Last month, Saudi Arabia signed major investment and partnership deals with Syria, valued at $6.4bn.

Also in July, Syria signed an $800m deal with UAE-based company DP World to develop the port of Tartous, state media reported.

In May, Syria signed a $7bn energy deal with a consortium of Qatari, Turkish and US companies as it seeks to revive its crippled power sector.

The US and European Union have recently lifted sanctions on Syria in the wake of al-Assad’s ouster, opening the nation to further investment and trade deals.

Israeli authorities are moving forward with plans to dramatically expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite growing international condemnation and warnings that the move would destroy already moribund prospects for a two-state solution.

The Israeli government has set Wednesday as the date to discuss building thousands of new housing units in the E1 area, east of occupied East Jerusalem. The proposed expansion would link the large and illegal Ma’ale Adumim settlement with Jerusalem, effectively bisecting the West Bank and isolating Palestinian communities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government also appears on the cusp of announcing its intention to occupy all of Gaza as its genocidal war on the besieged enclave rages on.

The E1 plan in the West Bank has long been criticised by the international community, including the European Union and successive United States administrations. In 2022, Israel postponed the plan following US pressure, but in recent months, the government approved road-widening projects in the area and began restricting Palestinian access – a move rights groups say indicates a renewed push to entrench control.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. The International Court of Justice, the top United Nations tribunal, reaffirmed that position last year, saying that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible”.

On Monday, Germany reiterated its strong opposition to the E1 project.

“We, as the federal government, strongly reject the E1 settlement project,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kathrin Deschauer said. “What we are concerned about is that a two-state solution is possible in the long term.”

The plan would see nearly 1,214 hectares (3,000 acres) of Palestinian land stolen to build more than 4,000 settlement units, as well as hotels and roads connecting Ma’ale Adumim to West Jerusalem.

Palestinians say the project is part of broader efforts to “Judaise” East Jerusalem and entrench Israeli control over occupied territories in violation of international law.

Palestinian leaders seek the entirety of the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip, and as a capital, East Jerusalem – areas Israel captured in the 1967 war – for their future state.

Currently, more than 500,000 settlers are living in the West Bank, and some 220,000 others in East Jerusalem.

Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim said the plan has been in the works since “the early 90s”.

“The plan has been described by US officials … as devastating and a disastrous plan,” Ibrahim said, as it threatens “the unity” of a potential Palestinian state.

According to Ibrahim, the Israeli objective is to ensure there is “no Palestinian state on the ground” by the time Western and European countries recognise Palestine as a state.

Israel would be “cutting the West Bank into so many different sections, fragmenting them, creating what Palestinians have been calling as cantons,” she said, predicting that his would push Palestinians into “very small, caged communities”.

Widening crackdown in the West Bank

The move comes amid a broader Israeli crackdown in the occupied West Bank. At least 30 Palestinians were arrested overnight across multiple cities including Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Tulkarem, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Among those detained were two women, a female journalist, and several former prisoners. The commission said more than 18,500 Palestinians have been arrested in the West Bank since Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza in October 2023.

In Bethlehem, residents of Beit Iskaria village received forced displacement notices this week as Israeli forces moved to seize more land for settlement expansion in the Gush Etzion bloc. According to village council head Muhammad Atallah, soldiers ordered him and his family to vacate grapevine-covered farmland within 10 days.

Separately, Israeli forces carried out demolitions in the agricultural suburb near Jalazone refugee camp north of Ramallah, with reports that soldiers were accompanied by settlers. In Dar Salah, east of Bethlehem, a building under construction was demolished by Israeli military vehicles.

According to rights groups, July alone saw 75 demolitions in the West Bank targeting 122 structures, including 60 homes and dozens of agricultural and livelihood facilities.

Along with arrests and demolitions, Palestinians have also seen a rise in settler attacks in recent months. Armed settlers, often backed by Israeli soldiers, have rampaged through Palestinian villages, torched crops, vandalised homes, and assaulted residents with impunity, resulting in several Palestinian deaths.

Rights groups and United Nations officials have warned that settler violence has reached record levels, part of what they describe as a coordinated campaign to forcibly displace Palestinians from key areas of the West Bank.

Meanwhile, 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.