Palestine

Israeli attacks around Gaza City are escalating – while diplomatic efforts intensify.

Hamas has accepted the latest proposal from Egypt and Qatar. But Israel has yet to respond.

So, as international pressure mounts, can a ceasefire be reached?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Daniel Levy – President of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli negotiator

Omar Rahman – Fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs in Washington, DC

Muhammad Shehada – Visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, where he investigates human rights violations in his native Gaza and the occupied West Bank

PM’s office says the weapons transfer to the Lebanese army marks the start of a wider disarmament campaign.

Lebanon has launched a plan to disarm Palestinian groups in its refugee camps, beginning with the handover of weapons from Burj al-Barajneh camp in Beirut.

The prime minister’s office announced on Thursday that the weapons transfer to the Lebanese army marks the start of a wider disarmament campaign. More handovers are expected in the coming weeks across Burj al-Barajneh and other camps nationwide.

A Fatah official told the Reuters news agency the arms handed over so far were only illegal weapons that had entered the camp within the previous day. Television footage showed military vehicles inside the camp, though Reuters could not verify what type of weapons were being surrendered.

The initiative follows Lebanon’s commitment under a US-backed truce between Israel and Hezbollah in November, which restricted weapons to six state security forces. Since the November 27, 2024, ceasefire agreement, Israel has continued attacking Lebanon, often on a weekly basis.

The government has tasked the army with producing a strategy by the end of the year to consolidate all arms under state authority.

According to the prime minister’s office, the decision to disarm Palestinian factions was reached in a May meeting between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Both leaders affirmed Lebanon’s sovereignty and insisted that only the state should hold arms. Lebanese and Palestinian officials later agreed on a timeline and mechanism for the handovers.

For decades, Palestinian groups have maintained control inside Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps, which largely operate outside state jurisdiction. The latest initiative is seen as the most serious effort in years to curb the presence of weapons inside the camps.

Palestinian resistance movements grew out of displacement and political exclusion after the creation of Israel in 1948, when some 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes.

Over the years, groups including Fatah, Hamas, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) established a presence in Lebanon’s camps to continue armed struggle against Israel.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon remain without key civil rights, such as access to certain jobs and property ownership. With limited opportunities, many have turned to armed factions for protection or representation.

The disarmament push also comes as Hezbollah faces what analysts describe as its greatest military challenge in decades, following Israeli strikes in 2024 that decimated much of its leadership.

The arrest of more than 700 people during Palestine Action demonstrations has rekindled the debate. These arguments revolve around how to balance state security and individual freedoms in the UK. Heavy policing, frequent raids and mass arrests have accompanied the protests that centre mainly on the UK based firms importing weapons related to the arms trade in Israel. It has been portrayed by the government that these are done as a part of law and order, but critics claim that such a magnitude of arrests against mostly peaceful protestors is alarming as it moves the state towards authoritarian policing. Civil liberties may be gutted when protest action is coded by the state through a mass punishment process that renders citizens freer to disagree with government policies or with corporate participation in controversial wars overseas.

The main problem with such developments is that there is an eroded distinction between policing and political repression. The actions of protesting arm companies with ties to Israel might be considered disruptive, however they are really acts of political speech which is a pillar of the democratic society. It is this aggressiveness in pursuing protesters that the state risks criminalizing activism. This is a bad precedent, peaceful opposition will be identified with crime, and any rightful protest will be discredited in the name of order. This attitude that the political leanings of a person can dictate the response of the police negatively affects the belief of the people in the police system as well as in encouraging people to practice democracy freely.

It is also a step in the wrong direction to make it public that these arrested suspects are of a particular race and their immigration status. Superficially it can be explained by the need to be transparent. Nevertheless, in practice it might stigmatize minority communities and present the picture protest as an imported issue by immigrants instead of a domestic political problem. These actions may strengthen the racist discourses as migrants or racial minorities appear to participate in the rebellion or crimes in huge proportions. When anti-immigrant rhetoric is already present in segments of political speech, racial and migration issues interact in the form of intensifying scapegoating of vulnerable groups and the continuing division of society. It is unsafe to make these sensitive factors of the anti-immigrant rhetoric and anti-immigration activism components of the public record in protest related cases.

The government has justified its move as a logical trade off: we must compromise our freedoms so that we can enjoy national security and safety. But history teaches us repeatedly that once you have unleashed restrictions of freedoms in the name of security, it seldom returns. The historic legacy of civil liberties in the UK in the form of the right to protest, freedom of speech and the right to assembly has already been undermined over the last few years by legislation like the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Act.

Such actions have empowered the police to repress demonstrations and thwart the fundamental meaning of democracy interaction. The recent suppression of Palestine Action is further evidence of this, only exacerbating the trend due to the simplicity with which governments justify making use of security to cover its authoritarianism.

Brute force policing of activists would even backfire as well. Likewise, surveillance, a sense of being silenced and wrong criminalization, are other factors that contribute to alienation among people. Such policies are likely to have the opposite effect to what they intend because they radicalize even more people into believing that peaceful means of protest are exhausted. These communities are already marginalized be it political, racial or immigration background and thus they are highly susceptible to such alienation. This strategy of the state fails to achieve its intended purpose of ensuring that society remains safe, opening even wider rifts in society and creating feelings of vengeance toward the institutions whose purpose is to cater to the needs of every citizen.

The UK will have to change its tune on protest and political dissent should it wish to continue adhering to its democratic ideals. Policing must be equally reasonable and unbiased, not a club of political expediency. Mass arrests and stigmatizing disclosures of race or immigration status are undone by dialogue and accountability instead of the involvement of activists by the authorities. An effective democracy needs to welcome disruptive protest when it reveals unpleasant facts about foreign policy or corporate cooperation in war. Silencing such activism can temporarily cripple vocal opinions but it will also undermine democracy within society in the long term.

The argument that is generated by the crack down on Palestine Action is not a single protest movement. It goes to the very core of what type of a society the UK aspires to be. Will it increase its authoritative policing that defies liberty at the cost of security? Or will it hold fast to its democratic tradition by safeguarding dissent even when that is disruptive or makes things uncomfortable? Publication of race and immigration status of suspects is nothing but a distraction to these underlying questions because it shifts the blame to a certain community instead of looking at the root of the problem which is the right of the citizens to speak and act against their own government. Finally, there is a chance that a society founded on the concepts of security over liberty will end up losing it all. The issue of liberty versus fear has few more clear cut versions in the UK.

London, United Kingdom – Jonathon Porritt, a 75-year-old Oxford-educated environmentalist, is among the hundreds of people that the UK has cracked down on over their support of Palestine Action.

He was arrested and charged earlier this month, under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, for holding up a sign at a rally decrying the government’s decision to outlaw the protest group.

“I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” read the cardboard placard that he, and many of the 520 others arrested, raised.

His bail hearing is scheduled for late October.

But Porritt is not a hardened criminal.

He spent 30 years advising the king on environmental issues when the monarch held the Prince of Wales title. He has also chaired a sustainable development commission set up by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and throughout his career has worked in politics, academia and directed Friends of the Earth. In 2000, he was awarded a CBE, a high-ranking order, for services to environmental protection.

Al Jazeera spoke to Porritt about his activism, Palestine, the role of business and the effect of weapons manufacturing on climate change.

Al Jazeera: As the crisis in Gaza worsens, you have urged the UK to take action to stop Israel’s onslaught. With more than 700 other business leaders, you recently called for targeted sanctions against those accused of violating international law, including war crimes. Does that include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, since he is wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court?

Jonathan Porritt: It would certainly include members of his cabinet who have been very forthright in the comments that they’ve made, which clearly breach any understanding of the rights of people to exist … and indicate a readiness to ethnically cleanse Gaza and indeed to prepare to do the same in the West Bank.

It’s very clear that those sanctions do now need to be brought forward, and I think it is important that it’s business leaders that are suggesting that you just can’t allow those kinds of blatant attacks on the Palestinian people to continue.

Al Jazeera: On an individual level, many people appalled at Israel’s conduct in Gaza have joined a campaign to boycott Israeli goods, in an attempt at hitting the economy that fuels the war. Is this an effective way to stem the violence?

Porritt: It is something I do on an individual level. And this is purely personal, but I would be deeply unhappy buying anything exported into the UK from Israel. I feel that the government of Israel at the moment and its track record in terms of the way it’s dealt with the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is so repugnant to me personally that I feel uncomfortable supporting the economic standing of that country, so that’s my own personal choice.

I don’t go out of my way to suggest that everybody needs to do that.

I think lifestyle decisions are really important, ethical decisions are really important, but do they actually change very much? Probably not, is the reality, and an awful lot of people simply don’t know the issues behind these choices.

Al Jazeera: Your arrest earlier this month made headlines. What do you think figures such as King Charles and Tony Blair, who you’ve worked with, would make of your radical activism?

Porritt: I was comfortable taking on establishment roles as chair of the commission [launched by Blair], for instance, [and] helping to set up the Prince of Wales’s business and sustainability programme, all that kind of stuff. But my life started as an activist in the Green Party and in Friends of the Earth, so they probably always knew that I was more predisposed to that tactical route than to the inside track that I nonetheless spent 30 years pursuing.

Al Jazeera: With several wars raging, is the link between militaries and weapons companies, which are major carbon polluters, and climate change being talked about enough?

Porritt: No, and this really bugs me a lot.

The investment in nuclear weapons of one kind or another, upgrades going on all over the world, and increasing the number of warheads again – this is just crazy, and on the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima you think, how can that possibly be?

And then, then you look at the environmental impacts of all of that, of course, including the CO2 footprint of vast increases in expenditure on arms, and it’s just the worst possible way of trying to increase security for people in their own country – to make these hugely carbon-intensive and destructive investments and yet more weapons of mass destruction.

Al Jazeera: The UK has proscribed Palestine Action as a terror organisation, but its backers say outlawing the group is a way to silence dissent as Israel wages war in Gaza. It is now legally challenging the proscription. What does Palestine Action stand for, in your view?

Porritt: What Palestine Action actually stands for is a readiness to use violence against property as part of its campaigning tactics against, in particular, those arms companies [that are] deeply complicit in the continuing genocide in Gaza. They see as being proportionate when set against the devastation going on in Gaza.

That choice about tactics is morally based, wholly defensible … and in no way indicative of a formally designated terrorist organisation.

In the last few years, there’s been an astonishing legal crackdown on basic rights in this country, particularly the right to the freedom of speech and the right to freedom to protest

The designation as a terrorist organisation … is to try and silence Palestine Action. That’s where I come back to the now incontrovertible proof of the UK government’s complicity in this genocide, and because of that complicity – its continuation of licences for arms quite clearly being used to massacre innocent people across Gaza – if you look at that complicity, they needed something extra. They needed an even bigger stick to shut Palestine Action up so that the citizens of the UK were not permitted to recognise just how abhorrent this government’s behaviour is.

Mourners in Italy held a funeral for 19-year-old Marah Abu Zuhri, who had been evacuated from Gaza for urgent medical care. Doctors tried to save her but she died two days after her arrival, severely malnourished, as a result of Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinians.

Israeli troops have begun advancing on Gaza City as part of the military’s plan to besiege and occupy the area. Despite a global outcry, the Netanyahu government is pressing forward with the assault. Soraya Lennie explains what we know.

Horrific scenes in Gaza City show at least two Palestinians killed and three badly wounded people clinging to life, after Israel struck a bustling street in Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood. The attack comes as Israel announced it had begun its planned offensive to seize Gaza City and displace the one million Palestinians living there.

Al-Mawasi, Gaza Strip – Sweat streams down Tareq Abu Youssef’s face as he struggles through his gym workout on makeshift bodybuilding equipment, each movement more laboured than it should be.

The 23-year-old Palestinian deliberately keeps his training sessions minimal, a painful reduction from the intensive routines he once loved – but in a territory where nearly everyone is starving, maintaining muscle mass has become an act of survival and resistance.

“I have dropped 14 kilograms, from 72kg to 58kg (159lb to 128lb), since March,” Abu Youssef said, referring to when Israel tightened its siege by closing border crossings and severely restricting food deliveries. “But if eating has become an abnormality in Gaza, working out for bodybuilders like us is one rare way to maintain normalcy,” he tells Al Jazeera.

His story reflects a broader humanitarian catastrophe: Across Gaza’s 365 square kilometres, 2.1 million Palestinians face what aid agencies describe as deliberate, weaponised hunger.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that virtually the entire population faces “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity, with northern Gaza experiencing famine conditions. Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, has documented severe acute malnutrition cases throughout the Strip, describing the crisis as “man-made” and deliberately imposed. The World Food Programme warns that without immediate intervention, famine will spread across all of Gaza, while millions of tonnes of aid are parked at Israel-locked border crossings.

Even when aid trucks manage to enter through Israel’s heavily restricted crossings, distribution of food and other essential items remains nearly impossible due to ongoing military operations and widespread destruction of infrastructure.

During Abu Youssef’s extended rest breaks in between machines – now five times longer than before Gaza’s famine began – he runs his hands over his chest, arms, and shoulders, feeling the devastating muscle loss that mirrors the physical deterioration of an entire population.

“Starvation has completely affected my ability to practice my favourite sport of bodybuilding,” Abu Youssef says in a tent gym in al-Mawasi, located in Gaza’s overcrowded southern “safe zone”. “I now come to train one day, sometimes two days, a week. Before the war, it was five to six days. I’ve also reduced my training time to less than half an hour, which is less than half the required time.”

Where he once bench-pressed 90-100kg (200-220lb), Abu Youssef now barely manages 40kg (90lb) – a decline that would be concerning for any athlete but devastating in a context where such physical deterioration is becoming the norm across an entire society.

A gym among the refugees

The makeshift facility where Abu Youssef trains exists inside a tent in al-Mawasi, now home to roughly one million displaced Palestinians living in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. Here, amid sprawling refugee camps, coach Adly al-Assar has created an unlikely sanctuary, using equipment salvaged from his destroyed gym in Khan Younis.

Al-Assar, a 55-year-old international powerlifting champion who won six gold medals at Arab championships in 2020-2021, managed to rescue just 10 pieces of equipment from the more than 30 destroyed when Israeli forces bombed his original facility. The tent gym covers barely 60 square metres (650 sq ft), its plastic sheeting stretched over two uneven levels of ground, surrounded by refugee tents and sparse trees.

“During this imposed famine, everything changed,” al-Assar explains, his own body weight having dropped 11kg from 78kg to 67kg. “Athletes lost 10-15 kilograms and lost their ability to lift weights. My shoulder muscle was 40 centimetres, now it’s less than 35, and all other muscles suffered the same loss.”

Before the current crisis, his gym welcomed over 200 athletes daily across all ages. Now, barely 10 percent can manage to train, and only once or twice weekly.

One of those regular visitors to his makeshift gym is Ali al-Azraq, 20, displaced from central Gaza during the war’s early weeks. His weight plummeted from 79kg to 68kg – almost entirely muscle loss. His bench press capacity dropped from 100kg to just 30kg, back lifts from 150kg to 60kg, and shoulder work from 45kg to barely 15kg.

“The biggest part of the loss happened during the current starvation period, which began months ago and intensified in the last month,” al-Azraq says. “I actually find nothing to eat except rarely a piece of bread, rice, or pasta in tiny quantities that keep me alive. But we completely lack all essential nutrients and important proteins – meat, chicken, healthy oils, eggs, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and others.”

The unemployed young man had hoped to compete in official Palestinian arm-wrestling championships before advancing internationally. Instead, he describes the current starvation as “the harshest thing we’re experiencing as Gazans, but athletes like us are most affected because we need large quantities of specific, not ordinary food”.

Training through trauma

Yet for these athletes, the tent gym represents more than physical training – it’s psychological survival. Khaled Al-Bahabsa, 29, who returned to training two months ago after being injured in Israeli shelling on April 19, still carries shrapnel in his chest and body.

“Sports give life and psychological comfort. We were closer to the dead even though we were alive,” al-Bahabsa says. “But when I returned to practice my [gym] training, I felt closer to the living than the dead, and the nightmares of genocide and hunger retreated a little.”

He was stunned to discover the gym among the tents and trees. “I considered that I got my passion that war conditions forced me to give up. Bodybuilding isn’t just a sport – for me and many of its players, enthusiasts, and lovers – it’s life.”

Twenty-two months of relentless bombardment by the Israeli military has killed more than 62,000 people, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health, demolished expansive parts of the besieged territory, and displaced the sweeping majority of its people. Those alive are trying to survive dire humanitarian conditions in the near-absolute absence of food.

Al-Assar has adapted his training methods for famine conditions, strictly instructing athletes to minimise workouts and avoid overexertion. Rest periods between sets now extend to five minutes instead of the usual 30 seconds to one minute. Training sessions are capped at 30 minutes, and athletes lift no more than half their pre-famine weights.

“The recommendations are strict to shorten training duration and increase rest periods,” al-Assar warns. “We’re living a deadly starvation crisis, and training might stop altogether if circumstances continue this way.”

On a daily basis, athletes experience complications including collapse, fainting, and inability to move, the coach told Al Jazeera. “We’re in real famine with nothing to eat. We get zero nutrition from all essential and beneficial foods – no animal protein, no healthy oils, nothing. We get a tiny amount that wouldn’t satisfy a three-year-old of plant protein from lentils, while other foods are completely absent.”

But the bodybuilders keep working out anyway.

Even when Israeli air attacks landed just metres from the gym, athletes continued showing up. “I’m hungry all the time and calculate my one training day per week – how will I manage my food afterward?” says Abu Youssef, a street vendor who once aspired to compete in a Gaza-wide bodybuilding championship that was scheduled for two weeks after the war began in October 2023.

Youssef, who was excited at the opportunity to compete and was in full training for the championship, had his dream destroyed when the war “turned everything upside down”. Now, the few loaves of bread he manages to buy from his weekly earnings barely fill him up.

“Despite that, I didn’t lose hope and train again to regain my abilities, even if limited and slow, but the famine thwarts all these attempts,” he says.

For al-Bahabsa, displaced from Rafah with his family, simply reaching the training site represents hope for restoring life generally, not just physical fitness.

“We aspire to live like the rest of the world’s peoples. We want only peace and life and hate the war and Israeli occupation that exterminates and starves us. It’s our right to practice sports, participate in international competitions, reach advanced levels, and represent Palestine,” he said.

The tent gym, despite its limitations, serves as what al-Assar calls a challenge to “the reality of genocide, destruction, and displacement”.

As he puts it: “The idea here is deeper than just training. We’re searching for the life we want to live with safety and tranquility. Gaza and its people will continue their lives no matter the genocide against them. Sports is one aspect of this life.”

This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.

London, United Kingdom – Hundreds of business leaders in the United Kingdom – including a former adviser to the king and a sustainability consultant descended from Holocaust survivors – are calling on the government to take action against Israel as the crisis in Gaza worsens.

As of Thursday morning, 762 people had signed a statement calling on Britain to cease all arms trade with Israel, sanction those accused of violating international law – ostensibly including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he is wanted for arrest by International Criminal Court, invest in screening to stop the UK financing “complicit” companies, and enforce the United Nations’ principles on business and human rights across the UK’s economic systems.

“We see this not only as a moral imperative, but as a matter of professional responsibility – consistent with our duty to act in the best interests of long-term societal and economic resilience,” the letter reads. “The UK must ensure that no business – whether through products, services, or supply chains – is contributing to these atrocities, directly or indirectly.”

Among the signatories are the former royal adviser Jonathon Porritt CBE; sustainability consultant Adam Garfunkel; Frieda Gormley, the founder of the luxury interior design brand House of Hackney; the prominent philanthropist who once led Unilever, Paul Polman; and Geetie Singh-Watson MBE, an organic food entrepreneur – as well as other professionals who have been honoured with the Member of the British Empire (MBE) award.

They have pledged to support the UK government with an “ongoing process of reflection and action – reviewing our operations, supply chains, financial flows, and influence to help foster peace, uphold human rights, and strengthen respect for international law”.

“Business cannot succeed in societies that are falling apart,” said Polman. “It is time for business leaders to show courage, speak out, and use our influence to uphold international law.”

The number of professionals signing the letter is growing as Palestinians in the Gaza Strip face their darkest days. Israel is beginning a feared invasion into Gaza City while thousands endure hunger and famine due to the blockade of the Strip.

“We need as businesses to justify our existence and to recognise that all people everywhere deserve to be treated fairly,” Garfunkel told Al Jazeera. “My family was caught up in the Holocaust. My father was lucky enough to escape with his brother and his parents to the UK. My great grandparents were taken to the woods and shot and buried in a mass grave, and what I’ve taken from that is a strong belief that everyone matters, that everyone has human rights, that persecution on the basis of ethnic identity is always wrong, wherever it happens.”

Israel’s latest war on Gaza, termed a genocide by leading rights groups, has killed more than 60,000 people in the 22 months since October 7, 2023, when Hamas led an incursion into southern Israel, during which about 1,200 were killed and 250 taken captive – “grave crimes under international law”, according to the letter.

“However, the Israeli government’s ongoing military campaign amounts to an unrelenting and indefensible assault on civilians, breaching both moral boundaries and the core principles of the Geneva Conventions,” it added.

Porritt, who counselled King Charles on environmental issues for 30 years when the monarch held the Prince of Wales title and has chaired a sustainable development commission set up by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, said the letter reflects the role of businesses in society at a critical time.

“It’s just become so much clearer over the course of the last few months that this situation now is completely intolerable. And it constitutes very specifically a genocide against the people of Palestine, of Gaza,” he told Al Jazeera.

Businesses are obliged to be supportive in “achieving and maintaining” human rights in the countries in which they’re trading, he said. “That provides a very strong steer as to why individual business leaders need to get involved at this stage.”

Porritt has recently made headlines in the British media for his support of Palestine Action, a protest group that was proscribed by the UK government weeks ago as a terrorist organisation.

He was among the more than 500 citizens arrested during an August 9 rally in London, where he raised a banner reading, “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”

His bail hearing is set for late October.

At least 81 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli attacks and forced starvation since dawn as the Israeli military said it had begun the first stages of its planned assault to seize the enclave’s largest urban centre, Gaza City, where close to a million people remain in perilous conditions.

Three other Palestinians starved to death in the besieged enclave on Wednesday, bringing the total count of hunger-related deaths to 269, including 112 children.

Israeli attacks included a strike on a tent housing displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza that killed three people.

Mohammed Shaalan, a prominent former Palestinian national basketball player, was the latest victim of shootings at GHF aid distribution points, as Israeli forces shot him dead in southern Gaza. At least 30 aid seekers were killed on Wednesday.

Gaza has been stalked by famine as Israel’s punishing blockade and ongoing assault have choked off food, fuel, and medical supplies.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) warned that malnutrition is rising across Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing aid blockade. “This isn’t just hunger. This is starvation,” WFP said.

“Malnutrition is a silent killer,” the agency said, noting that it causes “lifelong developmental damage” and weakens immune systems, “making common illnesses deadly”.

This isn’t just hunger. This is starvation.

Malnutrition in #Gaza is rising fast – with more children and mothers showing severe signs.

Malnutrition is a silent killer:
🔴 Weakens immune systems, making common illnesses deadly
🔴 Causes stunting & lifelong developmental damage… pic.twitter.com/nEmqSsJX7M

— World Food Programme (@WFP) August 20, 2025

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says nearly one in every three Palestinian children in Gaza City is now malnourished.

Israeli rights group Gisha has debunked a series of Israeli government talking points that seek to minimise and evade responsibility for the starvation crisis unfolding across all of Gaza.

Despite Israel’s claim that the United Nations is to blame for a lack of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, Gisha says that “Israel has used its control over aid entry as a weapon of war since day one” of its military offensive.

“Israel has created and continues to create conditions that make the transfer of aid into Gaza almost impossible,” it said.

Meanwhile, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire and described the conditions its staff are working under in Gaza as dire.

“We are working under catastrophic conditions,” said Dr Hind, a UNRWA physician in Gaza.

Another health worker said staff often walked distances “under the scorching sun” just to reach their posts before working to deliver care “to our people in dire need of help”.

Gaza’s civil defence has, meanwhile, sounded the alarm over the severity of the fuel crisis in the enclave, saying the lack of fuel is compromising its ability to respond to emergency and rescue situations.

“Many times, our vehicles have stopped on the way to missions, some due to fuel shortages and others due to a lack of spare parts for maintenance,” a statement by the civil defence said. “We face major humanitarian challenges amid the ongoing threats of an escalation in the Israeli war of extermination.”

Another wave of ‘mass displacement’

The strikes come as Israel’s military said that it will call up 60,000 reservists in the coming weeks as it pushes forward with a plan to seize Gaza City, which has come under relentless attacks over the last several weeks. A military spokesperson said the first stages of its assault on the city have begun.

Close to one million Palestinians are reportedly trapped in the area, where Israeli tanks have been pushing closer to the city’s centre this week. Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres, expressed concern over the army’s operations in Gaza City, which he said would “create another mass displacement of people who’ve been displaced repeatedly” since the war began.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said Israeli forces have been intensifying attacks in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood, as well as Jabalia in the north.

“That includes ongoing explosions from systematic demolitions of homes. This is a very effective strategy by the Israeli military, which funnels down into one main goal: emptying the Gaza Strip of its population by depriving people from having something as basic as a home,” Mahmoud said.

“People are leaving behind their belongings, their food supplies that they managed to get in the past few weeks,” he added.

Relatives of Israeli captives held in Gaza have condemned the Israeli Defence Ministry’s approval of the plan to seize Gaza City and accused the government of ignoring a ceasefire proposal approved by Hamas, saying it was “a stab in the heart of the families and the public in Israel”.

Hamas says the Israeli military’s push into Gaza City is a clear sign that Israel plans to continue “its brutal war against innocent civilians” and aims to destroy the Palestinian city and displace its residents.

“Netanyahu’s disregard for the mediators’ proposal and his failure to respond to it proves that he is the true obstructionist of any agreement, that he does not care about the lives of [Israeli captives], and that he is not serious about their return,” the Palestinian group said.

The Gaza City offensive, which was announced earlier this month, comes amid heightened international condemnation of Israel’s ban on food and medicine reaching Gaza and fears of another forced exodus of Palestinians.

“What we’re seeing in Gaza is nothing short of apocalyptic reality for children, for their families, and for this generation,” Ahmed Alhendawi, regional director of Save the Children, said in an interview. “The plight and the struggle of this generation of Gaza is beyond being described in words.”

Mediators, meanwhile, continue to pursue efforts to secure a ceasefire in the 22-month war.

Qatar and Egypt have said they have been waiting for Israel’s response to the proposal, which Hamas had agreed to earlier this week.

The latest framework calls for a 60-day truce, a staggered exchange of captives and Palestinian prisoners, and expanded aid access.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly commented on the proposal, which is backed by the United States. Last week, he insisted any deal must ensure “all the hostages are released at once and according to our conditions for ending the war”. There have been further reports that the far-right government is holding to that line.

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said Arab states must pressure the US into getting Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

“Clearly, the Israelis are of two minds: One mind is recalling the reservists, issuing the plans, approving the plans for directly re-occupying the Gaza Strip [and] transferring its people from the north to the south in preparation for ethnically cleansing Gaza.”

“On the other hand, there is of course the domestic pressure … [and] the idea that Israel can secure the release of a few hostages alive and get involved in some sort of a longer[-term] deal,” Bishara said.

“Without Arab pressure on Washington, I think the Israelis will probably go with the first scenario.”

Israel’s genocidal war has killed more than 62,122 Palestinians, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.

A Reuters/Ipsos survey shows 59 percent of US respondents say Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has been excessive.

Washington, DC – Most Americans believe that all countries should recognise Palestine as a state, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests, as public support for Israel in the United States continues to plunge amid the atrocities in Gaza.

A majority of respondents – 59 percent – also said that Israel’s military response in Gaza has been excessive.

The survey, released on Wednesday, quizzed 4,446 US adults between August 13 and 16.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents agreed with the statement that “Palestine should be recognised as a country by all UN members”. The number rose to 78 percent amongst Democrats, compared to 41 percent of Republicans.

Strikingly, fewer Democratic respondents, 77 percent, agreed that “Israel should be recognised as a country by all UN members”.

The study comes as global outrage grows against Israel’s campaign of destruction, starvation and displacement in Gaza, which leading rights groups have labelled as a genocide.

Several US allies, including France, the United Kingdom and Canada, have said that they intend to recognise Palestine as a state at the United Nations General Assembly next month.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has rejected international efforts to recognise a Palestinian state and dismissed the moves as meaningless.

The overwhelming majority of countries already recognise Palestine. It remains to be seen how further recognition by Western countries would impact Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza and the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank – the two territories that would form a Palestinian state.

Rights advocates have been calling on the international community to impose tangible consequences on Israel for abuses against Palestinians, including sanctions and an arms embargo.

Despite protests by European countries, Israel is pushing on with a campaign to seize Gaza City, an assault that risks displacing tens of thousands of people and destroying what remains of the area that was once the largest city in Palestine.

In the West Bank, Israel continues to step up military and settler attacks while building more settlements in violation of international law.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich celebrated a newly announced plan for 3,400 illegal Israeli housing units between occupied East Jerusalem and Palestinian communities in the West Bank as an effort to eliminate the possibility of a Palestinian state.

“The Palestinian state is being erased from the table not by slogans but by deeds,” Smotrich said, according to the Times of Israel. “Every settlement, every neighbourhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea.”

Last year, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories – Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem – is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”.

The Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory, prohibits the occupying power from transferring “parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.

Successive US administrations have verbally supported the two-state solution, while continuing to provide Israel with billions of dollars in military aid as it further entrenches its occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Trump – a staunch supporter of Israel – has broken with traditional policy, refusing to explicitly back the two-state solution or criticise settlement expansion.

Still, US public opinion has continued to turn against Israel.

In a YouGov poll released on Tuesday, 43 percent of US respondents said they believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, compared to 28 percent who disagreed with the statement.

Israel’s military says it will call up 60,000 reservists and lengthen the service of an additional 20,000 reservists.

Israel will call up 60,000 reservists in the coming weeks as it pushes forward with a plan to seize Gaza City, the military has said, even as mediators pursue efforts to secure a ceasefire in the 22-month war.

The military said on Wednesday that Defence Minister Israel Katz approved plans to begin operations in some of Gaza’s most densely populated areas, and that it would call up 60,000 reservists and lengthen the service of an additional 20,000 reservists.

The announcement comes as human rights groups warn that a humanitarian crisis could worsen in Gaza, where most residents have been displaced multiple times, neighbourhoods lie in ruins, and starvation deaths continue to rise amid the threat of widescale famine.

An Israeli military official told journalists that the new phase of combat would involve “a gradual precise and targeted operation in and around Gaza City,” including some areas where forces had not previously operated.

The official said the military had already begun operating in the neighbourhoods of Zeitoun and Jabalia as part of the initial stages.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from central Gaza, said residents are bracing for the worst as Israel pursues its plan to seize Gaza’s largest city, in an operation that could displace hundreds of thousands of people to concentration zones in the south of the territory.

Abu Azzoum said Israeli artillery has flattened rows of homes in eastern Gaza City as attacks intensified across densely populated areas.

“Last night was completely sleepless as Israeli drones and warplanes filled the skies, attacking and destroying homes and makeshift camps,” Abu Azzoum said.

He also described how a father in al-Mawasi, an Israeli-designated so-called safe zone in southern Gaza, lost his children in an overnight strike. “He told us his children were sleeping peacefully when the Israeli missile tore through the tent and ripped their bodies apart.”

At least 35 Palestinians, including 10 people seeking aid, were killed in Israeli attacks on Wednesday, according to medical sources.

Israel’s plan to escalate its assault coincides with renewed mediation efforts led by Qatar and Egypt, with backing from the United States. The latest framework calls for a 60-day truce, a staggered exchange of captives and Palestinian prisoners, and expanded aid access.

While Qatar said the proposal was “almost identical” to a version Israel had previously accepted, Egypt stressed that “the ball is now in its (Israel’s) court.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly commented on the proposal. Last week, he insisted any deal must ensure “all the hostages are released at once and according to our conditions for ending the war”.

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said his movement “opened the door wide to the possibility of reaching an agreement, but the question remains whether Netanyahu will once again close it, as he has done in the past”.

The truce push comes amid mounting international criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war and growing domestic pressure on Netanyahu.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health has said at least 62,064 Palestinians have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza started on October 7, 2023, most of them civilians. The United Nations regards the ministry’s figures as credible.

Israel is ethnically cleansing the central neighborhood of Zeitoun in Gaza by bombing homes and displacement centres.

Since announcing plans to invade northern Gaza and expel Palestinians again to the south, Israel has attacked displacement shelters in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Zeitoun, according to an investigation by Sanad, Al Jazeera’s verification unit.

Since August 13, Sanad has found that Israel stepped up the bombardment and shelling of Zeitoun, and often directly hit displacement shelters.

The siege and ongoing violence have compelled thousands of Palestinians to close their tents in the camps and flee further south, according to satellite imagery obtained by Sanad.

The indiscriminate bombardment of civilian homes and displacement shelters is part of a broad pattern of Israeli war tactics that make no distinction between civilians and fighters.

Human rights groups, United Nations experts and numerous legal scholars believe Israel’s nearly two-year war on Gaza amounts to genocide.

Israel’s Western allies – who have long defended it from criticism by claiming it has the “right to defend itself” – are becoming increasingly alarmed at the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the enclave.

Many are calling on Israel to end the war and warning that its plan to seize northern Gaza could further exacerbate the suffering of civilians. The mass displacement and bombardment of Zeitoun encapsulate the atrocities resulting from Israel’s invasion.

Attacking shelters

There are about 11 displacement shelters in Zeitoun, each sheltering 4,000 to 4,500 besieged and hungry Palestinians.

Most live on just 3.2sq km (1.2sq miles), which makes up just 32 percent of the pre-war size of Zeitoun.

At the start of the war, Israel dug trenches in and around the neighbourhood, claiming it was creating a ‘buffer zone”, and built the Netzarim Corridor, which has split Gaza into two zones.

Israel’s recent bombardment of the neighbourhood is terrifying civilians into fleeing south, leading to another cycle of forced displacement that may amount to ethnic cleansing due to Israel’s attempt to destroy all livable facilities and structures.

An Al Jazeera journalist on the ground recently captured footage of Israel firing a missile directly at a home in Zeitoun.

While it is unclear whether anyone was inside, it is clear that all structures are being levelled, possibly to make it more difficult for any survivors to try to relocate to the area.

According to Sanad, there is clear evidence that Israel is pursuing that policy in and around Zeitoun. Between August 11 and 16, sources documented Israel’s attack on al-Falah School in Zeitoun and a tent camp on al-Lababidi Street.

Both the Majida al-Wasila school in the Nassr neighbourhood and tents in the Sheikh Ajilin neighbourhood were also hit.

This pattern of direct attacks on tents and school shelters – the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians – may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, since these structures are protected under international humanitarian law.

The highest number of attacks on aid workers was in Palestinian territory, followed by Sudan, the UN says.

United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher has issued a “shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy” as he has shared statistics on the killing of 383 aid workers last year worldwide, nearly half in Gaza.

Marking World Humanitarian Day on Tuesday, Fletcher said the killings rose by 31 percent from the year before, “driven by the relentless conflicts in Gaza, where 181 humanitarian workers were killed, and in Sudan, where 60 lost their lives”.

“Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve,” Fletcher said. “Attacks on this scale with zero accountability are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy.”

The UN said most of those killed were local staff and were either attacked in the line of duty or in their homes.

“As the humanitarian community, we demand – again – that those with power and influence act for humanity, protect civilians and aid workers and hold perpetrators to account,” said Fletcher, who is the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.

This year’s toll

The Aid Worker Security Database, which has compiled UN reports since 1997, said the number of killings rose from 293 in 2023.

Provisional figures from the database for this year show 265 aid workers have been killed as of August 14.

One of the deadliest attacks this year took place in the southern Gaza city of Rafah when Israeli troops opened fire before dawn on March 23, killing 15 medics and emergency responders travelling in clearly marked vehicles.

The Israeli army drove bulldozers over the bodies and the emergency vehicles and buried them in a mass grave. UN and rescue workers were able to reach the site only a week later.

The UN reiterated that attacks on aid workers and their operations violate international humanitarian law and damage the lifelines sustaining millions of people trapped in war and disaster zones.

“Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end,” Fletcher said.

Elsewhere

Lebanon, which Israel battered in a war with Hezbollah last year, saw 20 aid workers killed, compared with none in 2023.

Ethiopia and Syria each had 14 killings, about double their numbers in 2023, and Ukraine had 13 aid workers killed in 2024, up from six in 2023, according to the database.

Meanwhile, the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said it verified more than 800 attacks on healthcare in 16 territories so far this year with more than 1,110 health workers and patients killed and hundreds injured.

“Each attack inflicts lasting harm, deprives entire communities of lifesaving care when they need it the most, endangers healthcare providers and weakens already strained health systems,” the WHO said.

World Humanitarian Day marks the day in 2003 when UN rights chief Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 other humanitarians were killed in a bombing of UN headquarters in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad.