Canada has become the latest country to announce its intention to recognise a Palestinian state if certain conditions are met. Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the Israeli government for allowing a catastrophe to unfold in Gaza.
Published On 31 Jul 202531 Jul 2025
Hours after declaring “humanitarian pauses,” Israeli forces killed 43 Palestinians 9 of them were waiting for aid. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher says access has slightly improved but warns famine is worsening, with just 73 aid trucks entering Gaza, far below what’s needed.
Published On 28 Jul 202528 Jul 2025
At least 11 people have been killed in deadly clashes along the Thai-Cambodian border between both countries’ troops and involving heavy weapons, rockets and fighter jets on Thursday.
The outbreak of fighting between the South Asian neighbours follows weeks of tensions which have been brewing since May, when a Cambodian soldier was killed in an armed confrontation on the border. In February, a dispute over Prasat Ta Moan Thon, a Khmer temple close to the border in Thailand, intensified when Thai police stopped Cambodian tourists from singing their national anthem at the contested site.
Shelling damaged hospitals and other civilian locations in Thailand during Thursday’s fighting, resulting in deaths and injuries, according to statements from the government. Thailand said it had retaliated with air attacks, but it is not yet clear if there have been casualties in Cambodia.
Each side blames the other for launching the first attack, as they have cut diplomatic relations with each other. Thailand said it had closed all border crossings with Cambodia.
Here’s what we know about the clashes so far:
Armed fighting broke out on Thursday morning near the disputed, ancient Prasat Ta Moan Thom Temple in Surin province, Thailand, very close to the border with Cambodia, where tensions have been running high in recent weeks.
It’s unclear yet who fired the first shot, with each side blaming the other.
The Thai military accused Cambodian soldiers of “provocation”.
Cambodian troops deployed a surveillance drone at 7:35am (00:35 GMT) before soldiers with rocket launchers approached a Thai military post, according to the Thai military. Thereafter, Cambodian forces opened fire towards the eastern side of the temple, 200 metres (650ft) from the Thai military base, and also targeted a local community with rockets, the Thai military said.
Deputy army spokesperson Richa Suksuwanon told reporters that air attacks were launched in response, including six F-16 fighter jets which attacked sites over the border in Cambodia and reportedly destroyed two military targets.
However, Cambodian defence officials denied that their troops fired first and said the country only responded after Thai troops launched an “armed assault on Cambodian forces”.
Spokeswoman Maly Socheata accused Thailand of violating Cambodia’s territorial integrity and said Cambodian troops “exercised their right to defend their sovereignty” after Thai fighter jets dropped two bombs on a road.
At least 11 people have been killed in Thailand – mostly civilians – the Ministry of Public Health said. An eight-year-old child was among the dead.
Six people were killed and 10 were wounded in one strike when a Cambodian rocket hit a busy gas station in Sisaket province, the Thai army said in a statement.
Three other deaths were recorded in Surin and Ubon Ratchathani provinces.
It is still unknown if there have been any casualties in Cambodia.
Thai-Cambodia relations are at their worst in more than a decade.
The 818km (508-mile) border between the two countries has long been a source of tension and rivalry, as they both dispute demarcations drawn in 1907, during French colonial rule in Cambodia. There have been skirmishes before, but this is the first time fighter jets have been involved, marking a significant escalation.
The border areas are replete with centuries-old historical temples, some of which are claimed by both sides.
Although the establishment of a demilitarised zone has been discussed in the past, there are no formal zones in place now.
Troops from both sides clashed in 2011 near the Preah Vihear temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, killing 15-20 people and causing the displacement of thousands.
Cambodia first took the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1963. In 2011, Cambodia again went to the ICJ in relation to the Preah Vihear Temple. The ICJ ruled in Cambodia’s favour and handed it control of the immediate area around the temple in 2013.
However, the court did not address any of the other disputed areas, especially those within the “Emerald Triangle”, a shared border region between Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, where troops also frequently clash.
Thailand has refused to acknowledge the ICJ’s jurisdiction in this issue. Tensions have simmered until this year’s escalation.
“The whole situation has been spiralling downwards for weeks, with Cambodia laying landmines that injured Thai soldiers, and Bangkok’s expulsion of the Cambodian ambassador was apparently the last straw,” Phil Robertson, director of the Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates Consultancy, told Al Jazeera.
“So now the question is really how long will both sides continue fighting, and how many civilians will get killed in the indiscriminate crossfire that is already apparent,” he added.
Thailand’s acting premier, Phumtham Wechayachai, said in a statement on Thursday that the dispute was “delicate” and must be resolved according to international law.
Suspended Prime Minister Shinawatra – who is also the culture minister – condemned Cambodia, in a news briefing, for opening fire and accused the country of allowing the situation to escalate beyond diplomatic levels.
“We have always respected international protocols, but now Cambodia has forced our hand. We may have to take actions we have tried to avoid in the past,” she said.
For his part, Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Manet, has urged an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to stop “Thailand’s aggression”. Manet said Thai forces launched “unprovoked, premeditated and deliberate attacks” on the Cambodian border, violating international law.
“Facing this flagrant aggression, Cambodian troops had no option but to respond in self-defence in order to safeguard Cambodia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Manet wrote in a letter to UNSC President Asin Iftikhar Ahmad.
“It is profoundly reprehensible that this act of aggression occurs while Cambodia is actively pursuing peaceful and impartial legal avenues to resolve outstanding border issues with Thailand through both bilateral and international mechanisms,” he added.
Both countries have closed borders and announced evacuations of their citizens from the border zones. The Thai embassy in Phnom Penh urged citizens to leave Cambodia.
The United States and China issued warnings to their citizens to be vigilant in the border areas.
The US embassy in Thailand urged Americans to heed advice from Thai authorities, who commenced evacuation from the worst-hit areas on Thursday.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters at a news conference on Thursday that China is “deeply concerned” about escalating tensions between its neighbours, and stressed the importance of “maintaining friendly relations” with “long-term interests on both sides”.
China will “continue to play a constructive role in promoting peace and dialogue to help ease tensions”, the spokesperson said.
Anwar Ibrahim, the prime minister of Malaysia and current chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Thailand and Cambodia are members, said he would engage both sides in negotiations.
“I have sent messages to both prime ministers and look forward to speaking with them later today or tonight,” he told reporters.
“The least we can expect is for them to stand down and hopefully try to enter into negotiation,” Ibrahim said, calling the situation “worrying” and describing Thailand and Cambodia as key ASEAN members.
Robertson of AHRLA said the situation would likely “get worse before it gets better”.
Bad blood between Cambodian PM Hun Sen and former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra, respectively the fathers of both countries’ current leaders, could add to the political will to continue fighting, Robertson said.
Although Thaksin and Hun Sen were longtime allies, Robertson said Hun Sen’s leaking of the recording of the damaging phone call between him and Thaksin’s daughter, suspended PM Shinawatra, means “the gloves are now off between the two sides.
“Right now, neither side wants to be seen as conceding any ground to the other, so the fighting is likely to continue for some time, primarily in the form of firing across the border with artillery and firefights across the border in disputed areas,” he said.
Robertson added: “We’re not going to see either side invade the other, but the damage will be lasting and it’s hard to see how this will be mediated towards peace, at least in the short-to-medium term.”
The US is pulling out of UNESCO, saying the UN agency focuses on divisive issues.
Born from the ashes of World War II, UNESCO was founded with a bold mission: to build peace through culture, education and science.
Now, one of its founding members, the United States, is once again withdrawing from the UN agency because of what it calls an “anti-Israel bias”.
Critics say the move reflects a deeper shift: a retreat from multilateral diplomacy and a rejection of international norms.
They also say it raises questions about US commitment to global leadership and cooperation.
So, what are the real motives behind Washington’s decision?
What impact will it have on UNESCO and the broader UN system?
And is this part of a wider pattern of US disengagement under President Donald Trump?
Presenter: James Bays
Guests:
Amy Koch – Republican political strategist
Ei Sun Oh – political analyst
Mark Seddon – journalist and former UN official
We look at the struggle of people in Gaza to avoid starvation when even aid carries the risk of death.
Starvation or bullets. That’s the grim choice facing many in Gaza today. Since late May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has led aid distribution, operating just four centres, compared with the UN’s former network of more than 400. At least 900 Palestinians have been killed in attacks at these GHF sites. Critics say GHF is nothing but a front for genocide, offering a deadly illusion of help. As Gaza’s people scrape for food, they face an impossible question: Risk the “death trap” for a few sacks of flour, or watch loved ones starve?
Presenter: Stefanie Dekker
Guests:
Tamara Al Rifai – UNRWA director of external relations and communications
Eman Hillis – Fact-checker and writer
Afeef Nessouli – Journalist
Belgian authorities have interrogated two members of the Israeli military following allegations of serious breaches of international humanitarian law committed in Gaza, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Brussels said.
The two people were questioned after legal complaints were filed by the Hind Rajab Foundation and the Global Legal Action Network. The complaints were submitted on Friday and Saturday as the soldiers attended the Tomorrowland music festival in Belgium.
“In light of this potential jurisdiction, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office requested the police to locate and interrogate the two individuals named in the complaint,” said the prosecutor’s office in a written statement on Monday. “Following these interrogations, they were released.”
The questioning was carried out under a new provision in Belgium’s Code of Criminal Procedure, which came into effect last year. It allows Belgian courts to investigate alleged violations abroad if the acts fall under international treaties ratified by Belgium – including the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture.
The prosecutor’s office said it would not release further information at this stage of the investigation.
The Hind Rajab Foundation, based in Belgium, has been campaigning for legal action against Israeli soldiers over alleged war crimes in Gaza. It is named after a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli fire while fleeing Gaza City with her family early in Israel’s war on Gaza.
Since its formation last year, the foundation has filed dozens of complaints in more than 10 countries, targeting both low- and high-ranking Israeli military personnel.
The group hailed Monday’s developments as “a turning point in the global pursuit of accountability”.
“We will continue to support the ongoing proceedings and call on Belgian authorities to pursue the investigation fully and independently,” the foundation said in a statement. “Justice must not stop here – and we are committed to seeing it through.”
“At a time when far too many governments remain silent, this action sends a clear message: credible evidence of international crimes must be met with legal response – not political indifference,” the statement added.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the incident, saying that one Israeli citizen and one soldier were interrogated and later released. “Israeli authorities dealt with this issue and are in touch with the two,” the ministry said in a statement cited by The Associated Press news agency.
The incident comes amid growing international outrage over Israel’s conduct in its war on Gaza. More than two dozen Western countries called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza on Monday, saying that suffering there had “reached new depths”.
After more than 21 months of fighting that have triggered catastrophic humanitarian conditions for Gaza’s more than two million people, Israeli allies Britain, France, Australia, Canada and 21 other countries, plus the European Union, said in a joint statement that the war “must end now”.
“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths,” the signatories added, urging a negotiated ceasefire, the release of captives held by Palestinian armed groups and the free flow of much-needed aid.
On Sunday, the World Food Programme accused Israel of using tanks, snipers and other weapons to fire on a crowd of Palestinians seeking food aid.
It said that shortly after crossing through the northern Zikim crossing into Gaza, its 25-truck convoy encountered large crowds of civilians waiting for food supplies, who were attacked.
“As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire,” it said on X, adding that the incident resulted in the loss of “countless lives” with many more suffering critical injuries.
“These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation. This terrible incident underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which humanitarian operations are forced to be conducted in Gaza.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry described the Israeli attack, which killed at least 92 people, as one of the war’s deadliest days for civilians seeking humanitarian assistance.
More than 59,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its war on Gaza in October 2023, according to local health officials. Much of the territory lies in ruins, with severe shortages of food, medicine and other essentials due to Israel’s ongoing blockade.
On July 9, 2024, no fewer than 11 experts mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a mayday call about famine in Gaza.
“We declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza. We call upon the international community to prioritise the delivery of humanitarian aid by land by any means necessary, end Israel’s siege, and establish a ceasefire,” their statement read.
Among the experts were Michael Fakhri, special rapporteur on the right to food, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, and Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967. In their opinion, the death of children from starvation despite attempts to provide them with medical treatment in central Gaza left no room for equivocation.
While “famine” is generally understood as an acute lack of nutrition which would lead to starvation and death of a group of people or an entire population, there is no universally accepted definition of the concept in international law.
However, in 2004, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) developed the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a five-stage quantitative humanitarian scale to map the food insecurity of a population.
The aim of this evaluation instrument is to spur collective action when food insecurity is identified and prevent such situations from reaching Level 5 on the IPC scale when famine is confirmed and declared. It has been used by FAO, the World Food Programme (WFP) and their partners as a scientific, data-driven tool for the past 20 years.
The IPC quantifiable criteria for declaring famine are gruesomely straightforward: 20 percent or more of households in an area face extreme food shortages with a limited ability to cope; acute malnutrition in children exceeds 30 percent; and the death rate exceeds two people per 10,000 per day. When these three benchmarks are met, “famine” needs to be declared. Although it does not trigger legal or treaty obligations, it is nevertheless an important political signal to compel an international humanitarian action.
If the aforementioned experts could conclude, in unison and over a year ago, that famine was present in the besieged Gaza Strip, it is hard to understand why the competent UN entities and executive heads have not yet reached the conclusion that Level 5 has been reached by July of this year, after over four months of a medieval siege.
In the era of real-time information transmitted to smartphones the world over, the reality of fatal levels of food insecurity is glaring and unconscionable. Images of emaciated bodies reminiscent of those taken in Nazi concentration camps tell the macabre tale of the reality in Gaza, blockaded by the uncompromising Israeli occupation forces.
And yet, even against the backdrop of UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warnings issued on July 20 that one million children in Gaza are facing the risk of starvation, “famine” is not yet declared.
On the surface, the explanation for not declaring “famine” in Gaza is that the necessary data used under the IPC scheme is not available. This may well be the case since Israel prevents access to the Gaza Strip to journalists and some humanitarian workers. IPC analysts, therefore, do not have primary data collection capabilities, which they have for the other 30 or so situations they monitor. But when the physical evidence is plain to see, when some reliable data is available, humanitarian considerations ought to override technical requirements.
However, in today’s UN system culture transfixed by a US administration gone amok against it, political considerations override the sense of duty and professional imperatives. Those at the helm know what is right (or one hopes so) — and what could be fatal to their persona and careers.
The US government’s ad hominem attacks against and sanctions imposed on Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Karim Khan and UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese are a vivid reminder that those jobs are not without risks. In the case of Albanese, her mandate is not even a “job” as she is carrying it out pro bono, which makes her steadfastness and courage all the more exemplary.
Admittedly, UN executive heads such as Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have more complex calculations to contend with, punitive actions by some powers on the organisation they lead being the principal one. As the saying goes, “money talks” and the US is the single largest contributor to the UN system.
But now that the US Congress has passed an unprecedented bill defunding the UN system, not doing what is right to shield the concerned UN organisations from Washington’s retaliatory wrath is no longer an acceptable cop-out, if it ever was.
It is important here to remember that the Statute of the ICC provides that starvation of civilians constitutes a war crime when committed in international armed conflicts. The full siege of Gaza since March 2, which is resulting in the starvation of civilians, first and foremost infants and children, falls squarely within the purview of Article 8 of the Statute, all the more so as it is the result of a deliberate and declaratory policy denying humanitarian assistance for months.
In this man-made famine, Palestinians are starving to death amid the deafening silence of the world, while tonnes of food are going to waste on the Egyptian side of the border while awaiting permission to enter Gaza. Israeli troops and foreign mercenaries hired by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation have killed more than 900 Palestinians seeking aid at so-called humanitarian distribution sites. Some 90,000 children and women are in need of urgent treatment for malnutrition, according to the WFP; 19 people died of starvation in a single day on July 20, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported. And worse is yet to come.
Michael Fakhri, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo and Francesca Albanese said it a year ago — it is high time for the UN to officially declare that “famine” is in Gaza.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Israeli forces killed at least 115 Palestinians across Gaza on Sunday, most as they waited for desperately needed food aid in one of the deadliest single incidents involving aid seekers since May.
Dozens more Palestinians have been wounded, according to health officials.
In northern Gaza, at least 67 people were killed near the Zikim crossing when an Israeli strike hit crowds gathering for aid. Another six people were killed near a separate distribution site in the south. The day before, 36 Palestinians were killed in similar circumstances.
The death toll brings the total number of people killed while trying to access food relief to more than 900 since May.
Ahmed Hassouna, who attempted to collect food from an aid site of the United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), described the moment Israeli forces opened fire.
“There was a young man with me, and they started firing gas at us. They killed us with the gas. We barely made it out to catch a breath,” he told Al Jazeera.
Another man, Rizeq Betaar, carried a wounded elderly man away from the gunfire.
“We were the ones who carried him on the bicycle… There are no ambulances, no food, no life, no way to live any more. We’re barely hanging on. May God relieve us,” he said.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said a convoy of 25 trucks carrying aid came under gunfire shortly after entering Gaza.
“WFP reiterates that any violence involving civilians seeking humanitarian aid is completely unacceptable,” the agency said in a statement.
Israel’s military said its forces fired “warning shots” at what it called “an immediate threat”, but denied deliberately targeting aid convoys.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned on Sunday the situation in Gaza has reached “catastrophic” levels, with children “wasting away” and some dying before aid reaches them.
“People are risking their lives just to find food,” OCHA said, calling the conditions “unconscionable”.
The US-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also denounced Israel’s continuous attacks on aid seekers.
“The escalating massacres of starving Palestinian women, children and men murdered with US-supplied weapons and with the complicity of our government as they desperately search for food to feed their families is not only a human tragedy, it is also an indictment of a Western political order that has enabled this genocide through inaction and indifference,” said Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national executive director, in a statement.
“Western governments cannot claim ignorance. They are watching in real time as innocent civilians are intentionally starved, forcibly displaced, and slaughtered – and are choosing to do nothing. History will long remember the Western world’s indifference to the forced starvation, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza.”
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said staff in Gaza are sending desperate messages about the lack of food.
“All man-made, in total impunity. Food is available only a few kilometres away,” he wrote on X, adding that UNRWA has enough supplies at the border to feed Gaza for three months. But Israel has been blocking aid since March 2.
Dr Mohammed Abu Afash, the director of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society in Gaza, told Al Jazeera women and children are collapsing from hunger.
“We are heading into the unknown. Malnutrition among children has reached its highest levels,” he said, warning of a looming disaster if aid is not allowed in immediately.
![Palestinian mother Israa Abu Haleeb looks after her five-month-old daughter, Zainab, who is diagnosed with malnutrition, according to medics, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis [File: Hussam Al-Masri/Reuters]](https://www.occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/1753058325_963_2025-07-15T141103Z_297129143_RC21NFAJWV4T_RTRMADP_3_ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS-GAZA-HUNGER-1752937817.jpg)
Gaza’s Ministry of Health echoed that warning, saying hundreds of Palestinians suffering from malnutrition and dehydration could soon die.
“We warn that hundreds of people whose bodies have wasted away are at risk of imminent death due to hunger,” a spokesperson said.
Palestinian families say basic staples such as flour are impossible to find. The ministry said at least 71 children have died of malnutrition since the war began in 2023, while 60,000 others show signs of severe undernourishment.
On Sunday alone, it reported 18 deaths linked to hunger.
Food prices have soared beyond the reach of most people in Gaza, where 2.3 million are struggling to survive under siege conditions implemented by Israel.
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from central Gaza, said a 35-day-old baby in Gaza City and a four-month-old child in Deir el-Balah had died of malnutrition at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
“The mother was touching her body, saying, ‘I am sorry I could not feed you,’” Khoudary said.
“Parents go to the GHF distribution sites to risk getting killed or leave their children starving. We met a mother who is giving her children water just to fill their stomachs. She can’t afford flour – and when she could, she couldn’t find it.”
Meanwhile, more Palestinians are being forced to flee. After Israel dropped leaflets containing evacuation threats over neighbourhoods in Deir el-Balah, residents reported air attacks on three homes in the area, prompting families to leave with what little they could carry.
Israel’s military said it had not yet entered those districts but promised to continue targeting what it called “terrorist infrastructure”.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said: “We are face to face with another misleading evacuation order. People are told to move to al-Mawasi, a so-called safe zone, but since day one, Palestinians have been killed there.
“This is not a safe zone. There is no safe zone in a war zone. Palestinians know that walking into al-Mawasi is like walking into a death trap – they’ll be killed in days, hours, or even minutes.”
International public opinion continues to turn against Israel for its war on Gaza, with more governments slowly beginning to reflect those voices and increase their own condemnation of the country.
In the last few weeks, Israeli government ministers have been sanctioned by several Western countries, with the United Kingdom, France and Canada issuing a joint statement condemning the “intolerable” level of “human suffering” in Gaza.
Earlier this week, a number of countries from the Global South, “The Hague Group”, collectively agreed on a number of measures that they say will “restrain Israel’s assault on the Occupied Palestinian Territories”.
Across the world, and in increasing numbers, the public, politicians and, following an Israeli strike on a Catholic church in Gaza, religious leaders are speaking out against Israel’s killings in Gaza.
So, are world powers getting any closer to putting enough pressure on Israel for it to stop?
Here’s what we know.
According to its website, the Hague Group is a global bloc of states committed to “coordinated legal and diplomatic measures” in defence of international law and solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Made up of eight nations; South Africa, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia and Senegal, the group has set itself the mission of upholding international law, and safeguarding the principles set out in the Charter of the United Nations, principally “the responsibility of all nations to uphold the inalienable rights, including the right to self-determination, that it enshrines for all peoples”.
Earlier this week, the Hague Group hosted a meeting of some 30 nations, including China, Spain and Qatar, in the Colombian capital of Bogota. Also attending the meeting was UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who characterised the meeting as “the most significant political development in the past 20 months”.
Albanese was recently sanctioned by the United States for her criticism of its ally, Israel.
At the end of the two-day meeting, 12 of the countries in attendance agreed to six measures to limit Israel’s actions in Gaza. Included in those measures were blocks on supplying arms to Israel, a ban on ships transporting weapons and a review of public contracts for any possible links to companies benefiting from Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
More and more.
On Wednesday, Slovenia barred far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering its territory after the wider European Union failed to agree on measures to address charges of widespread human rights abuses against Israel.
Slovenia’s ban on the two government ministers builds upon earlier sanctions imposed upon Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in June by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and Norway over their “incitement to violence”. The two men have been among the most vocal Israeli ministers in rejecting any compromise in negotiations with Palestinians, and pushing for the Jewish settlement of Gaza, as well as the increased building of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
In May, the UK, France, and Canada issued a joint statement describing Israel’s escalation of its campaign against Gaza as “wholly disproportionate” and promising “concrete actions” against Israel if it did not halt its offensive.
Later that month, the UK followed through on its warning, announcing sanctions on a handful of settler organisations and announcing a “pause” in free trade negotiations with Israel.
Also in May, Turkiye announced that it would block all trade with Israel until the humanitarian situation in Gaza was resolved.
South Africa first launched a case for genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice in late December 2023, and has since been supported by other countries, including Colombia, Chile, Spain, Ireland, and Turkiye.
In January of 2024, the ICJ issued its provisional ruling, finding what it termed a “plausible” case for genocide and instructing Israel to undertake emergency measures, including the provision of the aid that its government has effectively blocked since March of this year.
Israel’s bombing on Thursday of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, killing three people, drew a rare rebuke from Israel’s most stalwart ally, the United States.
Following what was reported to be an “angry” phone call from US President Trump after the bombing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement expressing its “deep regret” over the attack.
To date, Israel has killed more than 58,000 people in Gaza, the majority women and children.
Mass public protests against Israel’s war on Gaza have continued around the world throughout its duration.
And there are clear signs of growing anger over the brutality of the war and the toll it is taking on Palestinians in Gaza.
In Western Europe, a survey carried out by the polling company YouGov in June found that net favourability towards Israel had reached its lowest ebb since tracking began.
A similar poll produced by CNN this week found similar results among the American public, with only 23 percent of respondents agreeing Israel’s actions in Gaza were fully justified, down from 50 percent in October 2023.
Public anger has also found voice at high-profile public events, including music festivals such as Germany’s Fusion Festival, Poland’s Open’er Festival and the UK’s Glastonbury festival, where both artists and their supporters used their platforms to denounce the war on Gaza.
Protests against the war remain small but are growing, with organisations, such as Standing Together, bringing together Israeli and Palestinian activists to protest the war.
There has also been a growing number of reservists refusing to show up for duty. In April, the Israeli magazine +972 reported that more than 100,000 reservists had refused to show up for duty, with open letters from within the military protesting the war growing in number since.
Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition has been pursuing its war on Gaza despite its domestic and international unpopularity for some time.
The government’s most recent proposal, that all of Gaza’s population be confined into what it calls a “humanitarian city”, but has been likened to a concentration camp and has been taken by many of its critics as evidence that it no longer cares about either international law or global opinion.
Internationally, despite its recent criticism of Israel for its bombing of Gaza’s one Catholic church, US support for Israel remains resolute. For many in Israel, the continued support of the US, and President Donald Trump in particular, remains the one diplomatic absolute they can rely upon to weather whatever diplomatic storms their actions in Gaza may provoke.
In addition to that support, which includes diplomatic guarantees through the use of the US veto in the United Nations Security Council and military support via its extensive arsenal, is the US use of sanctions against Israel’s critics, such as the International Criminal Court, whose members were sanctioned in June after it issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on war crimes charges.
That means, in the short term, Israel ultimately feels protected as long as it has US support. But as it becomes more of an international pariah, economic and diplomatic isolation may become more difficult to handle.
Crisis compounded after United States, which provided 40 percent of UNHCR funding last year, slashed its contribution.
More than 11 million refugees risk losing access to humanitarian aid owing to a “dramatic” funding crisis, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
The extent of UNHCR’s funding shortfall was revealed in a report released on Friday, which said it had so far received only 23 percent of this year’s goal of $10.6bn, projecting an overall budget of only $3.5bn by the end of the year to meet the needs of 122 million people.
“Our funding situation is dramatic,” Dominique Hyde, director of external relations for UNHCR, said.
“We fear that up to 11.6 million refugees and people forced to flee are losing access to humanitarian assistance provided by UNHCR.”
While countries that have slashed contributions were not named in the report, the crisis has been compounded by a major reduction in funding from the United States, which provided 40 percent – more than $2bn – of the agency’s total donations last year.
Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump’s administration has made funding cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its aid programmes worldwide in what it says is part of its broader plan to remove wasteful spending.
UNHCR said it has had to stop or suspend about $1.4bn worth of aid programmes, including a 60 percent reduction in financial aid and emergency relief supplies in many countries, including Sudan, Myanmar and Afghanistan.
Critical areas such as medical aid, education, shelter, nutrition, and protection are among the services suffering deep cuts, said the report, entitled “On the Brink: The devastating toll of aid cuts on people forced to flee”.
In Bangladesh, where Rohingya refugees have lived for years in overcrowded camps, education for some 230,000 children is at risk of being suspended.
Women and girls are disproportionately affected by UNHCR funding cuts, with the agency having to cut one quarter of its support for programmes on gender-based violence.
Women and girls in Afghanistan are the hardest hit by cuts, according to the report.
“Protection activities have been slashed by over 50 percent, undermining programmes on women’s empowerment, mental health and prevention and response to gender-based violence,” said Hyde.
Globally, UNHCR is downsizing by a third, cutting 3,500 staff positions at its Geneva headquarters and in regional offices.
The report comes after the UN’s 2025 Global AIDS Update warned last week that Trump’s halt to foreign funding could reverse “decades of progress” on HIV/AIDS. If funding is not replaced, the world could see six million extra HIV infections and four million more AIDS-related deaths by 2029, it said.
Kampala, Uganda – Rwanda is in “command and control” of M23 rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda has “unilaterally doubled its military presence” in the DRC, and armed groups – including those aligned to the Congolese government – are committing rights violations against civilians, according to a group of United Nations experts.
An as-yet unpublished report from UN experts on DRC that was leaked to the media and seen by Al Jazeera describes violations by all parties to the conflict and blames neighbouring governments for allegedly exploiting and escalating the current crisis.
The report was submitted to the UN Security Council in May, the Reuters news agency reported. It is expected to be released soon, a UN expert who contributed to the report told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, without specifying a date.
While analysts see these reports as an essential tool of accountability, Kigali and Kampala have called the experts biased.
Neither government replied to Al Jazeera’s request for comment about the contents of the report, but both have repeatedly denied the accusations levelled against them.
Meanwhile, the new findings risk putting a damper on the cautious optimism garnered by the signing of a peace deal between Rwanda and the DRC in the US last month, and ongoing Qatar-mediated peace talks between Kinshasa and M23.
For years, M23, which the UN says is backed by Rwanda – a charge Kigali denies – has been embroiled in conflict with the Congolese army and its allied militias known as Wazalendo. Early this year, M23 made rapid advances, seizing control of Goma and Bukavu, the capitals of North Kivu and South Kivu, respectively, which it still holds today.
The latest UN experts report – the first since M23’s advance – offers a stark assessment of the conflict, placing blame on Rwanda for facilitating the rapid expansion of the rebel forces.
Rwanda is providing “critical support” to M23, which takes “instructions” from Rwanda’s government and intelligence services, said the report.
In previous reports, the UN experts found there were some 3,000-4,000 Rwandan troops fighting alongside M23 in the DRC.
“One week prior to the [M23] Goma attack, Rwandan officials confidentially informed the Group [of experts] that President Paul Kagame had decided to imminently take control of Goma and Bukavu,” the new report alleged.
Rwanda has repeatedly denied backing M23, while Kigali has sharply criticised the UN experts.
“These reports were written long ago,” President Paul Kagame said at a news conference in Kigali on July 4, after the contents of the report started circulating in international media.
“They come here just to confirm a narrative they already had,” the Rwandan leader said about the UN panel of experts.
Kagame likened the experts to an arsonist who torches a house but also acts as both judge and prosecutor. “The very ones who burned the [house] are the ones in the seat to judge and prosecute.”
The report by UN experts, however, only reasserted its criticism of Kigali.
The Rwandan army’s “de facto direction and effective control” over M23’s operations “render Rwanda liable for the actions” of the group, the report said, arguing that Rwanda’s conduct meets the threshold for international sanctions.
Last month’s US-brokered deal between the DRC and Rwanda does not include M23, but it stipulates that all parties should comply with the Qatar peace process. It also highlights that the Congolese government should facilitate the disengagement of the armed group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which was established by Hutus linked to the killings of Tutsis in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Rwanda should then lift its “defensive measures” inside the DRC, the agreement said.
While Kigali has often argued that its actions in the DRC are aimed at addressing longstanding security threats posed by the FDLR, the UN experts assert that its actions went far beyond legitimate security concerns.
The experts noted that “the final objective of Kigali was to control the territory of the DRC and its natural resources.”
Their report details how minerals, including coltan, were looted from mines in towns seized by M23, then smuggled into Rwanda. “Once in Rwanda, the looted minerals were mixed with local production, effectively laundering them into the downstream supply chain under the guise of Rwandan origin,” the report said.
Part of the minerals smuggled to Rwanda were purchased by Boss Mining Solutions Inc, represented by Eddy Habimana, who has previously been implicated in the illegal trafficking of minerals from the DRC, the report added.
Beyond Rwanda, the report also outlines violations of international law by another neighbour, Uganda.
Amid the Rwanda/M23–DRC fighting, there was a “rapid military build-up” by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, the report said.
Troops significantly increased this year “effectively doubling Uganda’s footprint in the country”, it added.
The Ugandan army, which has conducted joint operations with the Congolese military against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel movement with origins in Uganda, since 2023, “unilaterally” increased its troop presence in eastern DRC, the report added.
“The DRC government confirmed that the new UPDF deployment was executed without its prior approval, and that UPDF was undertaking unilateral initiatives outside the framework of joint operations with the [Congolese army],” the report read.
The deployment, according to the panel of experts, raised questions about Kampala’s motives, particularly given past allegations of UPDF support to M23. While Uganda claimed the troop movements were defensive and aimed at securing its economic interests, the report says their positioning created a de facto buffer zone that shielded M23 from northern counterattacks.
In response, Uganda’s ambassador to the UN, Adonia Ayebare, wrote on X that the report “contains falsehoods” and attempts to undermine the joint military operation with the DRC. He said Uganda will make an official statement after publication of the report.
General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda’s army commander also posted on X, saying: “While the UN so called ‘Group of Experts’ writes biased reports against us, we (UPDF) continue to save the lives of human beings in our region.”
The report by the UN experts had called out “repeated incendiary public statements” by Kainerugaba in which they said he emphasised close cooperation between the UPDF and the Rwandan army.
The report also accused Thomas Lubanga, a former ICC convict living in Kampala, of forming a politico-military movement to oppose the Congolese government, “with at least moral and passive endorsement from the Ugandan authorities”.
However, addressing journalists in Kampala on July 16, Lubanga said he is in forced exile because of persecution by Kinshasa, and if his movement had been receiving support from Uganda, it “would find itself on Kinshasa’s doorstep today”.
Kristof Titeca, a professor at the University of Antwerp who recently published a report on Uganda’s operations in DRC, urges readers to view the UN report and the backlash it has provoked in the context of regional dynamics.
Kigali and Kampala share overlapping interests in the DRC – chiefly concerning security, political influence, and economic access – but these interests also place them in a complex relationship of both cooperation and competition, he said.
Titeca argues that the resurgence and rapid expansion of M23 was, in part, triggered by Kigali’s fear that Kampala might encroach on its influence in eastern DRC after Uganda allowed its soldiers to enter DRC in pursuit of the ADF.
As M23 gained ground towards the end of 2024, Uganda reacted with troop deployments, particularly aimed at preventing the rebels – and by extension, Rwanda – from entering areas it sees as its sphere of interest.
Titeca says the military manoeuvres were as much a strategic message to Rwanda as they were about protecting Ugandan interests.
Drawing from movements and postures observed since late 2024, Titeca suggests that Kigali and Kampala may have an implicit understanding of their respective zones of influence.
“Some people think there might be some agreement between Kampala and Kigali on their area of interest,” he said.
In eastern DRC, “they are friends and also enemies at the same time,” he added, referring to Uganda and Rwanda.
For the UN experts, Kinshasa bears some responsibility, too. On the Congolese side, the report paints a picture of a state under siege, struggling to maintain sovereignty over its eastern territories.
The government continued to rely heavily on irregular Wazalendo groups, and on the FDLR, despite the latter being under UN sanctions, as proxies in its fight against M23 and the Rwandan army.
While strategic, the report says, this alliance has worsened the security and human rights situation, contributing to reprisal attacks, child recruitment and sexual violence.
As it called out M23’s actions during the taking of Goma and Bukavu, the report also documented a pattern of grave international humanitarian law and rights violations – including looting, sexual violence, and killings – by retreating Congolese soldiers and Wazalendo fighters at the same time.
“These abuses occurred in a climate of impunity, in the general context of a weakening chain of command,” it said.
Al Jazeera sought a response to these claims from the Congolese government, but received no reply.
In dismissing the report, the Rwandan president accused the panel of perpetuating a biased narrative against Kigali and of ignoring Congolese government complicity with the FDLR, which he says continues to spread anti-Tutsi views that led to the 1994 genocide.
“All the reports, 75 percent of them, blame AFC/M23 and Rwanda,” Kagame said at the July 4 news conference. “You will find they never write anything comprehensive about FDLR or how Congolese institutions spread hate and genocide ideology. How can experts not see that?”
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Rwandan analyst Thierry Gatete echoed Kagame’s criticisms, questioning the credibility of the UN panel and alleging that they rarely conduct field research.
“They sit in New York or Paris and rely on testimonies from Congolese officials or FDLR sympathisers,” he said.
The report notes that Rwanda denied the group of experts access to Kigali. However, Gatete says Rwanda initially cooperated with the panel but later gave up because the reports were consistently biased and, in his view, inconsequential. “Nobody takes what they write seriously,” he said.
While Rwanda and Uganda view the UN reports as biased, others see them as essential tools for accountability.
Stewart Muhindo, a researcher with Congolese civil society group LUCHA, said the panel provides critical evidence that challenges both state and non-state actors.
“The panel tells hard truths,” he noted, pointing out that the report also criticises the DRC government for its continued collaboration with the FDLR, despite promises to end the alliance. “It’s not just about blaming Rwanda.”
Muhindo also agrees with UN experts that the DRC’s reliance on Wazalendo fighters has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis. These irregular forces, though not sanctioned like the FDLR, have been implicated in atrocities, including attacks on civilians and the recruitment of child soldiers, he said.
“Despite ongoing peacemaking initiatives, efforts to stabilise the region continue to face significant challenges,” the UN experts said in the report. “Civilians bore the brunt of the conflict, enduring widespread displacement, insecurity, and grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.”
Francesca Albanese addresses delegates from 30 countries to discuss ways nations can try to stop Israel’s offensive.
The United Nations’s special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian Territories has said that it is time for nations around the world to take concrete actions to stop Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese spoke to delegates from 30 countries meeting in Colombia’s capital, Bogota, on Tuesday to discuss Israel’s brutal assault and ways nations can try to stop the offensive in the besieged enclave.
Many of the participating nations have described Israel’s war on Gaza as a genocide against the Palestinians.
More than 58,000 people have been killed since Israel launched the assault in October 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israeli forces have also imposed several total blockades on the territory throughout the war, pushing Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to the brink of starvation.
“Each state must immediately review and suspend all ties with the State of Israel … and ensure its private sector does the same,” Albanese said. “The Israeli economy is structured to sustain the occupation that has now turned genocidal.”
The two-day conference organised by Colombia and South Africa is being attended mostly by developing nations, although Spain, Ireland and China have also sent delegates.
The conference is co-chaired by South Africa and Colombia, which last year suspended coal exports to Israeli power plants. It includes the participation of members of The Hague Group, a coalition of eight countries that earlier this year pledged to cut military ties with Israel and comply with an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
For decades, South Africa’s governing African National Congress party has compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank with its own history of oppression under the harsh apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Black people to areas called “homelands”, before ending in 1994.
The gathering comes as the European Union weighs various measures against Israel, which include a ban on imports from illegal Israeli settlements, an arms embargo and individual sanctions against Israeli officials who are found to be blocking a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Colombian Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Mauricio Jaramillo said on Monday that the nations participating in the Bogota meeting, which also include Qatar and Turkiye, will be discussing diplomatic and judicial measures to put more pressure on Israel to cease its attacks.
The Colombian official described Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as an affront to the international order.
“This is not just about Palestine,” Jaramillo said in a news conference. “It is about defending international law and the right to self-determination.”
Special rapporteur Albanese’s comments echoed remarks she made earlier on Tuesday addressed to the EU. The bloc’s foreign ministers had been meeting in Brussels to discuss possible action against Israel.
In a series of posts on X, Albanese wrote that the EU is “legally bound” to suspend its association agreement with Israel, citing its obligations under international law.
Albanese said the EU is not only Israel’s top trading partner but also its top investment partner, nearly double the size of the US, and “trade with an economy inextricably tied to occupation, apartheid and genocide is complicity”.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has renewed urgent calls for an immediate Gaza ceasefire, warning the humanitarian crisis has reached “horrific proportions.” Guterres said the level of death and destruction in Gaza has “no parallel in recent times.”
Published On 14 Jul 202514 Jul 2025
At least 10 Palestinians have been killed at a water collection point in central Gaza, six of them children, as famine spreads in the besieged enclave and food and water supplies remain at critically low levels.
Israeli forces on Sunday killed at least 59 Palestinians, 28 of them in Gaza City, as they targeted residential areas and displacement camps across Gaza, medical and local sources told Al Jazeera.
The attack on the water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, which also wounded 16 people, came as the Israeli military steps up attacks as it prepares to force the entire population of Gaza into a concentration zone in the south.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said there is a water crisis across the Gaza Strip.
“Even though water is not suitable for drinking as most of the time it’s contaminated, thirst is pushing people to these areas,” he said, referring to Nuseirat.
“This is not the first time it’s happening. This is close to 10 times and just in the past few months when people were directly and deliberately targeted as they were trying to get water.”
Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza killed at least 110 Palestinians on Saturday, including 34 people waiting for food at the Israeli- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution site in Rafah.
Mahmoud said nearly 800 Palestinians have been killed since the GHF began distributing food parcels in Gaza at the end of May through its “monopoly of humanitarian aid distribution”, pushing aside other efficient, more organised and trusted organisations, including the United Nations.
“A person can pick up a food parcel for their family, but that is not nearly enough to feed hungry children and hungry family members, and that’s the tragedy,” he said.
“People are forced to make these dangerous trips from northern Gaza, from Gaza City, all the way to Rafah city. They walk for 12 to 15km [7.5 to 9 miles], and it takes them a whole day. Some do that at night, sleeping inside bombed-out buildings, to get there as early as possible. Despite all of these efforts to get there as early as possible, they are met with live ammunition and deliberate shooting by Israeli forces.”
At least 67 children have died of hunger in Gaza since October 2023, Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Saturday.
Furthermore, UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, warned of a sharp rise in malnutrition cases as Israel’s blockade of the coastal enclave entered its 103rd day.
In a statement, the agency said one of its clinics in Gaza has seen an increase in the number of malnutrition cases since March when the Israeli siege started. “UNRWA hasn’t been allowed to bring in any humanitarian aid since,” it said.
The warnings came as Israeli forces continued to target starving Palestinians.
On Sunday, an Israeli warplane struck a house in the al-Sawarkah area west of the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing 10 people.
In the northern Gaza Strip, six Palestinians were killed and others injured when an Israeli warplane bombed a house in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City.
Five others were killed and several more injured in a separate air strike that hit a house on Hamid Street in western Gaza City.
In the al-Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City, a girl and another person were killed and several injured when Israeli forces bombed a home there.
In southern Gaza, Nasser Medical Complex medics confirmed the deaths of three people after an Israeli strike on a displacement tent in the al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis city.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces blew up several residential buildings in the Tuffah neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City.
The strikes came amid an apparent deadlock in a week of indirect talks in Qatar between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas for a ceasefire to halt the 21-month war.
Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a genocidal offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023, killing more than 58,000 Palestinians so far, most of them women and children.
Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people in Gaza have been forcibly displaced at least once during the war, which has created dire humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian territory.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Demolition operations being conducted by Israel in Gaza’s southern Rafah Governorate have been stepped up sharply, an investigation by Al Jazeera’s Sanad investigations unit has found.
Israel’s defence ministry has announced a plan to relocate 600,000 people into what observers say would be “concentration camps” in the area in southern Gaza, with plans to expand this to the Strip’s entire population.
Sanad’s analysis of satellite imagery up to July 4, 2025, shows the number of demolished buildings in Rafah rising to about 28,600, up from 15,800 on April 4, 2025, according to data from the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT).
This means that approximately 12,800 buildings were destroyed between early April and early July alone – a marked acceleration in demolitions that has coincided with Israel’s new push into Rafah launched in late March 2025.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, told reporters on Monday that an initial 600,000 Palestinians living in the coastal al-Mawasi area would be transferred to Rafah, the location for what he called a new “humanitarian city” for Palestinians, within 60 days of any agreed ceasefire deal.
According to Katz, the entire civilian population of Gaza – more than 2 million people – will eventually be relocated to this southern city.
A proposal seen by Reuters carrying the name of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) detailed plans for a “Humanitarian Transit Area” in which Gaza residents would “temporarily reside, deradicalise, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so”.
The minister said Israel hopes to encourage Palestinians to “voluntarily emigrate” from the Gaza Strip to other countries, adding that this plan “should be fulfilled”.
He also stressed that the plan would not be run by the Israeli army, but by international bodies, without specifying which organisations would be implementing it.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) – which has been banned by Israel – warned against the latest mass forced displacement plan.
“This would de facto create massive concentration camps at the border with Egypt for the Palestinians, displaced over and over across generations,” he said, adding that it would “deprive Palestinians of any prospects of a better future in their homeland”.
Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg told Al Jazeera that the plan was “for all facts and purposes a concentration camp” for Palestinians in southern Gaza, meaning that Israel is committing “what is an overt crime against humanity under international humanitarian law”.
“It should be taken very seriously,” he said, and questioned the feasibility of the task of “concentrating the Palestinian population in a locked city where they would be let in but not let out”.
For now, Rafah, which was once home to an estimated 275,000 people, lies largely in ruins. The scale of Israeli destruction since April this year is particularly apparent when examining specific neighbourhoods of Rafah.
Since Israel breached the last ceasefire agreement with Hamas on March 19, its forces have directly targeted several institutions.
Sanad has identified six educational facilities that have been destroyed, including some located in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood, west of Rafah City.
However, satellite data shows that several key facilities have been spared; 40 educational institutions – 39 schools and one university – are intact. Eight medical centres also remain standing.
Sanad has concluded that this noticeable pattern of selective destruction strongly suggests that the preservation of these facilities in Rafah is unlikely to be a coincidence.
Rather, it indicates that Israel aims to use these sites in the next phase of its proposed plan to displace the entire population of Gaza to Rafah.
The spared educational and medical buildings already serve as critical humanitarian shelters for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians.
The war’s initial wave of displacement from northern to southern Gaza resulted in an overwhelming influx of people into the 154 UN facilities across all five governorates of the Gaza Strip, including schools, warehouses and health centres.
According to UNRWA’s Situation Report in January 2024, these facilities were by then sheltering approximately 1.4 million displaced people, an average of 9,000 people per facility, while an additional 500,000 people were receiving support from other services.
The report also notes that in some shelters, the number exceeds 12,000, four times their intended capacity.
According to UNRWA’s latest report on July 5 this year, 1.9 million people remain displaced in Gaza.
Satellite imagery analysis of the Rafah area from May 2024 to May 2025 reveals that Israeli forces carried out a two-phase operation in Rafah, including in areas which had been designated for humanitarian aid distribution.
Phase One began with the launch of a military offensive in May 2024, during which most buildings in targeted zones in most of eastern Rafah and parts of western Rafah were demolished.
Phase Two, which began in April this year, involves the continued demolition of remaining residential buildings. This phase also included land levelling and the construction of access roads to facilitate the operation of these aid centres.
British Israeli analyst Daniel Levy told Al Jazeera that Israel intends to use Rafah “as a staging post to ethnically cleanse, physically remove, as many Palestinians as possible from the landscape”.
The distribution of aid, which is now under the monopoly of the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is run by private US contractors guarded by Israeli troops, is also “a premeditated part of a plan of social-demographic engineering to move Palestinians – to relocate, displace and kettle them,” Levy said.
Katz’s announcement came a day after Netanyahu arrived in the US to meet US President Donald Trump, as the latter pushes for a deal to end the war in Gaza and bring back the remaining Hamas-held captives.
Netanyahu stressed his opposition to any deal that would ultimately leave Hamas in power in Gaza. “Twenty living hostages remain and 30 who are fallen. I am determined, we are determined, to bring back all of them,” he told reporters before boarding his plane. He added, however: “We are determined to ensure that Gaza will no longer constitute a threat to Israel.”
“That means one thing: eliminating Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. Hamas will not be there,” he said.
An Israeli negotiating team was in Doha this week for indirect talks with Hamas. Trump said on Tuesday that Israel had accepted the latest ceasefire proposal, which provides for the release, in five separate stages, of 10 living and 18 dead captives, in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire, an influx of humanitarian aid to the Strip and the release of many Palestinian detainees currently held in Israeli prisons.
Hamas gave what it called a “positive” response to the proposal, stressing its reservations about the temporary nature of the proposed truce and making some demands.
Netanyahu’s office called Hamas’s stipulations, concerning aid mechanisms and Israel’s military withdrawal, “unacceptable”.
A sticking point remains Israel’s control of the Morag Corridor, just north of Rafah, which would allow Israel to control and isolate Rafah, facilitating the implementation of the mass expulsion plan.
In his remarks on Monday, Katz said Israel would use a potential 60-day ceasefire to establish the new “humanitarian zone” south of the corridor, and that the army would hold nearly 70 percent of Gaza’s territory.
Gideon Levy, Israeli columnist for Haaretz, told Al Jazeera negotiations were unlikely to result in more than a temporary ceasefire, whith the release of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners, as “Netanyahu doesn’t want an end to the war.”
While Trump could pressure his ally into a permanent deal, the US president does not seem inclined to pull his weight, observers say.
“The end game is an ethnic cleansing,” Levy said. “Will it be implemented? I have my doubts.
“But they are already preparing the area, and if the world is passive and the US gives its green light, it might work.”
Nearly half the global population has also been exposed to dust levels exceeding WHO safety thresholds.
A new report by the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has found that sand and dust storms are leading to “premature deaths” due to climate change, with more than 330 million people in 150 countries affected.
On Saturday, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) marked the International Day of Combating Sand and Dust Storms and its designation of 2025 – 2034 as the UN Decade on Combating Sand and Dust Storms.
The storms “are fast becoming one of the most overlooked yet far-reaching global challenges of our time”, said Assembly President Philemon Yang. “They are driven by climate change, land degradation and unsustainable practices.”
The secretary-general of WMO, Celeste Saulo, said on Thursday that sand and dust storms do not just mean “dirty windows and hazy skies. They harm the health and quality of life of millions of people and cost many millions of dollars through disruption to air and ground transport, on agriculture and on solar energy production.”
Airborne particles from these storms contribute to 7 million premature deaths annually, said Yang, adding that they trigger respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and reduce crop yields by up to 25%, causing hunger and migration.
“About 2 billion tonnes of dust are emitted yearly, equivalent to 300 Great Pyramids of Giza” in Egypt, Laura Paterson, the WMO’s UN representative, told the UNGA.
More than 80% of the world’s dust comes from the deserts in North Africa and the Middle East, added Paterson, but it has a global effect because the particles can travel hundreds and even thousands of kilometres across continents and oceans.
Undersecretary-General Rola Dashti, head of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, told the assembly the storms’ economic costs are “staggering”.
In the Middle East and North Africa, it costs $150bn, roughly 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), annually to deal with dust and sand storms, she said.
“This spring alone, the Arab region experienced acute disruption,” Dashti said, citing severe storms in Iraq that overwhelmed hospitals with respiratory cases and storms in Kuwait and Iran that forced school and office closures.
Dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa has travelled as far as the Caribbean and Florida, she said. For the United States, dust and wind erosion caused $154bn in damage in 2017, a quadrupling of the amount since 1995, according to a study in the scientific journal Nature.
The WMO and World Health Organization also warned that the health burden is rising sharply, with 3.8 billion people – nearly half the global population – exposed to dust levels exceeding WHO safety thresholds between 2018 and 2022, up from 2.9 billion people affected between 2003 and 2007.
Added to the World Heritage list are two prisons: Tuol Sleng and M-13, as well as the execution site Choeung Ek.
Three notorious locations used by Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime as torture and execution sites to perpetrate the genocide of Year Zero five decades ago have been added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list.
Two prisons and an execution site were inscribed on the list by the United Nations cultural agency on Friday during the 47th Session of the World Heritage Committee in Paris.
It coincided with the 50th anniversary of the rise to power by the communist Khmer Rouge, which caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians through starvation, torture and mass executions during a four-year reign of violence from 1975 to 1979 before it was brought to an end by an invasion from neighbouring Vietnam.
UNESCO’s World Heritage list lists sites considered important to humanity and includes the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India and Cambodia’s Angkor archaeological complex.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet issued a message on Friday directing people to beat drums simultaneously across the country on Sunday morning to mark the UNESCO listing.
🔴 BREAKING!
New inscription on the @UNESCO #WorldHeritage List: Cambodian Memorial Sites: From centres of repression to places of peace and reflection, #Cambodia 🇰🇭.
➡️ https://t.co/seTyyVu3sT #47WHC pic.twitter.com/SPl7zlxeFh
— UNESCO 🏛️ #Education #Sciences #Culture 🇺🇳 (@UNESCO) July 11, 2025
“May this inscription serve as a lasting reminder that peace must always be defended,” Hun Manet said in a video message aired by state-run television TVK. “From the darkest chapters of history, we can draw strength to build a better future for humanity.”
Two sites added to the list are in the capital, Phnom Penh – the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Choeung Ek Genocide Centre.
Tuol Sleng is a former high school that was converted into a notorious prison known as S-21, where an estimated 15,000 people were imprisoned and tortured.
Today, the site is a space for commemoration and education, housing the black-and-white mugshots of its many victims and the preserved equipment used by Khmer Rouge tormentors.
The UNESCO inscription was Cambodia’s first nomination for a modern and non-classical archaeological site and is among the first in the world to be submitted as a site associated with recent conflict, Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts said in a statement on Friday.
Choeung Ek – a former Chinese cemetery – was a notorious “killing field” where S-21 prisoners were executed nightly. The story of the atrocities committed there is the focus of the 1984 film “The Killing Fields”, based on the experiences of New York Times photojournalist Dith Pran and correspondent Sydney Schanberg.
More than 6,000 bodies were exhumed from at least 100 mass graves at the ground in the early 1980s, according to Cambodian government documents filed with UNESCO.
Every year, hundreds hold remembrance prayers in front of the site’s memorial displaying victims’ skulls, and watch students stage dramatic re-enactments of the Khmer Rouge’s bloody crimes.
Another prison site, known as M-13 and located in a rural area in central Kampong Chhnang province, was one of the most important prisons of the early Khmer Rouge, where its cadres “invented and tested various methods of interrogation, torture and killing” but is today only a patch of derelict land.
A special tribunal sponsored by the UN, costing $337m and working over 16 years, only convicted three key Khmer Rouge figures, including S-21 chief torturer Kaing Guek Eav, before ceasing operations in 2022.
Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge regime, died in 1998 before he could be brought to trial.
UN cultural organisation this week announces its choice of sites to be granted World Heritage status.
The United Nations cultural organisation has added a remote Aboriginal site featuring one million carvings that potentially date back 50,000 years to its World Heritage list.
Located on the Burrup peninsula in Western Australia, Murujuga is home to the Mardudunera people, who declared themselves “overjoyed” when UNESCO gave the ancient site a coveted place on its list on Friday.
“These carvings are what our ancestors left here for us to learn and keep their knowledge and keep our culture thriving through these sacred sites,” said Mark Clifton, a member of the Aboriginal delegation meeting with UNESCO representatives in Paris.
Environmental and Indigenous organisations argue that the presence of mining groups emitting industrial emissions has already caused damage to the ancient site.
Benjamin Smith, a rock art specialist at the University of Western Australia, said Murujuga was “possibly the most important rock art site in the world”, but that mining activity was causing the rock art to “break down”.
“We should be looking after it,” he said.
Australian company Woodside Energy, which operates an industrial complex in the area, told news agency AFP that it recognised Murujuga as “one of Australia’s most culturally significant landscapes” and that it was taking “proactive steps … to ensure we manage our impacts responsibly”.
Delegation leader Raelene Cooper said the UNESCO listing sent “a clear signal to the Australian Government and Woodside that things need to change”.
Making the UNESCO’s heritage list does not in itself trigger protection for a site, but can help pressure national governments into taking action.
Cameroon’s Mandara Mountains and Malawi’s Mount Mulanje were also added to the latest edition of the UNESCO World Heritage list.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay has presented Africa as a priority during her two terms in office, although the continent remains underrepresented.
The Diy-Gid-Biy landscape of the Mandara Mountains, in the far north of Cameroon, consists of archaeological sites, probably created between the 12th and 17th centuries.
Malawi’s Mount Mulanje, in the south of the country, is considered a sacred place inhabited by gods, spirits and ancestors.
UNESCO is also considering applications from two other African countries, namely the Gola Tiwai forests in Sierra Leone and the biosphere reserve of the Bijagos Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau.
On Friday, UNESCO also listed three notorious Cambodian torture and execution sites used by the Khmer Rouge regime to perpetrate genocide 50 years ago.
The US and other Western countries have been reducing their funding, prioritising their defence spending instead.
The plight of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh could rapidly deteriorate further unless more funding can be secured for critical assistance services, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
Bangladesh has registered its biggest influx of Myanmar’s largest Muslim minority over the past 18 months since a mass exodus from an orchestrated campaign of death, rape and persecution nearly a decade ago by Myanmar’s military.
“There is a huge gap in terms of what we need and what resources are available. These funding gaps will affect the daily living of Rohingya refugees as they depend on humanitarian support on a daily basis for food, health and education,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Babar Baloch told reporters in Geneva on Friday.
The humanitarian sector has been roiled by funding reductions from major donors, led by the United States under President Donald Trump and other Western countries, as they prioritise defence spending prompted by growing concerns over Russia and China.
Baloch added: “With the acute global funding crisis, the critical needs of both newly arrived refugees and those already present will be unmet, and essential services for the whole Rohingya refugee population are at risk of collapsing unless additional funds are secured.”
If not enough funding is secured, health services will be severely disrupted by September, and by December, essential food assistance will stop, said the UNHCR, which says that its appeal for $255m has only been 35 percent funded.
In March, the World Food Programme announced that “severe funding shortfalls” for Rohingya were forcing a cut in monthly food vouchers from $12.50 to $6 per person.
More than one million Rohingya have been crammed into camps in southeastern Bangladesh, the world’s largest refugee settlement. Most fled the brutal crackdown in 2017 by Myanmar’s military, although some have been there for longer.
These camps cover an area of just 24 square kilometres (nine square miles) and have become “one of the world’s most densely populated places”, said Baloch.
Continued violence and persecution against the Rohingya, a mostly Muslim minority in mainly Buddhist Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, have kept forcing thousands to seek protection across the border in Bangladesh, according to the UNHCR. At least 150,000 Rohingya refugees have arrived in Cox’s Bazar in southeast Bangladesh over the past 18 months.
The Rohingya refugees also face institutionalised discrimination in Myanmar and most are denied citizenship.
“Targeted violence and persecution in Rakhine State and the ongoing conflict in Myanmar have continued to force thousands of Rohingya to seek protection in Bangladesh,” said Baloch. “This movement of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh, spread over months, is the largest from Myanmar since 2017, when some 750,000 fled the deadly violence in their native Rakhine State.”
Baloch also hailed Muslim-majority Bangladesh for generously hosting Rohingya refugees for generations.
Lawyers for victims of human rights abuses committed during Peru’s decades-long armed conflict have pledged to appeal to international bodies to overturn a law passed by the country’s Congress, which would grant amnesty to prosecuted military and police members, as well as other forces.
“We’re not only going to the domestic arena to seek its invalidation, but we’ve already taken some action at the international level,” lawyer Gloria Cano, director of the Pro Human Rights Association, said during a news conference on Thursday.
A congressional commission on Wednesday approved the bill granting amnesty to members of the armed forces, national police and local self-defence committees, said legislator Alejandro Cavero, third vice president of the country’s Congress.
Cano also said her association had already alerted the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and planned to go to the United Nations, as well.
After the Peruvian Congress passed the bill, Volker Turk, the UN’s national human rights coordinator, said on X that “impunity does not hide the crime, it magnifies it.”
Amnesty International earlier urged the legislature to side with victims and reject the bill. “The right to justice of thousands of victims of extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, torture, and sexual violence would be violated,” the rights group said on X.
A coalition of human rights organisations in Peru said the new law could wipe out 156 convictions and another 600 cases that are being prosecuted.
The law, which awaits President Dina Boluarte’s approval, benefits uniformed personnel who were accused, are still being investigated or are being tried for crimes stemming from their participation in the country’s armed conflict from 1980 to 2000 against left-wing rebels. Boluarte has not made any comment on the amnesty, even before its passage.
The bill was presented by Congressman Fernando Rospigliosi, from the right-wing Popular Force party of Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the late former leader Alberto Fujimori.
Fujimori’s decade as president from 1990 was marked by ruthless governance.
He was jailed for atrocities – including the massacre of civilians by the army – but released from prison in 2023 on humanitarian grounds.
The new law specifies that a humanitarian amnesty will be granted to people more than 70 years old who have been sentenced or served a prison sentence.
Critics have warned that the legislation would hinder the search for truth about the period of violent conflict, which pitted state forces against Shining Path and Tupac Amaru rebels, and killed about 70,000 people.
“Granting amnesty to military and police officers cannot be a reason for impunity,” Congressman Alex Flores of the Socialist Party said during debate on the bill.
There have been numerous attempts in recent years to shield the military and police from prosecution in Peru for crimes committed during the conflict – but opponents of amnesty have found success before at international bodies.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has at least twice previously declared amnesty laws in Peru invalid for violating the right to justice and breaching international human rights standards.
Human rights advocates believe that Peru’s membership of the Inter-American System of Human Rights and the obligations this entails make the amnesty law unconstitutional.
Amnesty laws passed in 1995 in Peru shielded military and police personnel from prosecution for human rights abuses committed during the conflict, including massacres, torture, and forced disappearances.
Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that the majority of the conflict’s victims were Indigenous Peruvians caught between security forces and the Shining Path. It also found that there are more than 4,000 clandestine graves across the country as a result of the two decades of political violence.
In August 2024, Peru adopted a statute of limitations for crimes against humanity committed before 2002, shutting down hundreds of investigations into alleged crimes committed during the conflict.
The initiative benefitted the late Fujimori and 600 prosecuted military personnel.