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Relatives of the deceased mourned their loss during the funeral ceremony at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital as at least seven Palestinians are killed and several others injured in an Israeli attack on the al-Maghazi refugee camp, in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on October 4, 2025. [Abdalhkem Abu Riash – Anadolu Agency]
The Israeli army killed at least five Palestinians, including a young girl, and injured others in ongoing attacks across the Gaza Strip on Saturday, ignoring US President Donald Trump’s call for an immediate halt to the bombardment, Anadolu reports.
Trump had urged Israel to “stop bombing Gaza immediately” after Hamas announced its willingness to release Israeli captives according to his proposal, stating he believed the movement was “ready for lasting peace.”
Medical sources and eyewitnesses told Anadolu that despite the call, Israeli forces struck two homes in Gaza City and in the central Nuseirat refugee camp, leaving at least five dead and several others injured.
Israeli air and artillery strikes also continued across Gaza City and Khan Younis in the south, with intensified demolition operations using drones and explosives targeting residential buildings in multiple areas of Gaza throughout the night.
Since October 2023, Israeli bombardment has killed nearly 66,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The UN and rights groups have repeatedly warned that the enclave is being rendered uninhabitable, with starvation and disease spreading rapidly.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAGenocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
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Spain says will ‘never recognize’ unilateral annexation of Gaza, West Bank
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares attends the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers at the EU Council headquarter in Brussels, Belgium on 19 February, 2024 [Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency]
Spain’s foreign minister said Monday that his country and the European Union will “never recognize” any unilateral annexation of the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, condemning Israel’s military escalation in the territory, Anadolu reports.
“I spoke out immediately, I firmly condemned it: neither we nor the European Union will ever recognize it,” Jose Manuel Albares told Spanish broadcaster RTVE. “We will never recognize this illegal unilateral annexation of Gaza or the West Bank, where illegal settlements are advancing.”
Albares stressed that what the Middle East needs right now is the security of the Palestinian people, and the security of the people of Israel.
“This escalation in Israel’s military occupation of Gaza will only bring more death, more suffering, further impede the release of the hostages, and destabilize the Middle East,” he warned.
He urged for “a permanent ceasefire, an end to this blockade that Israel is imposing on Gaza, this induced famine, a massive influx of humanitarian aid, the immediate release of all the hostages, and a definitive peace, which is the same as establishing a two-state solution.”
Israel is already facing mounting condemnation for its genocidal war on Gaza, where it has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave and led to deaths by starvation.
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Relatives and loved ones of Palestinians, who lost their lives in an Israeli attack on the ez-Zeytun neighborhood, mourn the deceased as the bodies are being taken to El Ehli Baptist Hospital for funeral in eastern Gaza City, Gaza on August 6, 2025. [Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency]
The United Nations said on Thursday it opposes expanding the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said in New York: “We stand firmly against any escalation of the conflict. It’s already been extremely ruinous.”
He noted that the fighting has already claimed “more than 60,000 people” over nearly two years of war.
Haq warned of “the prospect of huge levels of humanitarian suffering, including potential starvations that could worsen if the conflict gets worse.”
His remarks came as Israel’s security cabinet convened later that day to discuss further steps in the Gaza war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his support for the full occupation of Gaza, despite opposition from military leaders, amid concerns that intensifying the fighting could endanger the remaining hostages held by Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during an event at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Jerusalem on July 27, 2025. (Photo: Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)
“They’re talking about occupying areas that are packed with so many people,” said one Palestinian civilian. “If they do that, there will be incalculable killing.”
Ahead of a meeting with his security ministers, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed once again Thursday that his government plans to take control of the entire Gaza Strip—”a direct assault on international law,” as one group said this week, and one that his own military leaders have opposed.
In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu was asked whether his government aims to take over all of Gaza, 75% of which it now claims to control, as officials have stated this week.
“We intend to,” the prime minister said, saying his country would take control of the enclave “in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza, and to pass it to civilian governance that is not Hamas and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel.”
Netanyahu convened a security meeting after the interview, seeking approval for his plan to expand Israel’s offensive in Gaza to areas in the central part of the territory where hostages are believed to be held, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have largely avoided since it began bombarding Gaza in October 2023.
The assault has forcibly displaced nearly the entire population of 2.1 million Palestinians, killed more than 61,000, and injured more than 150,000 as Israel’s near-total blockade has pushed the enclave toward famine and starved to death nearly 200 people, including at least 96 children.
The prime minister did not delve into specifics about the plan, but claimed Israel does not “want to govern” Gaza.
“We don’t want to be there as a governing body,” he said. “We want to hand it over to Arab forces.”
IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has expressed opposition to the proposal, and three military officials toldThe New York Times Thursday that the military would prefer a new cease-fire deal rather than intensifying fighting.
Cease-fire talks between Hamas and Israel have recently hit a deadlock.
Setting up a system of occupation in Gaza like the one Israel controls in the West Bank would take “up to five years of sustained combat,” officials told the Times.
Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, explained how Netanyahu and his Cabinet, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, likely plan to carry out “the final phase of the genocide” in Gaza, having recently set aside funds “for winning the war” in the enclave.
“Israel will move to annihilate the three remaining areas that haven’t been wiped out fully yet: Gaza City, Deir Al-Balah, and the central refugee camps (i.e. Nuseirat),” said Shehada. “Those three areas have been heavily bombed, invaded by the IDF, shelled nonstop but they have not been depopulated and fully razed to the ground like Rafah, Khan Younis, Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, etc.”
Netanyahu just declared plans to fully occupy all of Gaza, 2 days after his Finance Minister quietly allocated 3 billion shekels for a Gaza "security box"
This is the final phase of the genocide! Israel will move to annihilate the 3 remaining areas that haven't been wiped out… pic.twitter.com/q12l76tXRZ
Palestinian-American analyst Yousef Munayyer denounced Netanyahu’s stated plan as “stupid, criminal, and horrifying.”
Palestinians have expressed fears this week that the latest Israeli proposal would kill far more civilians in Gaza as the IDF moves into areas where hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to move.
“They’re talking about occupying areas that are packed with so many people,” Mukhlis al-Masri, a 34-year-old Palestinian who fled to Khan Younis from his home in northern Gaza, told the Times. “If they do that, there will be incalculable killing. The situation will be more dangerous than anyone can imagine.”
Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst on Israel at the International Crisis Group, said Netanyahu’s comments on Thursday included “a slip, but a revealing one”: that Israel wants to “enable the population to be free of Gaza” following the IDF’s decimation of the enclave.
Netanyahu said "enable the population to be free of Gaza." That clearly a slip, but a revealing one, so far as Israel's destruction of Gaza and its people has indeed dislocated them from life in Gaza. https://t.co/8yBlVGeRlX
“Netanyahu’s threat to ‘take control’ of all of Gaza is like his threat in 2020 to annex the West Bank,” said Zonszein. “Israel already controls and destroyed most of Gaza, and already de facto annexed the West Bank. So while Palestinians will suffer more, Israeli strategy hasn’t changed one bit.”
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz holds a press conference in Berlin, Germany on July 18, 2025. [Halil Sağırkaya – Anadolu Agency]
More than 200 prominent German celebrities and journalists on Thursday urged Chancellor Friedrich Merz to stop arms deliveries to Israel and to impose further sanctions on Tel Aviv over its deadly military campaign in Gaza, Anadolu reports.
In an open letter, the group pointed to the suffering of children in the Gaza Strip and stressed: “We, too, condemn the horrific crimes of Hamas in the strongest possible terms. But no crime legitimizes the collective punishment of millions of innocent people in the most brutal way.”
The letter added that in the Gaza Strip, children who are not part of the war yet bear its burden are starving and dying.
“More than 17,000 have already been killed. Hundreds of thousands are injured, traumatized, displaced, and starving.
The signatories – including actors Liv Lisa Fries (Babylon Berlin), Katharina Thalbach (Miss Merkel), and Benno Furmann (North Face) – acknowledged Merz’s criticism of the Israeli government in recent days. However, they urged the chancellor to take further steps, including halting all German arms exports to Israel, supporting the suspension of the EU Association Agreement with Israel, and demanding an immediate ceasefire and unhindered access for humanitarian aid.
“These steps are deeply aligned with European values and would make it unmistakably clear to the Israeli government that even its closest allies can no longer tolerate the suffering and that words are no longer enough,” the open letter said.
On Monday, Merz said his government is considering stepping up pressure on Israel over the dire humanitarian situation in the enclave.
The German government “reserves the right” to take concrete measures to increase pressure on Israel to improve “the catastrophic situation” in the Gaza Strip, he said.
He added that the Security Cabinet had not yet made any decisions on the matter but had discussed options.
“We reserve the right, however, to take such steps,” he stressed.
![Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares attends the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers at the EU Council headquarter in Brussels, Belgium on 19 February, 2024 [Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/AA-20240219-33749880-33749846-EU_FOREIGN_MINISTERS_MEETING-scaled-e1708426205524.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)
