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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.
A 4-year-old Palestinian girl, lost her life due to malnutrition and lack of treatment due to the war on Gaza, August 2024. Photo: wiki commons
The death toll of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, 2023, exceeded 59,100, including over 100 starved to death, and more than 1000 assassinated at aid distribution centers.
Almost 22 months into its genocidal aggression on the Gaza Strip, Israel has carried out all types of massacres on the population of the besieged enclave, including deadly airstrikes, starvation, and the targeted killing of aid seekers.
Every civilian space in Gaza is a target for Israeli warplanes, even kindergartens
Since October 7, 2023, non-stop deadly airstrikes have been carried out by Israel across war-torn Gaza, targeting densely populated residential areas, places of worship, areas already designated as “safe zones“, hospitals, schools sheltering displaced people, and, most recently, a kindergarten.
On Monday, July 21, Israeli fighter jets struck a kindergarten in Gaza city. Several people were reported injured in the horrific assault. Footage circulated via several media outlets, showing terrorized children being evacuated from the building.
Multiple other Israeli airstrikes were launched that same day on other civilian sites in Gaza city. The central areas of Deir Al-Balah, Nuseirat Refugee camp, and Wadi Gaza were also subjected to aerial raids.
The southern city of Khan Younis, and the northern city of Jabalia were also among the areas hit by Israeli warplanes and drones. The series of strikes carried out on Monday resulted in the death of dozens of Palestinian people.
IOF continues to shoot and abduct civilians in Gaza
A number of Palestinians were killed on Monday by Israeli gunfire in two separate offensives in Gaza. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) shot dead a Palestinian woman in her home in Deir al-Balah.
Meanwhile, a number of civilians were shot dead by Israeli special forces during a raid near the Red Cross Hospital in the southern city of Rafah.
Journalist Tamer Al-Zaanin was killed, while his fellow colleague Ibrahim Abu Ashiba sustained injuries in the lethal attack that resulted in the abduction of senior Palestinian health official Dr. Marwan Al-Hams.
Dr. Al-Hams is the director of field hospitals in the Gaza Strip, and the head of Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza denounced the abduction of Al-Hams as “a grave violation” of international humanitarian law.
For its part, Gaza’s Government Media Office described the operation as “a full-fledged war crime”.
Israel has used starvation as a weapon of genocide
The last few days saw a drastic increase in the number of people who died in Gaza due to malnutrition and starvation, which resulted from Israel’s aid blockade.
At least 101 people have been starved to death, including 80 children, throughout nearly 22 months of Israel’s brutal war. Most of these fatalities were reported in recent weeks, according to Palestinian health officials.
The humanitarian disaster sharply escalated in early March 2025, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a total blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged strip. However, Israel has used starvation as a weapon against civilians from the beginning of the genocide.
In a report published on May 28, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that Israel has “deliberately engineered and implemented a systematic starvation policy” since it started its genocidal aggression on the Gaza strip on October 7, 2023.
The Geneva-based human rights organization accused Israel of “using hunger as a weapon of genocide against civilians”, and designing starvation tactics to “collectively degrade and completely subjugate” the Palestinian people in Gaza.
As a result of mounting international pressure against the expansion of the military operation and the aid blockade on Gaza, Netanyahu decided to allow a limited quantity of food into the enclave in late May.
However, the distribution of that minimal aid was controlled by the infamous US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has turned food distribution sites into death traps, where at least 1000 people have been massacred.
Local militias of mercenaries were also recruited by Israel, to loot UN aid under IOF protection and sell some on the illicit market. These militias are even accused of being complicit in massacring hundreds of starved people at GHF’s aid delivery points.
Widespread international condemnation of the catastrophic situation in Gaza
United Nations
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the mass shootings and killings of aid seekers in Gaza as “an atrocious and inhumane act”.
Guterres deplored the growing reports about children and adults suffering from malnutrition, and “the accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing.”
28 countries call for an immediate end to Gaza war
A joint statement was signed on Monday by the foreign ministers of 28 nations, calling for an immediate end to the aggression on Gaza.
The signatory countries, which include Israeli allies, are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus, Greece, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.
“We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now,” the statement reads.
“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity. We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid,” the statement continues.
“The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law,” the ministers of the signatory countries warned.
Death toll of people killed in Gaza since October 2023 exceeds 59,100
Gaza’s Health Ministry announced on Tuesday that at least 59,106 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since it began its genocidal aggression on the besieged strip in October 2023.
The tally includes those starved to death, and aid seekers who were assassinated at food delivery centers.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect 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.UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Ghassan Abu-Sittah and other health workers hold press conference after Israeli attacks on Gaza’s hospitals, October 2023. Source: Ghassan Abu-Sittah/X
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban on activity imposed on renowned Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful.
The Palestine Congress in Berlin, which was organized in mid-April of last year, was violently shut down by the police on its first day, just minutes after it began. The pretext for this action, which was deemed unlawful by attorneys, was a live-stream of Palestinian historian Dr. Salman Abu Sitta.
His nephew, the doctor Ghassan Abu-Sittah, was banned from entering Germany on the morning of April 12, 2024. He had arrived on a flight from the UK, was detained and questioned for hours at Berlin airport, and then deported. He was also told that he was banned from practicing any political activities in Germany for the month of April, even from abroad. The organizers of the conference are taking legal action against the dissolution of the event, the trial of which is ongoing.
Witness to the genocide wins in Berlin
But Ghassan Abu-Sittah won a victory on Tuesday, July 15, at Berlin’s Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht). From the UK, the doctor had filed a lawsuit against the actions of the German authorities. The surgeon and rector of the University of Glasgow has worked as a doctor in a dozen war and crisis zones over the course of his life, including the Gaza Strip. Shortly after the genocide began in October 2023, he went there again as part of a “Doctors Without Borders” mission to provide aid at Al-Shifa Hospital. The hospital was repeatedly attacked and ultimately destroyed by the Israeli army in November 2023 and again in March/April 2024. Israeli forces massacred hundreds of doctors, patients, and refugees.
The court’s judge ruled that the ban on activity imposed on Abu-Sittah was unlawful. According to a spokeswoman for the court, there was no sufficient evidence that Abu-Sittah’s statements posed a threat to Germany’s constitutional order or public safety. In particular, the authorities were unable to produce any statements by the renowned doctor that referred positively to the Palestinian resistance’s “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation or even to possible war crimes committed by the Palestinian resistance. Even if such a danger had existed, a preventive ban on the doctor’s activities would have been disproportionate.
The spokesperson also pointed out that Abu-Sittah was heard as an eyewitness to the genocide in the International Criminal Court proceedings against Israeli government politicians, and was also announced as such at the Palestine Congress.
Racist repression
His lawyer, Alexander Gorki, explained on request: “The hearing showed that the ban on activities was unlawful from start to finish. What was to be sanctioned via the residency rights were opinions expressed by my client, who knew the situation on the ground in Gaza very well as a Palestinian and a doctor.” The court “put a stop to the abuse of immigration law”. However, the ruling will not prevent the immigration authorities from abusing their power in the future, warns the migration law expert. To counter this, “political pressure is needed”.
In fact, the repressive authorities in Germany have been using all kinds of tricks and legal means for years to bypass the courts and exert pressure on the Palestinian solidarity movement and Palestinians in Germany: from expulsions and deportations, to bans on organizing, employment bans and the cancellation of welfare benefits. Migrants and refugees with a precarious status are particularly affected. Just two weeks ago, on the orders of a court, Musaab Abu Atta, a Palestinian refugee and political activist, was released from four months of custody. The public prosecutor’s office is trying to lock him up again because of an alleged “flight risk”, even though he has a fiancée and a job in Berlin. At the same time, there are indications that they want to deport him to Syria.
Leon Wystrychowski is a former member of the Palästina Solidarität Duisburg (Palestine Solidarity Duisburg, PSDU).
