Closing summary
Gazans gathered on Monday for the funeral of five Al Jazeera staff members and a sixth reporter killed in an Israeli strike, AFP reports. Dozens stood amid bombed-out buildings in the courtyard of Al-Shifa hospital to pay their respects to Anas al-Sharif, a prominent Al Jazeera correspondent aged 28, and four of his colleagues, killed on Sunday.
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres condemned the killing of Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza in an Israeli air strike, his spokesperson said on Monday. “The secretary-general calls for an independent and impartial investigation into these latest killings,” said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
New video footage appears to show the moment a Palestinian activist was killed as an Israeli settler fired toward him during a confrontation with unarmed Palestinians in the occupied West Bank last month, AP reports. The video released Sunday by B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, shows Israeli settler Yinon Levi firing a gun toward the person filming. The footage cuts but the camera keeps rolling as the person moans in pain.
The Foreign Press Association (FPA) has issued a statement expressing its “outrage” over the killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza City. The FPA said in a statement that “the Israeli military has repeatedly labelled Palestinian journalists as militants, often without verifiable evidence”.
Palestinians reported the heaviest bombardments in weeks on Monday in areas east of Gaza City, just hours after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expected to complete a new expanded offensive in the territory “fairly quickly”, Reuters reports.
Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund said on Monday it is terminating contracts with asset managers handling its Israeli investments and has divested parts of its portfolio in the country over the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. The announcement follows an urgent review launched last week following media reports that the fund had built a stake in an Israeli jet engine group that provides services to Israel’s armed forces, including the maintenance of fighter jets.
Israel’s new offensive in Gaza City could take weeks to start, leaving the door open for a ceasefire, officials say, even as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it would get underway “fairly quickly” and end the war with Hamas’ defeat. Two officials who were at a security cabinet meeting on Thursday to approve the plan told Reuters that the evacuation of civilians from affected areas may only be completed by the start of October, giving time for a deal to be pursued.
Talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency will be “technical” and “complicated,” the Islamic Republic’s foreign ministry said ahead of a visit by the nuclear watchdog for the first time since Tehran cut ties with the organisation last month, AP reports.
Italy’s defence minister said in an interview that Israel’s government had “lost its reason and humanity” over Gaza and signalled an openness to potential sanctions, AFP reports.
Gaza’s health ministry said five more people had died of malnutrition and starvation in Gaza in the past 24 hours, Reuters reports. That raised the number of deaths from such causes to 222, including 101 children, since the war began, the ministry said.
Keir Starmer has said he is “gravely concerned” about the repeated targeting of journalists in Gaza, the British prime minister’s spokesperson said on Monday, after the killing of Anas al-Sharif and four colleagues by the IDF.
Emmanuel Macron has condemned Israel’s plans to step up its military operation in Gaza as a “disaster waiting to happen” and proposed an international coalition under a United Nations mandate to stabilise Gaza.
The Western Wall in Jerusalem has been vandalised with graffiti condemning Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, triggering widespread condemnation from religious leaders and politicians, AFP reports. “There is a holocaust in Gaza,” was graffitied in Hebrew on the southern portion of the wall, the holiest site where Jews are allowed to pray.
Qatar’s prime minister and minister for foreign affairs, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani condemned Israel’s killing of six Palestinian journalists, five of whom were working for Al Jazeera, which is headquartered in Qatar and part state-funded.
Greta Thunberg said she and a Palestinian activist group plan to sail a new flotilla loaded with humanitarian aid to Gaza to break the “illegal Israeli siege”, AFP reports.
Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City is “a matter of grave concern,” China’s permanent representative to the UN Fu Cong, said at a weekend meeting on the Palestinian-Israeli issue held by the UN Security Council, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reports.
Three-quarters of UN members have already, or soon plan to, recognise Palestinian statehood, according to a tally by news agency Agence France-Presse.
UN chief Guterres condemns killing of Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza
United Nations secretary-general António Guterres condemned the killing of Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza in an Israeli airstrike, his spokesperson said on Monday.
“The secretary-general calls for an independent and impartial investigation into these latest killings,” said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
“At least 242 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began. Journalists and media workers must be respected, they must be protected and they must be allowed to carry out their work freely, free from fear and free from harassment.”
Updated
The Foreign Press Association (FPA) has issued a statement expressing its “outrage” over the killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza City.
The FPA said in a statement that “the Israeli military has repeatedly labelled Palestinian journalists as militants, often without verifiable evidence”.
“The Israeli government also continues to accuse Palestinian journalists, who have been bravely reporting throughout the war despite the great personal risk involved, of bias,” it added.
The organisation said it was calling on Israel to “cease its attacks on journalists in Gaza and allow journalists to enter and report freely”.
Palestinians inspect the scene after an Israeli airstrike on a journalists’ tent near the Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza city.
Anas al-Sharif, an Al Jazeera reporter, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night. He had prepared for his family to release on his behalf in the event of his death.
The following statement was posthumously published on Anas al-Sharif’s X account, after an attack on a tent for journalists near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
Seven people in total were killed including al-Sharif, the Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, according to Al Jazeera.
Here is an extract from the statement:
This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.
First, peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings. Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabaliya refugee camp. My hope was that Allah would extend my life so I could return with my family and loved ones to our original town of occupied Asqalan (al-Majdal). But Allah’s will came first, and His decree is final.
I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification – so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half.
I entrust you with Palestine – the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls. I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.
Read the statement in full here:
Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund said on Monday it is terminating contracts with asset managers handling its Israeli investments and has divested parts of its portfolio in the country over the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
The announcement follows an urgent review launched last week following media reports that the fund had built a stake in an Israeli jet engine group that provides services to Israel’s armed forces, including the maintenance of fighter jets.
“All investments in Israeli companies that have been managed by external managers will be moved in-house and managed internally,” the fund said. The fund, an arm of Norway’s central bank, which held stakes in 61 Israeli companies as of 30 June, in recent days divested stakes in 11 of these, it said in a statement, without naming the groups.
“We have now completely sold out of these positions,” the fund said, adding that it continued to review Israeli companies for potential divestments. The review will also lead to improved due diligence, it added.
Israel’s new offensive in Gaza City could take weeks to start, leaving the door open for a ceasefire, officials say, even as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it would get underway “fairly quickly” and end the war with Hamas’ defeat.
Two officials who were at a security cabinet meeting on Thursday to approve the plan told Reuters that the evacuation of civilians from affected areas may only be completed by the start of October, giving time for a deal to be pursued.
The plan raised international alarm over the harm it could bring to the shattered enclave, where a hunger crisis has worsened. On Sunday, Netanyahu summoned foreign journalists to explain the blueprint, which includes what he described as a surge of humanitarian aid.
Netanyahu said that Israel will first allow civilians to leave the battle zones before forces move in on Gaza City, which he described as one of Hamas’ last two remaining strongholds, whose defeat will bring an end to the war.
Here is the video mentioned in the previous post …
New video footage appears to show the moment a Palestinian activist was killed as an Israeli settler fired toward him during a confrontation with unarmed Palestinians in the occupied West Bank last month, AP reports.
The video released Sunday by B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, shows Israeli settler Yinon Levi firing a gun toward the person filming. The footage cuts but the camera keeps rolling as the person moans in pain.
B’Tselem says it obtained the video from the family of Awdah Hathaleen, 31, an activist, English teacher and father of three who was shot dead on 28 July, and who they said had filmed it. Levi was briefly detained and then released from house arrest by an Israeli court, which cited lack of evidence.
The shooting occurred in Umm al-Khair, a village that has long weathered settler violence in an area profiled in the Oscar-winning film “No Other Land.” Settler attacks on Palestinians have spiked since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, as have attacks by Palestinian militants.
Talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency will be “technical” and “complicated,” the Islamic Republic’s foreign ministry said ahead of a visit by the nuclear watchdog for the first time since Tehran cut ties with the organisation last month, AP reports.
Relations between the two soured after a 12-day air war was waged by Israel and the US in June, which saw key Iranian nuclear facilities bombed. The IAEA board said Iran had breached its non-proliferation obligations a day before Israel’s airstrikes on Iran sparked the war.
The IAEA did not immediately issue a statement about the visit by the agency’s deputy head, which will not include any planned access to Iranian nuclear sites.
Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, criticised the IAEA’s “unique situation” during the June war.
“Peaceful facilities of a country that was under 24-hour monitoring were the target of strikes and the agency refrained from showing a wise and rational reaction and did not condemn it as it was required,” he said.
Italy’s defence minister said in an interview that Israel’s government had “lost its reason and humanity” over Gaza and signalled an openness to potential sanctions, AFP reports.
“What is happening is unacceptable. We are not facing a military operation with collateral damage, but the pure denial of the law and the founding values of our civilisation,” defence minister Guido Crosetto told Italian newspaper La Stampa.
“We are committed to humanitarian aid, but we must now find a way to force Netanyahu to think clearly, beyond condemnation.”
Asked about possible international sanctions against Israel, Crosetto said that “the occupation of Gaza and some serious acts in the West Bank mark a qualitative leap, in the face of which decisions must be made that force (Benjamin) Netanyahu to think”.
“And it wouldn’t be a move against Israel, but a way to save that people from a government which has lost reason and humanity.
“We must always distinguish governments from states and peoples, as well as from the religions they profess. This applies for Netanyahu, and it applies to (Russian president Vladimir) Putin, whose methods, by now, have become dangerously similar.”
Gaza’s health ministry said five more people had died of malnutrition and starvation in Gaza in the past 24 hours, Reuters reports.
That raised the number of deaths from such causes to 222, including 101 children, since the war began, the ministry said.
Israel says it has scaled up the entry of aid and commercial goods into Gaza in past weeks. Palestinian and UN officials say the aid is a fraction of what Gaza needs.
Some further quotes from Downing Street, which said it was “gravely concerned” by both the killing of al-Sharif and his colleagues, and the wider targeting of journalists in Gaza by Israeli forces.
“We are gravely concerned by the repeated targeting of journalists in Gaza,” Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson said. “Reporters covering conflicts are afforded protection under international humanitarian law, and journalists must be able to report independently without fear, and Israel must ensure journalists can carry out their work safely.”
Asked what action Starmer might take in response, the spokesperson said: “It is wrong to target journalists who should be able to report independently, without fear, and Israel must ensure journalists can carry out their work safely. As you have seen from what the prime minister has said in recent days, he is also clear that Israel’s decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza is wrong as well.”
We have some more quotes from Emmanuel Macron on Israel’s plans for Gaza.
“This war must end now with a permanent ceasefire,” Macron said in a statement, adding Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City was “a disaster of unprecedented gravity and a headlong rush into permanent war”.
“Israeli hostages and the people of Gaza will continue to be the primary victims of this strategy,” Macron said.
Israel has said its military would “take control” of Gaza City in a plan approved by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet that sparked a wave of global criticism.
In the statement, Macron said it was important to establish a UN-mandated stabilisation mission to secure the Gaza Strip.
“The security council must now work to establish this mission and give it a mandate,” he said. “I have asked my teams to work on this without delay with our partners.”
Starmer 'gravely concerned' over targeting of journalists in Gaza
Keir Starmer has said he is “gravely concerned” about the repeated targeting of journalists in Gaza, the British prime minister’s spokesperson said on Monday, after the killing of Anas al-Sharif and four colleagues by the IDF.
Updated
Macron calls Israel's Gaza plans a 'disaster waiting to happen'
Emmanuel Macron has condemned Israel’s plans to step up its military operation in Gaza as a “disaster waiting to happen” and proposed an international coalition under a United Nations mandate to stabilise Gaza.
His foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, had already strongly criticised the plans announced on Friday by Benjamin Netanyahu, saying in a statement:
France strongly condemns the Israeli government’s plan aimed at preparing for the complete occupation of Gaza. Such an operation would worsen an already catastrophic situation without enabling the release of Hamas hostages, its disarmament, or its surrender.
Jerusalem's Western Wall vandalised with graffiti
The Western Wall in Jerusalem has been vandalised with graffiti condemning Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, triggering widespread condemnation from religious leaders and politicians, AFP reports.
“There is a holocaust in Gaza,” was graffitied in Hebrew on the southern portion of the wall, the holiest site where Jews are allowed to pray.
A similar message was also scrawled on the wall of the Great Synagogue, elsewhere in the city.
Israeli police said a 27-year-old suspect had been arrested and would appear in court later on Monday, with the police requesting that his detention be extended.
The incident sparked immediate outrage in Israel, with the Western Wall’s Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch calling it a “desecration”.
National security minister Itamar Ben Gvir – who oversees the country’s law enforcement agencies – said he was shocked and vowed that the police would act “with lightning speed”.
Sharp condemnation also came from the opposition. Former defence minister Benny Gantz, now an opposition leader, called it “a crime against the entire Jewish people”.
The Western Wall lies in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem, which Israeli forces captured during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Updated
Journalists in Dublin will hold a vigil this evening to “expresss outrage at Israel’s ongoing targeting and killing of journalists”, the National Union of Journalists have said.
The protest has been prompted by the killing of six journalists in Gaza by Israel.
Qatar’s prime minister and minister for foreign affairs, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani condemned Israel’s killing of six Palestinian journalists, five of whom were working for Al Jazeera, which is headquartered in Qatar and part state-funded.
“The deliberate targeting of journalists by Israel in the Gaza Strip reveals how these crimes are beyond imagination, amid the inability of the int’l community & its laws to stop this tragedy. May God have mercy on journalists Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qraiqea, & their colleagues,” he said in a post on X.
Mourners gather for funeral of journalists killed in Israeli strikes
Gazans gathered on Monday for the funeral of five Al Jazeera staff members and a sixth reporter killed in an Israeli strike, AFP reports.
Dozens stood amid bombed-out buildings in the courtyard of Al-Shifa hospital to pay their respects to Anas al-Sharif, a prominent Al Jazeera correspondent aged 28, and four of his colleagues, killed on Sunday.
A sixth journalist, Mohammed al-Khaldi who worked as a freelance reporter, was also killed in the strike that targeted the Al Jazeera team, according to the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya.
Their bodies, wrapped in white shrouds with their faces exposed, were carried through narrow alleys to their graves by mourners including men wearing blue journalists’ flak jackets.
Israel confirmed it had targeted al-Sharif, whom it labelled a “terrorist” affiliated with Hamas, saying he “posed as a journalist”.
The four other staff members killed were Mohammed Qreiqeh, also a correspondent, and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa.
Updated
UN human rights office condemns killing of Palestinian journalists by Israel
In a statement on X, the UN’s human rights office said: “We condemn the killing by Israeli military of 6 Palestinian journalists by targeting their tent, in grave breach of international humanitarian law. #Israel must respect & protect all civilians, including journalists.
At least 242 Palestinian journalists were killed in Gaza since 7 Oct 2023. We call for immediate, safe & unhindered access to Gaza for all journalists.”
Israel said it targeted Anas al-Sharif, one of the journalists killed, because he was a member of Hamas. Multiple organisations, including the UN and Reporters Without Borders, have questioned the veracity of that claim.
Gaza City residents report heaviest bombardment in weeks as journalists killed
Palestinians reported the heaviest bombardments in weeks on Monday in areas east of Gaza City, just hours after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expected to complete a new expanded offensive in the territory “fairly quickly”, Reuters reports.
Witnesses said Israeli tanks and planes pounded Sabra, Zeitoun, and Shejaia, three eastern suburbs of Gaza City in the north of the territory, pushing many families out of their homes westwards.
Some Gaza City residents said it was one of the worst nights in weeks, raising fears of military preparations for a deeper offensive into their city, which is now sheltering about 1 million people after the displacement of residents from the territory’s northern edges, according to Hamas.
The Israeli military said its forces fired artillery at Hamas militants in the area. There was no sign on the ground of forces moving deeper into Gaza City as part of the newly approved Israeli offensive.
Netanyahu on Sunday said he had instructed the Israeli military to speed up its plans for the new offensive. “I want to end the war as quickly as possible, and that is why I have instructed the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to shorten the schedule for seizing control of Gaza City,” he said.
The plans to step-up the offensive have been criticised by a number of countries.
Updated
Greta Thunberg said she and a Palestinian activist group plan to sail a new flotilla loaded with humanitarian aid to Gaza to break the “illegal Israeli siege”, AFP reports.
Two other attempts by activists to deliver aid by ship to Gaza, in June and July, were blocked by Israel. Troops boarded their vessels and detained the activists before expelling them.
“On August 31st we are launching the biggest attempt ever to break the illegal Israeli siege over Gaza with dozens of boats sailing from Spain,” the Swedish campaigner said in a post on Instagram late on Sunday.
“We will meet dozens more on September 4th sailing from Tunisia and other ports,” she said.
Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City is “a matter of grave concern,” China’s permanent representative to the UN Fu Cong, said at a weekend meeting on the Palestinian-Israeli issue held by the UN Security Council, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reports.
Urging Israel to “stop this dangerous move at once,” Fu said: “Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people. It is an integral part of the Palestinian territory. Any action that seeks to alter its demographic and territorial structure must be met with utmost rejection and resistance.”
Reports Without Borders condemns al-Sharif's killing
Reporters Without Borders has condemned the “acknowledged murder by the Israeli army” of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif in Gaza, who the armed forces admitted they had targeted, along with several of his colleagues.
The press freedom campaign group told news agency AFP it “strongly and angrily condemns the acknowledged murder by the Israeli army” of al-Sharif and other journalists.
Israel accused al-Sharif of being a Hamas terrorist. The UN and others have said Israel had not provided credible evidence for these claims.
Updated
Our video team has produced a report on Israel’s strike on the Al Jazeera media tent in Gaza City that killed seven, including journalists Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, according to the Qatar-based broadcaster.
Activists staged a protest on the roof of a Microsoft datacentre in the Netherlands after revelations the Israeli military is storing large volumes of data in the country.
Images posted on social media showed some of the activists blocking access to the large Microsoft facility in the north-west of the country on Sunday, while others scaled the building’s roof and lit flares.
The group, Geef Tegengas (Push Back), said its protest was in response to a recent Guardian investigation that revealed how the Israeli military surveillance agency Unit 8200 has used Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store a vast collection of intercepted Palestinian phone calls.
Read the full report here:
The head of Iran’s top security body, Ali Larijani, will visit Iraq today before heading to Lebanon, where the government has approved a plan to disarm Tehran’s ally Hezbollah, state media said, AFP reports.
His trip to Lebanon comes after Tehran expressed strong opposition to a Lebanese government plan to disarm Hezbollah, an Iran-backed paramilitary force.
“In Lebanon, our positions are already clear. Lebanese national unity is important and must be preserved in all circumstances. Lebanon’s independence is still important to us and we will contribute to it,” Larijani told state TV before departing.
Before its war with Israel, Hezbollah was believed to be better armed than the Lebanese military. It built its popularity, in part, on resistance to Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon for nearly two decades until 2000.
On Saturday, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Iran’s supreme leader, described the plan to disarm Hezbollah as compliance “to the will of the United States and Israel”.
IDF posts al-Sharif claims on social media
Reuters provides more detail on the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif.
Last October, Israel’s military had named al-Sharif as one of six Gaza journalists it alleged were members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, citing documents it said showed lists of people who completed training courses and salaries.
On X, the IDF posted what it said were documents showing al-Sharif’s connection to Hamas. The Guardian could not independently verify these claims.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, which in July urged the international community to protect al-Sharif, said in a statement that Israel had failed to provide any evidence to back up its allegations against him.
“Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said Sara Qudah, CPJ’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Last month Israeli IDF spokesperson Avichai Adraee shared a video of al-Sharif on X and accused him of being a member of Hamas’ military wing. At the time the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, Irene Khan, called it “an unsubstantiated claim” and a “blatant assault on journalists”.
Updated
AP provides some more detail on Australia’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state next month:
PM Anthony Albanese told reporters in Canberra that recognition would be predicated on commitments Australia received from the Palestinian Authority, including that Islamist militant group Hamas would have no involvement in any future state.
“A two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” Albanese said at a press conference.
Albanese said he spoke with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and told him a political solution was needed and not a military one.
Australia last week criticised Israel’s plan to take military control of Gaza, and Albanese said the decision to recognise a Palestinian state was “further compelled” by Netanyahu’s disregard of the international community’s calls and failure to comply with legal and ethical obligations in Gaza.
“The Netanyahu Government is extinguishing the prospect of a two-state solution by rapidly expanding illegal settlements, threatening annexation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and explicitly opposing any Palestinian state,” Albanese said in the joint statement with foreign minister Penny Wong.
Commitments by the Palestinian Authority to reform governance, demilitarise and hold general elections, as well as Arab League demands for Hamas to end its rule in Gaza, created an opportunity, he said.
“This is an opportunity to isolate Hamas,” he added.
Three-quarters of UN members have already, or soon plan to, recognise Palestinian statehood, according to a tally by news agency Agence France-Presse.
According to the tally, at least 145 of the 193 UN members now recognise or plan to recognise a Palestinian state, including France, Canada, Britain and most recently, Australia.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, lambasted Australia and the European countries that are considering the recognition of a Palestinian state.
He said the countries are “falling into a rabbit hole”, and that debate around such recognition is “shameful”. “I think it’s actually shameful, but it’s not going to ... change our position,” he said.
Cogat provided an update on aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip on Saturday:
In a post on X the agency, a unit in the Israeli Ministry of Defense tasked with logistics between Israel and the Gaza Strip, said:
“Aid entry: Over 280 trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings.
Aid collection: 300 trucks were collected and distributed by the UN and international organizations.
Fuel: Tankers of @UN fuel entered for the operation of essential humanitarian systems.
Airdrops: 131 pallets of aid were airdropped in cooperation with the UAE, Jordan, Germany, Belguim, Italy, the Netherlands and France.
We will continue expanding our efforts to facilitate humanitarian aid for the civilian population of Gaza.”
More aid now appears to be entering Gaza after months of strict Israeli blockade. Yesterday the UN’s humanitarian office, OCHA said 98 children had died in Gaza from acute malnutrition since the start of the conflict in October 2023, with 37 of those deaths since July. OCHA’s coordination director Ramesh Rajasingham said the situation in Gaza had developed into full blown starvation: “This is no longer a looming hunger crisis – this is starvation, pure and simple.”
Opening summary: outrage as Israeli troops kill Al Jazeera journalist in Gaza City
A prominent Al Jazeera journalist who had previously been threatened by Israel has been killed along with four colleagues in an Israeli airstrike.
Anas al-Sharif, who was one of Al Jazeera’s most recognisable faces in Gaza, was killed while inside a tent for journalists outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Sunday night.
Seven people in total were killed in the attack, including al-Sharif, Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, according to the Qatar-based broadcaster.
The Israel Defense Force admitted the strike, claiming the reporter had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organisation and was responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF forces”.
Rights advocates said he had been targeted for his frontline reporting on the Gaza war and that Israel’s claim lacked evidence.
In July, al-Sharif told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that he lived with the “feeling that I could be bombed and martyred at any moment”.
After the attack, the CPJ said it was “appalled” to learn of the journalists’ deaths.
“Israel’s pattern of labelling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said CPJ regional director Sara Qudah.
“Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted. Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable.”
You can read our report here:
Other key updates include:
Australia will recognise a Palestinian state next month, prime minister Anthony Albanese said, joining the leaders of France, Britain and Canada in signalling they would do so. Albanese told reporters after a Cabinet meeting Monday that Australia’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state will be formalised at the United Nations General Assembly in September. “A two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” Albanese said. Those commitments included no role for Hamas in a Palestinian government, demilitarisation of Gaza and the holding of elections, he said.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended a new military offensive in Gaza that is more sweeping than previously announced, declaring in the face of growing condemnation at home and abroad that Israel “has no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas.” Netanyahu said the security Cabinet last week instructed the dismantling of Hamas strongholds not only in Gaza City but also in the “central camps” and Muwasi. The camps – sheltering well over a half-million displaced people, according to the UN – had not been part of Israel’s announcement on Friday. It was not clear why, though Netanyahu faced criticism this weekend within his ruling coalition that targeting Gaza City was not enough. Netanyahu said there would be “safe zones,” but such designated areas have been bombed in the past.
The UN has warned Gaza faces “starvation, pure and simple” as child deaths mount. The body’s humanitarian office OCHA said 98 children had died from acute malnutrition since the start of the conflict in October 2023, with 37 of those deaths since July, according to Gaza’s authorities.
The US defended Israel at security council meeting, saying it has the right to decide what’s best for its security. It called allegations of genocide in Gaza false. The US has veto power at the council and can block proposed actions there.
Updated
