WHO facilities turned into debris in Gaza city of Deir al-Balah by Israeli strikes
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First Post
13 minutes ago
- First Post
Combat to continue 'without rest' if hostages remain in Gaza, warns IDF chief
Israel's army chief has warned of unrelenting combat in Gaza unless a deal is reached to free hostages still held by Hamas. The statement comes amid stalled truce talks and growing domestic pressure as disturbing hostage videos surface read more Palestinians gather as they carry aid supplies that entered Gaza through Israel, amid a hunger crisis, in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, July 20, 2025. File Image/Reuters Israel's top general has warned that there would be no break in the fighting in Gaza if negotiations fail to immediately secure the release of hostages held in the Palestinian territory. Army chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir stated, 'I estimate that in the coming days we will know whether we can reach an agreement for the release of our hostages,' according to a military statement. 'If not, the combat will continue without rest,' he stated Friday while speaking to authorities within Gaza. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Israeli military released footage showing Zamir speaking with officials and troops at a command centre. According to the military, 49 of the 251 persons who were abducted from Israel during Hamas' October 2023 attack are still in Gaza, with 27 of them having died. This week, two films of the hostages appearing frail and malnourished were made public by Palestinian armed factions. Some in Israel have urged for more forceful military action after negotiations to ensure a ceasefire and their release, which were brokered by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar, failed last month. This occurs in the midst of mounting pressure to recommence efforts to broker a truce in the nearly 22-month crisis, both domestically and internationally, including from many of the hostages' families. Meanwhile, charity organisations have issued warnings that Israeli aid restrictions are causing a devastating famine in Gaza. Zamir nonetheless rejected these allegations out of hand. 'The current campaign of false accusations of intentional starvation is a deliberate, timed, and deceitful attempt to accuse the IDF (military), a moral army, of war crimes,' he said. 'The ones responsible for the killing and suffering of the residents in the Gaza Strip is Hamas.' Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures. A total of 898 Israeli soldiers have also been killed since ground troops were sent into Gaza, according to the military. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,332 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.
The Hindu
13 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Israeli fire kills at least 18 in Gaza, U.S. envoy visits hostage family protest
Hospitals in Gaza reported the killing of more than a dozen people, eight of them food-seekers, by Israeli fire on Saturday (August 2025) as Palestinians endured severe risks in their search for food amid airdrops and restrictions on overland aid delivery. Near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site, Yahia Youssef, who had come to seek aid on Saturday (August 2025) morning, described a panicked scene now grimly familiar. After helping carry out three people wounded by gunshots, he said he looked around and saw many others lying on the ground bleeding. 'It's the same daily episode,' Mr. Youssef said. In response to questions about several eyewitness accounts of violence at the northernmost of the Israeli-backed American contractor's four sites, the GHF media office said 'nothing (happened) at or near our sites'. 'Worst-case scenario of famine' The episode came a day after U.S. officials visited one site and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called GHF's distribution 'an incredible feat'. International outrage has mounted as the group's efforts to deliver aid to hunger-stricken Gaza have been marred by violence and controversy. 'We weren't close to them (the troops) and there was no threat,' Abed Salah, a man in his 30s who was among the crowds close to the GHF site near Netzarim corridor, said. 'I escaped death miraculously.' The danger facing aid seekers in Gaza has compounded what international hunger experts this week called a 'worst-case scenario of famine' in the besieged enclave. Israel's nearly 22-month military offensive against Hamas has shattered security in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians and made it nearly impossible to deliver food safely to starving people. Killing at aid distribution sites From May 27 to July 31, 859 people were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites, according to a United Nations report published Thursday. Hundreds more have been killed along the routes of food convoys. Israel and GHF have said they have only fired warning shots and that the toll has been exaggerated. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Israel's military has said it has only fired warning shots at people who approach its forces, though on Friday said it was working to make the routes under its control safer. Health officials reported that Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed at least 18 Palestinians on Saturday (August 2, 2025), including three whose bodies were transported from the vicinity of a distribution site to a central Gaza hospital along with 36 others who were wounded. Officials said 10 of Saturday's casualties were killed by strikes in central and southern Gaza. Nasser Hospital said it received the bodies of five people killed in two separate strikes on tents sheltering displaced people. The dead include two brothers and a relative, who were killed when a strike hit their tent close to a main thoroughfare in Khan Younis. The Gaza health ministry's ambulance and emergency service said an Israeli strike hit a family house in an area between the towns of Zawaida and Deir al-Balah, killing two parents and their three children. Another strike hit a tent close to the gate of a closed prison where the displaced have sheltered in Khan Younis, killing a mother and her daughter, they said. The hospital said Israeli forces killed five other Palestinians who were among crowds awaiting aid near the newly constructed Morag corridor in Rafah and between Rafah and Khan Younis. Israel's military did not immediately respond to questions about the strikes or deaths near the aid sites. Hostage families protest to end war Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, families of Israeli hostages protested and urged Israel's government to push harder for the release of their loved ones, including those shown in footage released by militant groups earlier this week. U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff joined them a day after visiting Gaza and a week after walking away from ceasefire talks in Qatar, blaming Hamas's intransigence and pledging to find other ways to free hostages and make Gaza safe. Of the 251 hostages who were abducted when Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, around 20 are believed to be alive in Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza, released separate videos of individual hostages this week, triggering outrage among hostage families and Israeli society. Israeli media hasn't broadcast the videos, calling them propaganda, but the family of 21-year-old Rom Braslavski allowed for the release of a photograph showing him visibly emaciated in an unknown location. After viewing the video, Tami Braslavski, his mother, blamed top Israeli officials and demanded they meet with her. "They broke my child, I want him home now,' Braslavski told Ynet on Thursday. 'Look at him: Thin, limp, crying. All his bones are out.' Hostage families and their supporters protesting in Tel Aviv called on Israel's government to make a deal to end the war, imploring them to "stop this nightmare and bring them out of the tunnels'. 'Do the right thing and just do it now,' Lior Chorev ,the Hostages Family Forum's Chief Strategy Officer said. Airdrops expand despite limited impact To circumvent restrictions on aid trucks crossing overland into Gaza, additional countries joined the Jordan-led coalition orchestrating parcels being dropped from the skies. Alongside Israel, several European countries announced plans this week to join airdrop efforts, though most acknowledge the strategy is woefully insufficient. 'If there is political will to allow airdrops — which are highly costly, insufficient; inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings,' Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X on Saturday. 'Let's go back to what works; let us do our job.' The recent war on Gaza began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The U.N. and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
News18
37 minutes ago
- News18
Israeli fire kills at least 18 in Gaza, US envoy visits hostage family protest
Deir al-Balah(Gaza Strip), Aug 2 (AP) Hospitals in Gaza reported the killing of more than a dozen people, eight of them food-seekers, by Israeli fire on Saturday as Palestinians endured severe risks searching for food amid airdrops and restrictions on overland aid delivery. Near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site, Yahia Youssef, who had come to seek aid Saturday morning, described a panicked scene now grimly familiar. After helping carry out three people wounded by gunshots, he said he looked around and saw others lying on the ground bleeding. 'It's the same daily episode," Youssef said. In response to questions about several eyewitness accounts of violence at the northernmost of the Israeli-backed American contractor's four facilities, GHF said 'nothing (happened) at or near our sites." The episode came a day after US officials visited one site and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called the distribution 'an incredible feat." International outrage has mounted as the group's efforts to deliver aid to hunger-stricken Gaza have been marred by violence and controversy. 'We weren't close to them (the troops) and there was no threat," Abed Salah, a man in his 30s who was among the crowds close to the GHF site near Netzarim corridor, said. 'I escaped death miraculously." The danger facing aid seekers in Gaza has compounded what international hunger experts this week called a 'worst-case scenario of famine" in the besieged enclave. Israel's nearly 22-month military offensive against Hamas has shattered security in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians and made it nearly impossible to deliver food safely to starving people. Seven Palestinians died of malnutrition-related causes in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, the territory's health ministry said on Saturday. They include a child, it said in a statement, bringing total deaths among children from causes related to malnutrition in Gaza to 93 since the war began. The ministry said 76 adults in Gaza have died of malnutrition-related causes since late June, when it started counting deaths among adults. From May 27 to July 31, 859 people were killed near GHF sites, according to a United Nations report published Thursday. Hundreds more have been killed along the routes of food convoys. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Israel 's military has said it has only fired warning shots at people who approach its forces, though on Friday said it was working to make the routes under its control safer. Israel and GHF have said that the toll has been exaggerated. Health officials reported that Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed at least 18 Palestinians on Saturday, including three transported from the vicinity of a distribution site to a central Gaza hospital along with 36 others who were wounded. Officials said 10 of Saturday's casualties were killed by strikes in central and southern Gaza. Nasser Hospital said it received the bodies of five people killed in two separate strikes on tents sheltering displaced people. The dead include two brothers and a relative, who were killed when a strike hit their tent close to a main thoroughfare in Khan Younis. The health ministry's ambulance and emergency service said an Israeli strike hit a family house between the towns of Zawaida and Deir al-Balah, killing two parents and their three children. Another strike hit a tent close to the gate of a closed prison where the displaced have sheltered in Khan Younis, killing a mother and her daughter, they said. The hospital said Israeli forces killed five other Palestinians who were among crowds awaiting aid near the newly constructed Morag corridor in Rafah and between Rafah and Khan Younis. Israel's military did not immediately respond to questions about the strikes or gunfire near the aid sites. Its top general, meanwhile, warned Saturday that 'combat will continue without rest" if hostages weren't freed. Lt Gen Eyal Zamir said Israel's military would adapt to 'place Hamas under increasing pressure." Hostage families push Israel to cut deal In Tel Aviv, families of hostages protested and urged Israel's government to push harder for the release of their loved ones, including those shown in footage released by militant groups earlier this week. US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff joined them, a week after quitting ceasefire talks, blaming Hamas's intransigence and pledging to find other ways to free hostages and make Gaza safe. Of the 251 hostages who were abducted by Hamas-led militants, around 20 are believed to be alive in Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza, released separate videos of individual hostages this week, triggering outrage among hostage families and Israeli society. Israeli media hasn't broadcast the videos, calling them propaganda, but the family of 21-year-old Rom Braslavski allowed the release of a photograph showing him visibly emaciated in an unknown location. Tami Braslavski, his mother, blamed top Israeli officials and demanded they meet with her. 'They broke my child, I want him home now," Braslavski told Ynet on Thursday. 'Look at him: Thin, limp, crying. All his bones are out." Protesters called on Israel's government to make a deal to end the war, imploring them to 'stop this nightmare and bring them out of the tunnels" 'Do the right thing and just do it now," said Lior Chorev, chief strategy officer of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. Airdrops expand despite limited impact Alongside Israel, several European countries announced plans this week to join the Jordan-led coalition orchestrating airdropping parcels, though most acknowledge the strategy remains deeply inadequate. 'If there is political will to allow airdrops – which are highly costly, insufficient & inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings," Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X on Saturday. 'Let's go back to what works & let us do our job." The war in Gaza began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The UN and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties. (AP) RD RD (This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI) view comments First Published: August 02, 2025, 18:00 IST News agency-feeds Israeli fire kills at least 18 in Gaza, US envoy visits hostage family protest Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
