Israel launches air and ground assault on Deir al-Balah in central Gaza – Middle East crisis live

The Guardian

21-07-2025

Update:
Date: 2025-07-21T14:09:22.000Z
Title: Belgian authorities
Content: Deaths reported as Israeli tanks move in on area IDF believes Hamas are holding some hostages
Tom Ambrose (now);
Joe Coughlan and
Tom Bryant (earlier)
Mon 21 Jul 2025 15.09 BST
First published on Mon 21 Jul 2025 07.48 BST
From
12.17pm BST
12:17
Peter Beaumont
Peter Beaumont is a senior international reporter who has reported extensively from conflict zones including Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and Ukraine
Israel has launched substantial air raids and a ground operation in Gaza, targeting Deir al-Balah, the key hub for humanitarian efforts in the devastated Palestinian territory amid mounting warnings of widening starvation in the coastal strip.
The latest assault comes a day after the highest death toll in 21 months inflicted by the Israeli military on desperate Palestinians seeking food aid, with at least 85 killed on Sunday in what has become a grim and almost daily slaughter.
The UN food agency, the World Food Programme, said the majority of those killed on Sunday had gathered near the border fence with Israel in the hope of getting flour from a UN aid convoy when they were fired on by Israeli tanks and snipers.
Witnesses described massive airstrikes overnight in Deir al-Balah – the last remaining area of Gaza that has not suffered significant war damage. Israeli sources have said the reason the army has so far stayed out is that they suspect Hamas might be holding hostages there. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in captivity in Gaza are believed to be still alive.
Israel launched its renewed assault despite reports in the Hebrew media that Israeli officials believed Hamas was close to agreeing to a ceasefire.
The latest Israeli assault followed forced evacuation orders for between 50–80,000 people in Deir al-Balah, in the centre of the Gaza Strip, leaving almost 87% of the territory under such orders.
'With this latest order, the area of Gaza under displacement orders or within Israeli-militarised zones has risen to 87.8%, leaving 2.1 million civilians squeezed into a fragmented 12% of the strip, where essential services have collapsed,' the UN said in a statement released by its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affair.
3.09pm BST
15:09
said on Monday that they had briefly held and questioned two Israeli citizens who attended an electronic music festival, after pro-Palestinian groups accused them of war crimes, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Prosecutors said they received legal complaints alleging that two Israeli soldiers responsible for 'serious violations of international humanitarian law' in Gaza were spotted at the Tomorrowland festival near the northern city of Antwerp last week.
The federal prosecutor's office said it had 'asked the police to locate the two people named in the complaint and to interview them'.
'Following these interviews, they were released,' it said in a statement.
The office said that it took action after concluding that Belgian courts have extraterritorial jurisdiction over alleged war crimes.
'No further information will be given at this stage of the investigation,' the office said.
The pair have not been named.
Last week, the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), a Belgian pro-Palestinian organisation, said it had identified two Israeli soldiers 'responsible for grave international crimes' in Gaza among the crowds at Tomorrowland.
It claimed that a group of young Israeli men was seen at the festival waving a flag of the Givati Brigade, an Israeli military unit involved in the fighting in the Palestinian territory.
HRF said it then filed a complaint with prosecutors in association with the Global Legal Action Network, a lawyers group specialising in human rights violations.
2.52pm BST
14:52
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Monday that it was 'receiving desperate messages of starvation' from its Gaza staff, as the Palestinian territory experiences surging levels of hunger, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Gaza's population of more than 2 million people are facing severe shortages of food and other essentials, with doctors, the civil defence agency and medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reporting a spike in malnutrition cases in recent days.
In a post on X, Unrwa said that shortages in the Palestinian territory had caused food prices to increase by 40 times, while the aid stockpiled in its warehouses outside Gaza could feed 'the entire population for over three months.'
'The suffering in Gaza is manmade and must be stopped,' it wrote. 'Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale.'
After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on 2 March, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted at a trickle in late May.
The civil defence agency on Sunday reported at least three infant deaths from 'severe hunger and malnutrition' in the past week.
The ministry said 18 reportedly died of starvation within 24 hours between Saturday and Sunday.
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Gaza's al-Shifa hospital:
Infants under one year of age suffer from a lack of milk, which leads to a significant decrease in their weight and a decrease in their immunity that makes them vulnerable to diseases.
Israel on Monday said there was 'no ban or restriction on the entry of baby formula or baby food into Gaza.'
Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said that 'over 2,000 tons of baby food and infant formula were delivered into Gaza', without specifying the time frame.
The body wrote on X:
We urge international organisations to continue coordinating with us to ensure the entry of baby food and formula without delay. Our commitment remains firm: to support humanitarian aid for civilians - not for Hamas.
2.38pm BST
14:38
Belgium's King Philippe described abuses in Gaza as a 'disgrace to humanity' in a speech on the eve of Monday's national day, Reuters reports.
He said speaking at his palace in Brussels:
I add my voice to all those who denounce the serious humanitarian abuses in Gaza, where innocent people are dying of hunger and being killed by bombs while trapped in their enclaves.
The current situation has gone on for far too long. It is a disgrace to all of humanity. We support the call by the United Nations Secretary-General to immediately end this unbearable crisis.
The king's role in Belgium is limited to giving advice, support, and warnings to the government without making any political decisions.
2.22pm BST
14:22
The UK and more than 20 other countries called on Monday for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and said the Israeli government's aid delivery model was 'dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity'.
The joint statement said:
We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now.
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.
The countries called on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and 'urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their life saving work safely and effectively'.
They added:
We are prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region.
The statement was signed by the EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management, as well as the foreign ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
2.12pm BST
14:12
Johana Bhuiyan
Johana Bhuiyan is a senior tech reporter and editor for Guardian US, based in San Francisco.
Meta is hosting ads on Facebook, Instagram and Threads from pro-Israel entities that are raising money for military equipment including drones and tactical gear for Israeli Defense Force battalions, seemingly a violation of the company's stated advertising policies, new research shows.
'We are the sniper team of Unit Shaked, stationed in Gaza, and we urgently need shooting tripods to complete our mission in Jabalia,' one ad on Facebook read, first published on 11 June and still active on 17 July.
These paid ads were first discovered and flagged to Meta by global consumer watchdog, Ekō, which identified at least 117 ads published since March 2025 that explicitly sought donations for military equipment for the IDF. It is the second time the organization has reported ads by the same publishers to Meta. In a previous investigation from December 2024, Ekō flagged 98 ads to Meta, prompting the tech giant to take many of them down. However, the company has largely allowed the publishers to start new campaigns with identical ads since then. The IDF itself is not running the fundraising calls.
'This shows that Meta will literally take money from anybody,' said Ekō campaigner Maen Hammad. 'So little of the checks and balances the platform ought to be doing actually takes place and if it does, they'll do it after the fact.'
Meta said it reviewed and removed the ads for violating company policy after the Guardian and Ekō reached out for comment, according to Ryan Daniels, a spokesperson for the social media firm. Any ads about social issues, elections or politics are required to go through an authorization process and include a disclaimer that discloses who is paying for the ad, the company said. These ads did not.
You can read more of Johana Bhuiyan's piece here: Meta allows ads crowdfunding for IDF drones, consumer watchdog finds
1.58pm BST
13:58
In its daily update, Gaza's health ministry said at least 130 Palestinians had been killed and more than 1,000 wounded by Israeli gunfire and military strikes across the territory in the past 24 hours, one of the highest such totals in recent weeks, Reuters reports.
The figures come as Israel launched substantial air raids and a ground operation in Gaza on Monday, targeting Deir al-Balah, the key hub for humanitarian efforts in the devastated Palestinian territory amid mounting warnings of widening starvation in the coastal strip.
1.45pm BST
13:45
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan praised his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa for showing a strong stance and not compromising in Syria's conflict with Israel, and said Sharaa took a 'very positive' step by reaching an understanding with the Druze, Reuters reports.
Hundreds of Bedouin civilians were evacuated from Syria's predominantly Druze city of Sweida on Monday as part of a US-backed truce meant to end fighting that has killed hundreds of people, state media and witnesses said.
In comments to Turkish media released on Monday, Erdoğan said Syria's government had established some control in Sweida and the country's south with about 2,500 soldiers, with all but one Druze faction agreeing to respect the ceasefire during talks in Amman.
He also told reporters on his flight returning from northern Cyprus that the US now understood it needed to 'own' the issue more, warning that the main issue was Israel using the fighting as an excuse to invade Syrian lands.
1.31pm BST
13:31
Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif has accused the Israeli army of threatening journalists in 'an attempt to silence' them.
The reporter said in a post on X on Sunday:
The Israeli army is once again threatening journalists for exposing the truth from Gaza.
After I reported live on civilians collapsing from hunger, I was directly targeted with public incitement by the army's spokesperson.
This is an attempt to silence us—and to cover up a genocide unfolding in real time.
I call on international officials, human rights defenders, and global media to speak out and share this message.
Your voice can help stop the targeting of journalists and protect the truth.
The post came after IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee labelled al-Sharif and researcher Saeed Ziad as supporters of Hamas, saying in a post on X that they were weeping 'crocodile tears'.
Adraee said:
Suddenly, all Hamas tools and mouthpieces began crying on live television, in a repeated Brotherhood behavior after all propaganda tools to cover up Hamas's setback failed.
1.19pm BST
13:19
The co-founder of a pro-Palestinian campaign group sought on Monday to challenge the British government's decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws, a move her lawyers said had 'the hallmarks of an authoritarian and blatant abuse of power', Reuters reports.
Huda Ammori, who helped found Palestine Action in 2020, is asking London's high court to give the go-ahead for a full challenge to the group's proscription, which was made on the grounds it committed or participated in acts of terrorism.
Earlier this month, the high court refused Ammori's application to pause the ban and, after an unsuccessful last-ditch appeal, Palestine Action's proscription came into effect just after midnight on 5 July.
Proscription makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
Ammori's lawyer Raza Husain said Palestine Action is the first direct action group to be banned as a terror group, a move he argued was inconsistent with 'the honourable history of civil disobedience on conscientious grounds in our country'.
Dozens have been arrested for holding placards purportedly supporting the group since the ban and Ammori's lawyers say protesters expressing support for the Palestinian cause have also been subject to increased scrutiny from police officers.
Britain's interior minister Yvette Cooper, however, has said violence and criminal damage have no place in legitimate protest and that Palestine Action's activities – including breaking into a military base and damaging two planes – justify proscription.
The group accuses the British government of complicity in what it says are Israeli war crimes in its ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
Israel has repeatedly denied committing abuses in its war in Gaza, which began after Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023.
1.05pm BST
13:05
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said on Sunday that evacuations orders from Israel have directly endangered 'vital humanitarian and primary healthcare sites'.
The charity said in a statement that the move was 'accelerating the systematic dismantling of Gaza's already-decimated healthcare system'.
MAP went on to say that several humanitarian organisations' offices and guesthouses had been ordered to evacuate immediately. It added that nine clinics, five shelters, and a community kitchen have been forced to shut down.
Included in the facilities forced to shut were a major water desalination plant and MAP's Solidarity Polyclinic, which it said provides critical care, including physiotherapy and mental health services, to about 320 patients a day.
Steve Cutts, MAP's interim CEO, said:
This latest forced displacement order is yet another attack on humanitarian operations and a deliberate attempt to sever the last remaining threads of Gaza's health and aid system.
MAP now has to suspend critical services we have been providing to the Palestinian population, including a primary health clinic that serves hundreds of civilians every day. With Israel's systematic targeting of health and aid workers, no one is safe. Not only are we prevented from carrying out our lifesaving work to support Palestinians, we are also unable to protect our own teams.
Newborn children are starving to death as mothers are unable to produce breast milk due to their own malnutrition and Israel cruelly restricts life-saving baby formula from entering Gaza. Israeli forces have stooped to new depths of depravity, having now killed more than 900 Palestinians attempting to reach food to feed their starving families.
12.38pm BST
12:38
Gaza's health ministry has said the Palestinian death toll has surpassed 59,000 after more than 21 months of war.
In an update from the Associated Press, the ministry says 59,029 people have been killed since the war started on 7 October 2023, while another 142,135 have been wounded.
The ministry doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but says more than a half of the dead are women and children.
Updated
at 1.05pm BST
12.31pm BST
12:31
An Israeli undercover force detained Marwan Al-Hams, a senior Gaza Health Ministry official, outside the field hospital of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, the health ministry said according to a report from the Reuters news agency.
Hams, in charge of field hospitals in the enclave, was on his way to visit the ICRC field hospital in northern Rafah when an Israeli force 'abducted' him after opening fire, killing one person and wounding another civilian nearby, according to the ministry.
Medics said the person killed was a local journalist who was filming an interview with Hams when the incident happened.
The Israeli military and the Red Cross did not immediately respond following separate requests by Reuters for comment.
Israel has raided and attacked hospitals across the Gaza Strip during the 21-month war in Gaza, accusing Hamas of using them for military purposes, an accusation the group denies. But sending undercover forces to carry out arrests has been rare.
12.23pm BST
12:23
Pope Leo has warned against the 'indiscriminate use of force' and the 'forced mass displacement' of people in the Gaza strip in a phone conversation with the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, the Vatican said in a statement.
It was the first official conversation between the two men since Leo's papacy began.
'The Holy Father repeated his appeal for international humanitarian law to be fully respected, emphasising in particular the obligation to protect civilians and sacred places, the prohibition of the indiscriminate use of force and of the forced transfer of the population,' the Vatican wrote in a statement.
The pope emphasised 'the urgent need to provide assistance to those most vulnerable to the consequences of the conflict and to allow the adequate entry of humanitarian aid', it said.
Updated
at 12.47pm BST
12.17pm BST
12:17
Peter Beaumont
Peter Beaumont is a senior international reporter who has reported extensively from conflict zones including Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and Ukraine
Israel has launched substantial air raids and a ground operation in Gaza, targeting Deir al-Balah, the key hub for humanitarian efforts in the devastated Palestinian territory amid mounting warnings of widening starvation in the coastal strip.
The latest assault comes a day after the highest death toll in 21 months inflicted by the Israeli military on desperate Palestinians seeking food aid, with at least 85 killed on Sunday in what has become a grim and almost daily slaughter.
The UN food agency, the World Food Programme, said the majority of those killed on Sunday had gathered near the border fence with Israel in the hope of getting flour from a UN aid convoy when they were fired on by Israeli tanks and snipers.
Witnesses described massive airstrikes overnight in Deir al-Balah – the last remaining area of Gaza that has not suffered significant war damage. Israeli sources have said the reason the army has so far stayed out is that they suspect Hamas might be holding hostages there. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in captivity in Gaza are believed to be still alive.
Israel launched its renewed assault despite reports in the Hebrew media that Israeli officials believed Hamas was close to agreeing to a ceasefire.
The latest Israeli assault followed forced evacuation orders for between 50–80,000 people in Deir al-Balah, in the centre of the Gaza Strip, leaving almost 87% of the territory under such orders.
'With this latest order, the area of Gaza under displacement orders or within Israeli-militarised zones has risen to 87.8%, leaving 2.1 million civilians squeezed into a fragmented 12% of the strip, where essential services have collapsed,' the UN said in a statement released by its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affair.
11.59am BST
11:59
Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern areas of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday, an area where Israeli sources said the military believes some of the remaining hostages may be being held by Hamas. Gaza medics said at least three Palestinians were killed and several were wounded in tank shelling that hit eight houses and three mosques in the area, and which came a day after the military ordered residents to leave, saying it planned to fight Hamas militants.
Gaza health officials said on Monday at least 13 people, including two women and five children, were killed in Israeli strikes since the previous night. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes. It blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the group operates from populated areas.
Gaza's civil defence agency said at least 93 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food on Sunday, while Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for areas packed with displaced people. The territory's health ministry said scores were killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks entering through the northern Zikim crossing with Israel. It was one of the highest reported death tolls among repeated recent cases in which aid seekers have been killed by Israeli fire.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said on Monday that the ceasefire in the southern province of Sweida was holding, despite isolated gunfire in areas north of Sweida city with no reports of casualties. The agreement announced on Saturday put an end to the sectarian violence that has left more than 1,100 dead, most of them Druze fighters and civilians, according to the monitor.
The Syrian government on Monday started evacuating Bedouin families trapped inside the city of Sweida, where Druze militiamen and Bedouin fighters have clashed for over a week. The UN International Organization for Migration said about 128,571 people were displaced in the hostilities that started with a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks a week ago.
A US envoy doubled down on Washington's support for the new government in Syria, saying on Monday there is 'no Plan B' to working with the current authorities to unite the country still reeling from a nearly 14-year civil war and now wrecked by a new outbreak of sectarian violence. Tom Barrack, who is ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria and also has a short-term mandate in Lebanon, took a critical tone toward Israel's recent intervention in Syria, calling it poorly timed and saying that it complicated efforts to stabilise the region.
A trilateral meeting between Iran, Russia and China will take place on Tuesday regarding Tehran's nuclear programme and the UN snapback mechanism, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday. The UN snapback mechanism refers to efforts to reimpose international sanctions on Iran.
Tehran on Monday accused the UK, France and Germany of failing to respect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, after they threatened to reimpose sanctions over its atomic programme. The 2015 deal, reached between Iran and the UN security council's permanent members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – plus Germany imposed curbs on Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
Updated
at 12.11pm BST