Israel issues evacuation order in central Gaza
Thousands of leaflets were dropped over Deir el-Balah on Sunday, telling displaced families living in tents in several densely populated parts of the city to leave immediately.
The Israeli military warned of imminent action against Hamas fighters in the area as it continued its deadly attacks on unarmed and starving civilians desperately looking for food, killing dozens of Palestinians on Sunday, at least 73 of them aid seekers in northern Gaza. In a post on X, the military's Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said residents and displaced Palestinians sheltering in the Deir el-Balah area should leave immediately. (Agencies) page 5
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
36 minutes ago
- Al Jazeera
Why are Israelis ‘not at all troubled' by starvation in Gaza?
Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand that their government reach a deal to release two Israeli captives held in Gaza who have been shown as starving in Hamas footage. The video showed that captives have been as badly affected by the blockade Israel imposed on Gaza in March as the rest of the population trapped there. So far, at least 197 people have starved to death in Gaza, 96 of them children and global outrage about the famine Israel is imposing on Gaza has mounted. However, a poll from the Israel Democracy Institute (PDF) found more than half of Jewish Israeli respondents were 'not at all troubled' by the reports of Palestinians starving and suffering in Gaza. Front pages of international newspapers previously accused of backing Israel's war on Gaza have carried images showing the massive human cost of Israel's actions. Yet, in the past 24 hours, gangs of far-right Israeli agitators have blocked aid trucks from reaching a starving Gaza, in apparent defiance of global anger. Formerly stalwart allies, such as Canada, France and the United Kingdom, have condemned Israel and its actions in Gaza, committing to recognising Palestinian statehood if some kind of resolution is not reached. I guess Israeli settlers are stopping and destroying aid meant for starving Palestinians, so that Israel-first politicians in the West can accuse Hamas of stealing the aid… — Trita Parsi (@tparsi) August 6, 2025 Domestically, two of Israel's leading NGOs – B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, Israel – have labelled Israel's war on Gaza a genocide, and protests against the war have grown. A week earlier, hundreds of demonstrators led by wounded soldiers and the families of some of the captives marched on the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, demanding that the war on Gaza be continued. A wilfully blind media Widespread awareness of the extent of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and their government's role in inflicting it, has yet to dawn upon the bulk of Israeli society, Orly Noy, journalist and editor of the Israeli Hebrew-language magazine Local Call, told Al Jazeera. This is particularly the case because Gaza's suffering has not been featured in mainstream media. 'I avoid Israeli TV,' Noy told Al Jazeera. 'However, I was round at my mother's yesterday, and they were covering the story of the video of the two captives. 'So, for once, starvation and famine in Gaza was finally on Israeli news,' she said, adding that, instead of denying that starvation existed in Gaza, the wider Israeli public was being told that the only two people starving there were the captives in the Hamas film. For months now, the mainstream media narrative in Israel has been that the widespread hunger documented by numerous aid agencies is 'a Hamas-orchestrated starvation campaign'. This perception runs deeper than the framing by Israel's nationalistic television channels, political analyst and former government adviser Daniel Levy told Al Jazeera. 'It comes from decades of self-justification and dehumanisation,' Levy said. 'Most Israelis would be uncomfortable setting out some kind of moral critique of the country, but still have the feeling that something has gone very seriously wrong. There's a kind of cognitive dissonance at play that helps them make sense of it.' Then there is the language used by politicians, the media and, ultimately, the public to discuss the war, Israeli sociologist Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani said. 'They've corrupted language. Instead of 'concentration camps', they say 'humanitarian city'. Instead of talking about 'killing', they say 'elimination'. Every military operation has a biblical name, which we now use to measure time. 'We don't say 'such and such a thing' happened in June. We say, 'during Operation Whatever'. It helps people make sense of everything. The jargon's become a new type of speech. It's become Orwell's 1984,' he said, referring to the dystopian novel in which language is dictated by the state. Changing tides However, while most Israelis have continued to see Gaza's starvation through the lens of its media and politicians, there are signs that, at its fringes, the mood is beginning to shift, observers say. 'This isn't going to hold up,' Aida Touma-Suleiman, a member of the Israeli parliament representing the left-wing Hadash-Ta'al party, said. 'More and more, people are beginning to understand that there is real hunger in Gaza, and if Israel is making such a big deal of sending food now, then how can it not have been responsible for the hunger before?' Meanwhile, activists such as Alon-Lee Green of the Israeli-Palestinian group Standing Together say resistance to the war is growing across all parts of Israeli society – albeit for often widely differing reasons. 'We don't care why people are protesting the war. We don't care if it's because you don't want to do another tour with the army, or you don't want your children to go to Gaza and kill people. If you're against the war, you're welcome,' he said. However, despite the killing of more than 61,000 Palestinians since October 2023 – and thousands more lost under the rubble and presumed dead – much of Israeli society has yet to accept that the suffering Israel is inflicting on Gaza is real. 'From my perspective, we've reached the point where the Israeli state and society has lost whatever moral claims they had as a result of the Holocaust,' Shenhav-Shahrabani said. 'They've spent whatever symbolic capital that was associated with it.'
Al Jazeera
3 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Captive Negotiator says he received written ceasefire proposal from Hamas
Captive negotiator says Hamas offered ceasefire 'in writing" Quotable Video Duration 01 minutes 03 seconds 01:03 Video Duration 01 minutes 00 seconds 01:00 Video Duration 00 minutes 45 seconds 00:45 Video Duration 00 minutes 53 seconds 00:53 Video Duration 01 minutes 14 seconds 01:14 Video Duration 01 minutes 34 seconds 01:34 Video Duration 01 minutes 21 seconds 01:21
Al Jazeera
5 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
US-made bombs used in deadly Israeli strikes on Gaza schools, HRW says
Israel has used US-made bombs in 'unlawful attacks' on schools sheltering displaced civilians in Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said. In a report released Thursday, HRW said Israel had carried out hundreds of strikes on schools since the start of its war on Gaza in October 2023, including 'unlawfully indiscriminate attacks' using US munitions, which violated international law. In its report, HRW investigated two incidents in 2024 in which it found that GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs supplied by the United States were used. One attack on the Khadija girls' school in Deir el-Balah on July 27, 2024, killed at least 15 people, and another attack on the Zeitoun C school in Gaza City on September 21, 2024, left at least 34 dead. Israeli authorities have not publicly shared information relating to the attacks. Israel has often said that its attacks on schools were targeting Hamas fighters. It has provided no evidence to indicate the presence of military targets at the sites of the attacks documented by the rights group. In both attacks, HRW and that there was no evidence of a military presence at the schools on the days of the attacks. The rights group also warned that recent Israeli attacks on schools sheltering displaced people were worsening the dire humanitarian situation in the territory. HRW said that from July 1-10, 2025, Israeli forces struck at least 10 schools where displaced people were sheltering, killing 59 people and displacing dozens of families, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The group emphasised that schools used to house civilians remain protected under international law unless used for military purposes. The rights group called for an immediate halt to arms transfers to Israel, warning of potential complicity by governments providing military support. 'These strikes on schools sheltering displaced families are just one window into the carnage in Gaza,' said Gerry Simpson, associate director at HRW. 'Other governments should not tolerate this horrendous slaughter of Palestinian civilians merely seeking safety.' It also urged states to uphold their obligations under international law, including the Genocide Convention. 'Governments supporting Israel militarily can't say they didn't know what their weapons are being used for,' said Simpson. According to the United Nations, nearly 1 million displaced Palestinians have taken shelter in Gaza's schools since October 2023. HRW said the repeated targeting of civilian infrastructure, including shelters, hospitals and schools, showed a pattern of attacks that may amount to war crimes. HRW noted that nearly all of Gaza's 564 schools have sustained damage, with 92 percent requiring full reconstruction or major repairs. The UN has reported that at least 836 people sheltering in schools have been killed.
