Israel pounds Gaza City, 123 dead in last 24 hours
Nidal al-Mughrabi
and
Emily Rose
, Reuters
Palestinians inspect the damage after an overnight strike on the Sheikh Radwan Health Centre run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the north of Gaza City on 6 August, 2025.
Photo:
AFP
Israel's military pounded Gaza City on Wednesday prior to a planned takeover, with another 123 people killed in the last day according to the Gaza health ministry, while militant group Hamas held further talks with Egyptian mediators.
The 24-hour death toll was the worst in a week and added to the massive fatalities from the nearly two-year war that has shattered the enclave housing more than two million Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated an idea - also enthusiastically floated by US President Donald Trump - that Palestinians should simply leave.
"They're not being pushed out, they'll be allowed to exit," he told Israeli television channel i24NEWS. "All those who are concerned for the Palestinians and say they want to help the Palestinians should open their gates and stop lecturing us."
Arabs and many world leaders are aghast at the idea of displacing the Gaza population, which Palestinians say would be like another "Nakba" (catastrophe) when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced out during a 1948 war.
Israel's planned re-seizure of Gaza City - which it took in the early days of the war before withdrawing - is probably weeks away, officials say. That means a ceasefire is still possible though talks have been floundering and conflict still rages.
Israeli planes and tanks bombed eastern areas of Gaza City heavily, residents said, with many homes destroyed in the Zeitoun and Shejaia neighbourhoods overnight. Al-Ahli hospital said 12 people were killed in an airstrike on a home in Zeitoun.
Tanks also destroyed several houses in the east of Khan Younis in south Gaza too, while in the centre Israeli gunfire killed nine aid-seekers in two separate incidents, Palestinian medics said. Israel's military did not comment.
Eight more people, including three children, have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory's health ministry said. That took the total to 235, including 106 children, since the war began.
Israel disputes those malnutrition and hunger figures reported by the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.
Hamas chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya's meetings with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Wednesday were to focus on stopping the war, delivering aid and "ending the suffering of our people in Gaza," Hamas official Taher al-Nono said in a statement.
Egyptian security sources said the talks would also discuss the possibility of a comprehensive ceasefire that would see Hamas relinquish governance in Gaza and concede its weapons.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group was open to all ideas if Israel ends the war and pulls out. However, "Laying down arms before the occupation is dismissed is impossible," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
Netanyahu's plan to expand military control over Gaza, which Israeli sources said could be launched in October, has heightened global outcry over the widespread devastation, displacement and hunger in the enclave.
About half of Gaza's residents live in the Gaza City area.
Foreign ministers of 24 countries, including Britain, Canada, Australia, France and Japan, said this week the humanitarian crisis in Gaza had reached "unimaginable levels" and urged Israel to allow unrestricted aid.
Israel denies responsibility for hunger, accusing Hamas of stealing aid. It says it has taken steps to increase deliveries, including daily combat pauses in some areas and protected routes for aid convoys.
The Israeli military on Wednesday said that nearly 320 trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings and that a further nearly 320 trucks were collected and distributed by the U.N. and international organizations in the past 24 hours along with three tankers of fuel and 97 pallets of air-dropped aid.
The United Nations and Palestinians say aid entering Gaza remains far from sufficient.
The war began on 7 October, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza since then has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.
- Reuters
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The consequences of the Israeli genocide in Gaza will be dire. An event of this degree of barbarity, sustained by an international conspiracy of moral inertia and silence, will not be relegated to history as just another "conflict" or a mere tragedy. The Gaza genocide is a catalyst for major events to come. Israel and its benefactors are acutely aware of this historical reality. This is precisely why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in a race against time, desperately trying to ensure his country remains relevant, if not standing, in the coming era. He pursues this through territorial expansion in Syria, relentless aggression against Lebanon, and, of course, the desire to annex all occupied Palestinian territories. But history cannot be controlled with such precision. However clever he may think he is, Netanyahu has already lost the ability to influence the outcome. He has been unable to set a clear agenda in Gaza, let alone achieve any strategic goals in a 365-square-kilometer expanse of destroyed concrete and ashes. Gazans have proven that collective sumud can defeat one of the most well-equipped modern armies. Indeed, history itself has taught us that changes of great magnitude are inevitable. The true heartbreak is that this change is not happening fast enough to save a starving population, and the growing pro-Palestinian sentiment is not expanding at the rate needed to achieve a decisive political outcome. Our confidence in this inevitable change is rooted in history. World War I was not just a "Great War" but a cataclysmic event that fully shattered the geopolitical order of its time. Four empires were fundamentally reshuffled; some, like the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman, were erased from existence. The new world order resulting from World War I was short-lived. The modern international system we have today is a direct outcome of World War II. This includes the United Nations and all the new Western-centric economic, legal, and political institutions that were forged by the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944. This includes the World Bank, the IMF, and ultimately NATO, thus sowing the seeds of yet more global conflicts. The fall of the Berlin Wall was heralded as the singular, defining event that resolved the lingering conflicts of the post-WWII geopolitical struggle, supposedly ushering in a new, permanent global realignment, or, to some, the "end of history." History, however, had other plans. Not even the horrific September 11 attacks and the subsequent US-led wars could reinvent the global order in a way that was consistent with US-Western interests and priorities. Gaza is infinitely small when judged by its geography, economic worth, or political import. Yet, it has proven to be the most significant global event defining this generation's political consciousness. The fact that the self-proclaimed guardians of the post-WWII order are the very entities that are violently and brazenly violating every international and humanitarian law is enough to fundamentally alter our relationship with the West's championed "rule-based order." This may not seem significant now, but it will have profound, long-term consequences. It has largely compromised and, in fact, delegitimized the moral authority imposed, often by violence, by the West over the rest of the world for decades, especially in the Global South. This self-imposed delegitimization will also impact the very idea of democracy, which has been under siege in many countries, including Western democracies. This is only natural, considering that most of the planet feels strongly that Israel must end its genocide and that its leaders must be held accountable. Yet, little to no action follows. The shift in Western public opinion in favor of Palestinians is astounding when considered against the backdrop of total Western media dehumanization of the Palestinian people and Western governments' blind allegiance to Israel. More shocking is that this shift is largely the result of the work of ordinary people on social media, activists mobilizing in the streets, and independent journalists, mostly in Gaza, working under extreme duress and with minimal resources. A central conclusion is the failure of Arab and Muslim nations to factor into this tragedy befalling their own brethren in Palestine. While some are engaged in empty rhetoric or self-flagellation, others subsist in a state of inertia, as if the genocide in Gaza were a foreign topic, like the wars in Ukraine or Congo. This fact alone shall challenge our very collective self-definition—what it means to be an Arab or a Muslim, and whether such definitions carry supra-political identities. Time will tell. The left, too, is problematic in its own way. While not a monolith, and while many on the left have championed the global protests against the genocide, others remain splintered and unable to form a unified front, even temporarily. Some leftists are still chasing their own tales, crippled by the worry that being anti-Zionist would earn them the label of antisemitism. For this group, self-policing and self-censorship are preventing them from taking decisive action. History does not take its cues from Israel or Western powers. Gaza will indeed result in the kind of global shifts that will affect us all, far beyond the Middle East. For now, however, it is most urgent that we use our collective will and action to influence one single historical event: ending the genocide and the famine in Gaza. The rest will be left to history, and to those who wish to be relevant when the world changes again. - Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His forthcoming book, ' Before the Flood,' will be published by Seven Stories Press. His other books include 'Our Vision for Liberation', 'My Father was a Freedom Fighter' and 'The Last Earth'. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is
