Gaza massacres, West Bank raids continue as attention shifts to Iran
They were gunned down by drones, machine gun fire and tanks, according to survivors.
On Monday, at least 38 were killed in a similar manner while trying to get food, mostly in Rafah. And on Sunday, at least 17 were killed in southern and central Gaza.
The GHF is an Israeli and United States-backed body staffed by private security contractors. Israel set it up in May to replace United Nations-led relief operations, yet dozens of Palestinians have been gunned down on at least eight occasions at GHF sites.
'This happens to some extent every day. It's becoming a routine,' said Yasser al-Banna, a journalist in Gaza.
'Now that Israel has started a war with Iran, everyone here in Gaza is scared that the world is going to forget about them,' he told Al Jazeera.
Since Israel began attacking Iran on June 13, global attention on the plight of Palestinians in the occupied territory has faded from the headlines.
But Israel has continued to attack Palestinians in Gaza, while conducting deadly raids in the West Bank.
After the latest attack on Palestinians desperate for food, analysts and human rights monitors told Al Jazeera that they believe Israel is likely to commit more 'massacres', while prioritising the welfare of Israelis as the war with Iran drags on. 'Israel is using the diverted attention away from Gaza to continue to carry out atrocious crimes against starving civilians,' said Omar Rahman, an expert on Israel and Palestine for the Middle East Council on Global Affairs think tank.
'We have also seen a lot of military and settler activity in the West Bank in recent days,' he told Al Jazeera.
Israel's violence against helpless Palestinians at the GHF site on Tuesday resulted in the highest single death toll at any GHF site since the controversial organisation began operations last month. It has been lambasted for what opponents have called the militarisation of humanitarian aid relief. Yet Israel's chokehold siege on the enclave has pushed Palestinians to make an impossible choice: Whither away from hunger or risk their lives to obtain a food parcel.
'Israel's whole GHF scheme is just a way to increase the humiliation of Palestinians,' said Ibrahim Nabeel, a Palestinian medic who has treated victims of the GHF attacks.
Along with sustaining its genocidal war in Gaza, Israel has also tightened its occupation over the West Bank since it began attacking Iran.
Several Palestinians told Al Jazeera that it is 'impossible to move' from one village or town to another. The entrances to Palestinian villages and cities have been blocked off by Israeli forces, and the number of military checkpoints has increased. (Agencies)
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Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
What is Israel's ‘most moral army in the world' doing in Gaza?
The Israeli military, which styles itself as the 'most moral army in the world', may be routinely committing war crimes, according to analysts in Israel and doctors who have worked in Gaza. While killings, beatings and the arbitrary arrest of Palestinians are not new to the Israeli army, a long process of dehumanisation, the infiltration of far-right ideologies in the army and a lack of accountability have led to a scenario where Israeli soldiers can do as they please without even needing an operational reason, analysts said. 'As far as I can see, this is a new phenomenon,' Erella Grassiani of the University of Amsterdam, who has written on what she referred to as the moral 'numbing' of Israeli soldiers during the second Intifada of 2000. 'It's not as if Israeli soldiers haven't beaten and arrested children for throwing stones before, but this is new,' she said. 'Previously, there were some kind of rules of engagement, even if they were loosely followed, but they were there. What we're seeing now is completely different,' she said. War as sport Accusations of casual brutality by Israeli soldiers in Gaza, and the occupied West Bank, are longstanding. Israeli soldiers have posted social media videos of themselves wearing the dresses of women whose homes they have raided, or playing with their underwear. And there are accounts of soldiers shooting civilians for 'target practice' or simply to stave off boredom. In early August, the BBC investigated the cases of Israeli soldiers killing children in Gaza. Of the 160 cases examined, 95 children had been shot in the head or the chest – shots that could not be claimed as 'intended to wound only'. In addition to killing children, there are accounts suggesting that Israeli soldiers have been using the civilians who gather around aid distribution sites run by the self-styled GHF for target practice. 'The GHF sites are set up as death traps,' British surgeon Nick Maynard, who returned in July from his third trip to Gaza since the war began, told Al Jazeera. 'They're compounds containing enough food for a family to eat for a few days, but not for all of the thousands of people they keep waiting outside. They then open the gates and let the chaos, fighting and even rioting happen, which they then use as a justification to fire into the crowd,' he said. The nature of the shooting became clear to the doctors and emergency room medics at nearby Nasser Hospital, where Maynard was working. 'I was operating on a 12-year-old boy, who later died,' Maynard said. 'He'd been shot at one of the GHF sites. I had a conversation about it with a colleague in the Emergency Room later, who told me that he and other medics had seen repeated and strong patterns of wound grouping,' he explained. Wound grouping refers to the phenomenon where several patients present with an injury to the same part of their body. The following day, many patients come in with a wound on a different part of the body, suggesting to Maynard that Israeli snipers were either playing or using civilians to improve their aim, as he told Sky News previously. An investigation by the Israeli magazine +972 in July 2024 painted a bleak picture of Israeli soldiers with no restrictions on their ability to shoot at civilians in Gaza. 'There was total freedom,' a soldier who served in Gaza for months told +972. 'If there is [even] a feeling of threat, there is no need to explain – you just shoot … it is permissible to shoot at their centre of mass [their body], not into the air', the anonymous soldier continued. 'It's permissible to shoot everyone, a young girl, an old woman.' Of the 52 probes that the Israeli army said it carried out into crimes it has been accused of committing in Gaza or the West Bank between October 2023 and June 2025, 88 percent were stalled or were closed with no action taken, according to a study by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV). Only one had resulted in a prison sentence against the accused. According to AOAV, the 52 cases they examined involved the killing of 1,303 people, the wounding of 1,880 people and the reported torture of two more. Even when there was footage of an incident, such as what appeared to be the gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman Israeli prison facility, public pressure, including from members of the Israeli cabinet, led to the accused's eventual release. Accusations that the Israeli army routinely tortures Palestinians date back to at least 1967, when the Red Crescent documented the systematic torture of prisoners in Nablus Prison in the West Bank. There has also been an increase in the dehumanising language used to refer to Palestinians that researchers now say is commonplace within the army. As far back as 1967, Israeli figures such as David Hacohen, one-time Israeli ambassador to Burma, now Myanmar,, were recorded denying that Palestinians were even human. In 1985, a survey of 520 books in Hebrew children's literature found that 86 depicted Palestinians as 'inhuman, war lovers, devious monsters, bloodthirsty dogs, preying wolves, or vipers'. Twenty years later, when many of those now deployed to Gaza were likely at school, 10 percent of a sample batch of Israeli children who were asked to draw Palestinians depicted them as animals. 'The dehumanisation of Palestinians is a process that goes back decades,' Grassiani of the University of Amsterdam said. 'But I'd say it's now complete. 'We've seen incredibly cruel acts from the first day to now, with Israeli soldiers seeking revenge for [the Hamas-led attack of] October 7,' she said. 'It's like a snowball running down a hill to which there's no bottom,' Haim Bresheeth, author of An Army Like No Other, a book about the Israeli military. 'Every year, the violence is ratcheted up,' he said. 'The idea of using civilians as target practice is the logical outcome. 'It's a new sport, a blood sport, and these sports always develop from the bottom up,' he said of Israel's infantry. 'It's twisted, murderous, and it's sick.'
Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
As UN looks to Kenya, could new global hub deepen inequality in Nairobi?
Nairobi, Kenya – In the shadow of gleaming glass towers in the upmarket neighbourhood of Gigiri – where manicured lawns meet the edge of Karura Forest and United Nations staff in air-conditioned vehicles glide past security checkpoints – lies a different reality just minutes away. In the cramped alleyways of Githogoro slum, just 2km (about a mile) from where Kenya's capital, Nairobi, may soon host more UN offices and staff, Agnes Karimi cuts meat on a wooden table under the scorching sun, watching her stock spoil in the heat because she has no electricity to power a refrigerator. While the UN complex boasts state-of-the-art conference facilities and reliable power, Karimi's meat spoils daily in her small butchery. The contrast could not be starker as Kenya readies for what local officials herald as a historic transformation. By 2026, major UN agencies including UNICEF, UNFPA, and UN Women may relocate their headquarters from high-cost Western cities to Nairobi, part of the UN80 reform agenda to decentralise operations to more cost-effective regions. For Nairobi – a bustling metropolis of 5 million people – the move promises to cement its status as one of four global UN hubs alongside New York, Geneva, and Vienna. 'Kenya will be leveraging on the UN's existing presence in the country and the opportunities presented by its operations in the greater horn, east and central Africa sub-regions,' Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi was quoted as saying in February, even though the UN said this month that the relocation decision has not been finalised. For Ambassador Ababu Namwamba, Kenya's permanent representative to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi boasts 'impressive capabilities' as a logistical and financial hub. 'As a key multilateral diplomatic hub and the environmental capital of the world, Nairobi has consistently provided top-tier services at third-tier cost,' he told Al Jazeera. For Nairobians, the proposed move has prompted a complex mix of hope, scepticism, and fear about who will actually benefit from this global spotlight. The city already grapples with a severe housing crisis that has left thousands living in informal settlements without basic services. With average monthly salaries hovering around $590-$640 for most Kenyans, the influx of an estimated 2,000 well-paid international staff by the end of 2026, earning substantially more, threatens to exacerbate existing inequalities in a city where nearly 60 percent of people live in informal settlements, covering just 5 percent of the land area. 'We do not have electricity here. My meat goes bad fast,' 36-year-old Karimi, who is a mother of four, said at her butchery, swatting flies in the humid air of Githogoro. Her struggles mirror those of thousands of informal business owners across Nairobi's sprawling slums, where access to electricity reaches only 23 percent of households, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS). Nairobi's 'Beverly Hills' gearing up In Nairobi's upscale neighbourhoods, transformations are already visible. In Runda, Muthaiga, and Kitisuru – areas often dubbed the 'Beverly Hills of Nairobi' – tree-lined streets and gated communities are preparing for an influx of international staff. This includes fast-tracking construction of upscale housing units, as well as expanding restaurants, long-stay hotels and international school campuses. These leafy enclaves, where swimming pools glisten behind high walls and gardeners tend to manicured lawns, represent the Nairobi that most UN staff will call home. Meanwhile, the city's housing market is also anticipating a shift. According to Joachim Ombui, chairman of the Landlords and Tenants Association of Kenya, the UN's settlement in Nairobi is predicted to yield a 10 to 11 percent increase for long-term rentals. 'This is an international advantage for businesses and socioeconomic integration, positioning Nairobi as a global hub for investment, peace integration for African states, and a strategic location for tourism and business,' he told Al Jazeera. Ombui predicts a 10-15 percent rental price rise by 2026, 'as developers target UN staff with gated communities'. 'We're seeing a shift toward mixed-use developments in areas like Westlands, Kilimani, and Upper Hill, incorporating residential, commercial, and recreational spaces with sustainable, eco-friendly designs,' he told Al Jazeera. But he added that 'rising lease costs and rents, which could double, are a concern', saying that his association would petition authorities to implement rent control measures. The property market has already been experiencing changes, observers note. In Ruaka, a growing middle class residential hub near the UN headquarters, journalist Rwamba Njagi notes that some housing rentals that used to cost around $155 per month last year have now soared to over $380. This is being fuelled by improved infrastructure and the area's close proximity to key offices and amenities. For the last three years, Njagi said property costs have been rising rapidly in this district as investors and developers who recognised the untapped potential moved in. 'The majority of locals who inherited land sold to investors and left to become watchmen and caretakers,' she said. These price increases are occurring in a city where rental costs already consume 40 to 60 percent of middle-class incomes, according to local real estate reports. With average one-bedroom apartments in decent neighbourhoods costing $200-400 monthly – equivalent to an entire month's salary for many Kenyans – the prospect of further increases due to international demand has sparked genuine anxiety. John Mwati, executive director of the Transcending Africa Leadership Foundation and an economist, sees both opportunity and risk in the expansion. 'The UN moving its operations to Nairobi is a big deal for us. It could have a profoundly positive impact on Kenya's economic landscape, bringing more jobs and spending in sectors like real estate, hospitality, and services,' he explained. However, Mwati warns that 'smart government action is needed: Investing in affordable housing, regulating runaway property prices, and making sure the economic gains are felt across the board.' Repeated attempts by Al Jazeera to contact the government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura, the Principal Secretary for Labour and Skills Development Shadrack Mwadime, and the Head of Presidential Special Projects and Creative Economy Coordination Dennis Itumbi, were unanswered. Mixed feelings The UN General Assembly (UNGA) has already approved two construction projects at the UN Office at Nairobi (UNON) to the amount of nearly $340m, the largest investment the UN Secretariat has undertaken in Africa since its inception, besides peacekeeping. These enhancements could potentially allow Nairobi to host UNGA meetings – a diplomatic coup that would further cement Kenya's role as what officials call the 'multilateral capital of the Global South'. The Kenyan capital has long served as a UN hub. Since 1972, it has seen the number of UN staff it hosts surge from 300 to 6,500, along with their 11,000 family members and dependents. There are now 83 UN offices, the majority of which are in Gigiri. Yet, despite this strong UN presence, infrastructural upgrades have remained limited to specific parts of the capital. For 33-year-old Simon Awene, a father of two, any optimism about the proposed UN expansion has been exhausted by years of unfulfilled promises. 'The only time anyone helps us is when they are pushing for their agendas,' he said, lamenting that the improved services, education and work opportunities he expected have not materialised. However, according to Ambassador Ababu, Kenya 'is ready for more of the world'. He told Al Jazeera that 'elaborate plans have been implemented to ease logistics, including expansion of all access roads leading towards the UN, modernisation of the airport, sea and dryland ports in Mombasa, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Naivasha.' John Njuguna, a 24-year-old motorbike taxi driver, represents a younger generation cautiously hopeful about new opportunities. His clients are mostly casual labourers, and he believes an increase in international staff will create a ripple effect of employment. 'I have hopes of earning more with the coming of more foreigners because that will translate to more casual labourers working and commuting daily,' Njuguna said, revving his motorcycle at a busy Gigiri junction where matatus (shared taxis) jostle for passengers alongside diplomatic vehicles. However, Cledwyn Mamai, an events coordinator who resides near the affluent Runda area, suggests the effect of the changes may be limited to established wealthy neighbourhoods where 'a large proportion of residents own their homes.' Despite more international money coming in to Nairobi, he feels that those Kenyans with property available for leasing may be 'sceptical of the hikes in rents' because they doubt the middle-class Kenyan renters they serve will be able to afford them. Mamai notes that in districts like Githogoro, where residents like Karimi have watched international prosperity flourish next door while their basic needs remain unmet, a different effect will be felt. 'The expansion feels like another reminder of their exclusion from Kenya's growth story,' he warned. For Karimi, working in her small butchery in Githogoro, news of the proposed UN changes had not reached her. But when she was told, she became instantly hopeful that perhaps it could bring some relief. 'I only wish that the UN community could help us get electricity,' she said, dreaming of better days. 'I could buy a refrigerator to add to my stock and ensure I have fresh meat and food for my clients.' This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.
Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Why is the US sparing China, but not India, for importing Russian oil?
United States President Donald Trump has threatened to slap new sanctions on Russia and secondary sanctions on countries that buy Moscow's crude in efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war. While Trump imposed an additional 25 percent tariff earlier this month – to a total of 50 percent – on India's goods, citing its continued imports of Russian oil, he has not instigated similar punitive actions against China, the largest buyer of Russian energy. So, why has the Trump administration mounted pressure on India to stop purchasing Russian oil while taking little action against China? Who is buying Russia oil, and how does Trump want to prevent that? As the largest purchaser of Russian oil, China imported a record 109 million tonnes of this product last year, representing nearly 20 percent of its total energy imports, Chinese customs data showed. India, by contrast, imported 88 million tonnes of Russian oil in 2024. As such, China has arguably been Russia's key economic lifeline, leading to accusations that Beijing is indirectly helping Moscow in its war on Ukraine, now in its fourth year. It is understood that lawmakers from both main US political parties are pushing for a bill – the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 – that would target any country that buys Russian oil and natural gas. The bill would give Trump the authority to impose 500 percent tariffs against nations that are perceived to be helping Russia. US senators are reportedly waiting on Trump's OK to move the bill forward. What reasons has Trump cited for not imposing new tariffs on China? Asked by Fox News on August 15 if he was considering secondary sanctions on Beijing after he and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to agree on a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire in Alaska last week, Trump said, 'Well, because of what happened today, I think I don't have to think about that.' 'Now, I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don't have to think about that right now,' he said. Observers suspect Trump is buying time to allow negotiations on a broad trade deal that would include rare earth minerals. Rare earths are a group of 17 elements essential to numerous manufacturing industries, from auto parts to clean energy and military technology. China has long dominated the mining and processing of rare earth minerals. Because numerous US industries are heavily reliant on Chinese minerals, they remain a central issue in ongoing trade talks. Trump has other reasons for giving China an easier ride than India. In particular, he's keen to avoid a tariff spike just as US retailers stock up on inventories of Chinese goods ahead of December's Christmas holiday season. For his part, Trump has taken steps to reduce trade flashpoints in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the US eased some of its export restrictions on advanced semiconductors – a key demand from China. On August 11, Trump permitted US company Nvidia to sell advanced chips to China – even if the tech giant would have to pay 15 percent of its China sales to the federal government. Trump had previously barred the deal. Speaking to CNBC news on Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended Washington's decision not to impose secondary sanctions against China saying, Beijing purchased 13 percent of Russian oil before the Ukraine war, which has now increased to 16 percent. 'So China has a diversified input of their oil,' he said. He added that China had not engaged in the kind of 'arbitrage' done by India. But Bessent accused India of 'profiteering'. He pointed out that before the Ukraine war, India's import of Russian oil was less than 1 percent. But 'now, I believe, it's up to 42 percent,' he said. 'This is what I would call the Indian arbitrage – buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product,' he told CNBC. 'They've made $16bn in excess profits – some of the richest families in India.' On Monday, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro became the second senior Trump administration official to accuse India of financing Russia's war in Ukraine. Earlier this month, Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff at the White House, said that New Delhi's purchase of Russia crude was 'not acceptable'. What have other officials said? On August 12, US Vice President JD Vance declined to say whether Trump would move against Beijing as he did with New Delhi the previous week, when Washington announced an extra 25 percent tariff on India's imports over its continued purchase of Russian oil. 'The president said he's thinking about it, but he hasn't made any firm decisions … the China issue's a little bit more complicated because our relationship with China, it just, it affects a lot of other things that have nothing to do with the Russian situation,' Vance said. Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that energy prices could rise if the US imposes secondary sanctions on China for refining Russian oil. In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Rubio said, 'If you put secondary sanctions on a country – let's say you were to go after the oil sales of Russian oil to China. Well, China just refines that oil. That oil is then sold into the global marketplace, and anyone who's buying that oil would be paying more for it.' Meanwhile, Beijing's embassy in Washington said China's trade with Russia falls within the scope of international law. 'The international community, including China, has conducted normal cooperation with Russia within the framework of international law,' said Liu Pengyu, the embassy's spokesman, on July 6. How would heightened tariffs impact the US and Chinese economies? A ceasefire deal in Ukraine, with the resulting reduction of sanctions on Russia, would bring greater stability to the international system and a boon for China's economy, not least after the last subdued economic data in July. Last month, China's economy slowed as factory activity, investment and retail sales fell from June, suggesting that spillovers from Trump's tariffs are casting a pall over the world's number-two economy. Elsewhere, China's youth unemployment rate rose to its highest level in 11 months in July, as the urban jobless rate for the 16-24 age group, excluding students, rose to 17.8 percent – up from 14.5 percent in June. Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis in Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera that 'Cracks are starting to show [in the Chinese economy] and the overall picture is not great.' Still, she said that 'Chinese banks and firms have been preparing for the possibility of secondary sanctions for a long time already. They already started worrying about this under the [Joe] Biden administration.' In recent years, Beijing has stepped up its efforts to diversify trade routes and build greater numbers of strategic products at home, making China's economy 'harder to strangle through elevated or secondary sanctions', said Garcia Herrero. 'Clearly,' she said, 'given the high level of goods imports from China to the US, higher tariffs would also raise inflation for American consumers.' Last year, the US trade deficit with China was $295.4bn, marking a 5.8 percent rise from 2023. What is the current state of US-China trade? On August 12, the US and China extended a pre-existing tariff pause – and avoided an all-out trade war – for 90 days. With the extension, the imposition of higher US tariffs on China was suspended until November 10, with all other elements of the truce remaining in place. The two sides agreed to their first tariff pause on May 11. In April, China was slapped with a tariff of 145 percent while Beijing slapped a reciprocal tariff of 125 percent on the US – rates that amounted to a virtual trade embargo between the countries. High tariffs prompted the US trade deficit with China to fall to its narrowest level since 2004 in June, according to US Census Bureau data. The US trade gap with China fell by $22.2bn from March to August. That amounts to a 70 percent drop from one year earlier. But the tariff truce agreed to in May in Geneva, Switzerland, lowered the temperature by temporarily slashing US tariffs on Chinese imports to 30 percent, while Chinese levies on US exports fell to 10 percent. Beijing also agreed to resume some rare earth exports. 'I think there will be a [trade] deal of some sort soon,' Garcia Herrero said. 'Nothing dramatic, as the levels of trust on both sides are low. But the US and China both need some positive news, or they face hitting economic walls.'
