Netanyahu to seek approval for expanded Gaza offensive as 42 Palestinians are killed
Advertisement
'There is nothing left to occupy,' said Maysaa al-Heila, who is living in a displacement camp. 'There is no Gaza left.'
At least 42 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes and shootings across southern Gaza on Thursday, according to local hospitals.
A new escalation could deepen Israel's isolation
Netanyahu has been meeting this week with advisers to discuss what his office said are ways to 'further achieve Israel's goals in Gaza' after the breakdown of cease-fire talks last month. The Security Cabinet meeting began Thursday evening, according to Israeli media, and was expected to stretch into the night.
Advertisement
Expanding military operations would further isolate Israel internationally, after several of its closest Western allies have called on it to end the war and facilitate more humanitarian aid. In Israel, families of the hostages have called for mass protests Thursday, fearing an escalation could doom their loved ones.
Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals but 50 remain inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive.
Almost two dozen relatives of hostages set sail from southern Israel towards the maritime border with Gaza on Thursday, where they broadcast messages from loudspeakers.
Yehuda Cohen, the father of Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza, said from the boat that Netanyahu is prolonging the war to satisfy extremists in his governing coalition. Netanyahu's far-right allies want to escalate the war, relocate most of Gaza's population to other countries and reestablish Jewish settlements that were dismantled in 2005.
'Netanyahu is working only for himself,' Cohen said, pleading with the international community to put pressure on the prime minister to stop the war and save his son.
Palestinians killed and wounded as they seek food
Israel's military offensive has killed over 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals who keep and share detailed records.
The United Nations and independent experts view the ministry's figures as the most reliable estimate of casualties. Israel has disputed them without offering a toll of its own.
Advertisement
Of the 42 people killed on Thursday, at least 13 were seeking aid in an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where U.N. aid convoys are regularly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds. Another two were killed on roads leading to nearby sites run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
Neither the GHF nor the Israeli military immediately commented on the strikes or shootings. The military zone, known as the Morag Corridor, is off limits to independent media.
Hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks while heading to GHF sites and in chaotic scenes around U.N. convoys, most of which are overwhelmed by looters and crowds of hungry people. The U.N. human rights office, witnesses and health officials have offered similar accounts of the near-daily shootings by Israeli fire going back to May, when Israel lifted a complete 2 1/2 month blockade.
The military says it has only fired warning shots when crowds approach its forces. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired into the air on some occasions to prevent deadly stampedes.
Mourners attend the funeral of Palestinian activist Awdah Al Hathaleen, who was killed by Israeli settler according to Palestinian health officials, in the West Bank Bedouin village of Umm al-Khair, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025.
Mahmoud Illean/Associated Press
Israel and GHF face mounting criticism
Human Rights Watch called on governments worldwide to suspend arms transfers to Israel after deadly airstrikes on two Palestinian schools-turned-shelters last year.
The New York-based rights group said an investigation did not find any evidence of a military target at either school. At least 49 people were killed in the airstrikes that hit the Khadija girls' school in Deir al-Balah on July 27, 2024, and the al-Zeitoun C school in Gaza City on Sept. 21, 2024.
Advertisement
Doctors Without Borders, a medical charity known by its French acronym MSF, published a blistering report against GHF, accusing it of 'orchestrated killing' rather than handing out aid.
The U.S. and Israel helped set up the foundation as an alternative to the U.N.-run aid delivery system that has sustained Gaza for decades, accusing Hamas of siphoning off assistance. The U.N. denies any mass diversion by Hamas. It accuses GHF of forcing Palestinians to risk their lives to get food and say it advances Israel's plans for further mass displacement.
MSF runs two medical clinics very close to the GHF sites and said it had treated nearly 1,400 people wounded near the sites between June 7 and July 20, including 28 people who were dead upon arrival. MSF also treated 41 children who were shot near GHF sites.
The organization said it has also treated almost 200 patients with physical assault injuries from chaotic scrambles at GHF sites, including head injuries, suffocation, and multiple patients with severely aggravated eyes after being sprayed at close range with pepper spray.
GHF accused the medical charity of joining a 'smear campaign' against it and said most of the violence in recent weeks has occurred around U.N. convoys.
___
Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Josef Federman contributed from Jerusalem and Natalie Melzer contributed from Nahariya.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
UPI
an hour ago
- UPI
Trump upset Smithsonian shows 'how bad slavery was'
Aug. 19 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump stepped up his criticisms of the Smithsonian on Tuesday, deriding the museums for its negative portrayal of slavery in American history. Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform that he would direct his attorneys to "review" the Smithsonian in the same way his administration has sought to reshape colleges and universities. The post comes a week after the White House announced it was subjecting the influential museum consortium to an unprecedented examination of its materials, signaling it had become a focal point in Trump's efforts to transform cultural institutions. In his post, Trump wrote that museums all over the country are the "last remaining segment of 'woke.'" "The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been -- Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future," Trump wrote. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., reacted with a post on X, writing that if "Trump thinks slavery wasn't bad, he clearly needs to spend more time in a museum." Roughly 17 million people visited one of the Smithsonian's 21 museums and galleries last year. Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lonnie Bunch III, who is the first African American to lead the institution and has held the position since 2019, has previously commented on the importance of acknowledging slavery's impact on American history. "I believe strongly that you cannot understand America without understanding slavery, that our notions of freedom, our notions of liberty are juxtaposed with our notions of enslavement," he said in an interview on Face the Nation in 2021. "And so I think that it's not about pointing blame, it's not about remembering difficult moments just to hurt." Last week, three White House aides wrote to Bunch in a letter notifying him the museum would be subject to a review to "ensure alignment with the President's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions." The reshaping of the Smithsonian and its galleries and museums has been part the Trump administration's goal to remove left-leaning ideology from the federal government and cultural institutions. In March, Trump signed an executive order directing the Smithsonian to eliminate "divisive" and "anti-American ideology" from its museums, pointing to exhibits that "promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive." He also named himself chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, seemingly in opposition to its having hosted performances he disagreed with for promoting so-called woke ideology. The move prompted many performances and performers to cancel shows.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Opinion - The Donbas is a poisoned chalice that neither Russia nor Ukraine should want
Whichever side in the Russo-Ukrainian War wins the Donbas loses the war. That is the savage and largely unacknowledged irony at the core of the struggle over the Donbas — a territory that has recently come to occupy center stage in President Trump's post-summit thinking about how to end the war. Inasmuch as Russia has occupied most of the industrial basin known as the Donbas since its first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 — and is highly unlikely to be driven from that territory anytime soon — Russia has already lost the war, regardless of how long it continues and whether or not a U.S.-brokered ceasefire or peace becomes a reality. The Donbas was the industrial powerhouse of the Soviet Union for decades, but the region was already going into decline by the 1970s and 1980s. When Ukraine became independent in 1991, it inherited what had largely become a value-destroying territory. The Donbas fed the corrupt appetites of local politicians, oligarchs and organized crime. Its working-class residents claimed to have an exalted status belied by a wretched reality. As the economist Anders Aslund put it in 2015, 'The Donbas is a rust belt of old mines, steel mills and chemical factories. Almost all the coal mines and chemical factories are inactive … The rebels have blown up railway bridges, complicating bulk transportation.' In 2016, Aslund estimated that it would cost some $20 billion to revive the Donbas. By 2025, the estimated cost of Ukraine's reconstruction had zoomed upward to $524 billion, a 26-fold increase. Much of that money would need to go to the Donbas, where most of the heaviest fighting has taken place. A reasonable guesstimate of how much it would cost to rebuild just the Donbas today is $200 billion — nearly one-tenth of Russia's reported annual GDP and slightly more than Ukraine's. If the fighting continues indefinitely, that sum will surely double or even triple. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has that kind of cash. It is conceivable that Vladimir Putin's fascist regime could squeeze some money out of its subjects, but Ukraine's democracy could not. Fixing the Donbas would bankrupt either state, especially as the international community and business are unlikely to offer much in the way of assistance. But the burden of owning the Donbas isn't just financial. It is also demographic, environmental and political. According to Aslund, writing in 2016, 'Ukraine claims 1.2 million internally displaced persons, while Russia reports half a million refugees from the Donbas, and the United Nations estimates that some 100,000 have fled elsewhere. If these numbers are reasonably correct, 1.8 million have fled and 1.5 million remain. Apart from some 45,000 fighters, the remaining population largely consists of pensioners and the destitute.' This was the Donbas 10 years ago. We don't know how many people fled after the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022, but the numbers must be substantial. In addition, the armed militias that served in the phony Luhansk and Donetsk 'People's Republics' were thrown at the front and suffered enormous losses. Whatever its exact size, the Donbas's overwhelmingly aged and impoverished population can hardly be the basis of an economic boom. And how many refugees will return? How many people will move there from other parts of Ukraine or Russia if and when peace is attained? The questions are largely rhetorical, especially as the Donbas is an environmental hell hole. According to the Conflict and Environment Observatory, the fighting since 2014 has 'created a risk of environmental emergencies and will leave a lasting legacy of groundwater contamination from flooded coal mines.' Moreover, 'following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, hundreds of environmentally sensitive sites have been caught up in the conflict.' The Donbas will also become the site of endless political instability. If Ukraine inherits the territory, pro-Russian elements, in cahoots with the Russian security services, are sure to stage provocations, assassinate local officials, sabotage plants and so on. If Russia keeps the Donbas, Ukraine is sure to engage in equally subversive activities. How fair and free elections could take place under such conditions is anybody's guess. Despite these similarities, there is one fundamental difference. Putin's fascist regime will thrive on repression and violence; Ukraine's democracy won't. Indeed, while Putin can crush whatever opposition he encounters, Ukraine will have to mollify and integrate it — a test it failed before 2014 and one that it is unlikely to pass after years of war. Will failing this test make Ukraine more or less likely to overcome existing hurdles and join the European Union and NATO? Again, the question is rhetorical. The Donbas's transformation into a permanent source of instability will have at least two negative consequences for Putin. It will divert Russia's coercive resources from other, equally unstable parts of the Russian Federation. It will also encourage some non-Russian regions — the north Caucasus comes immediately to mind — to press for greater autonomy and less Kremlin oversight. France and the German states fought for centuries over Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland. That made some sense, since both regions were economically, politically and socially developed. Not so the Donbas. It is a black hole and will remain so for years to come. For better or for worse, neither Ukraine nor Russia can just turn their backs on the territory without violating their constitutions and courting mass demonstrations. Of course, as far as Putin is concerned, a constitution is just a piece of paper. Even so, to abandon the Donbas would be to admit defeat and experience political suicide. Ditto for Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky. If winning means losing, does losing mean winning? Regardless of how they answer that question and what the terms of a possible peace deal might be, Ukrainians may take some consolation from the fact that, thanks to Putin's heady territorial ambitions, Russia will be stuck with that black hole for years to come. Indeed, Russia itself will progressively come to resemble the Donbas. That could be Ukraine's greatest victory. Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as 'Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires' and 'Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
At least seven killed as Russian air strikes on Ukraine continue right before Trump-Zelenskyy talks
Russia launched a fresh wave of attacks against Ukraine overnight on Monday killing at least seven people and injuring over a dozen, on the eve of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump at the White House. The Kremlin fired a new barrage of missiles and drones, according to Ukrainian officials, targeting multiple cities. In Kharkiv, seven people were killed, including a toddler, and at least 18 others were injured after Moscow targeted a residential area in the northeastern city. The death toll was originally reported at four, but has since risen to seven as rescuers continued to work their way through the rubble in the aftermath of the strike Regional Governor Oleh Synehubov says a two-year-old was killed in the strike. At least six of those wounded were also children aged between 6 and 17. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov noted earlier that many people were trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings, warning that preliminary figures could continue to rise. 'A woman has just been rescued from under the rubble: she is alive,' Terekhov wrote on his official Telegram page. Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, has been a target of Russia's intensified aerial campaign. The northeastern Ukrainian city near the border with Russia has seen an escalation in aerial assaults in recent weeks, despite the ongoing US-led peace efforts to bring Russia's full-scale invasion, well into its fourth year, to a close. On Sunday, multiple people were injured after Russia fired a barrage of missiles and guided bombs against civilian targets. Meanwhile, neighbouring Sumy was also targeted by the Kremlin in the early hours of Monday. Two people were wounded, and more than two dozen homes and an educational institution sustained damage during the shelling of the region next to Kharkiv. "The enemy continues to deliberately target civilian infrastructure in the Sumy region — treacherously, at night," head of Sumy's regional administration Oleh Hryhorov wrote. The Black Sea port city of Odesa has also been placed under monitoring after residents reported hearing an explosion late on Sunday and into the early hours of Monday. Ukraine's Air Forces also warned that the entire frontline region is under threat of glide bombs and drone attacks, urging civilians to exercise caution. The attacks come as Zelenskyy arrived in Washington for a crucial meeting with Trump in the White House, the Ukrainian leader's first visit since late February's dramatic Oval Office showdown between himself, Trump and US Vice President JD Vance. In a post on X, the Ukrainian president reiterated Kyiv's commitment and desire to end the war 'quickly and reliably'. He referenced a previous ceasefire between his country and Russia following the initial invasion of Ukraine's Donbas and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. 'Peace must be lasting. Not like it was years ago, when Ukraine was forced to give up Crimea and part of our east, part of Donbas, and Putin simply used it as a springboard for a new attack. Or when Ukraine was given so called 'security guarantees' in 1994, but they didn't work,' wrote Zelenskyy. Just hours before welcoming Zelenskyy, Trump, speaking to US media outlets, stressed that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO as part of any potential peace deal with Russia, a sticking point in past negotiations and a crucial goal of Zelenskyy's to guarantee his country's security. In a post on his own social media platform, Truth Social, the US president also said that Zelenskyy has the power to end the war 'almost immediately', warning that if he does not, he'll be left to continue fighting, suggestively without US support. 'Some things never change,' wrote Trump just days after his first face-to-face meeting with Putin in a military base in Alaska on Friday. Zelenskyy will be attending the meeting with a slew of other European leaders on Monday, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, France's Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Finnish President Alexander Stubb. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will also be in attendance. They will all be joining at the Ukrainian leader's request in a strong show of unity despite the Trump administration's attempts to sideline Europe from talks to stop Russia's all-out war on Ukraine. The article has been updated to reflect the latest death toll in Kharkiv on Monday. Solve the daily Crossword
