Israeli strikes kill 30 in Gaza, health officials say
The 21-month war triggered by Hamas' October 7 attack is raging on after two days of talks between US president Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ended last week with no sign of a breakthrough in negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release.
Twelve people were killed by strikes in southern Gaza, including three who were waiting at an aid distribution point, according to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which received the bodies.
Shifa Hospital in Gaza City also received 12 bodies, including three children and two women, after a series of strikes in the north, according to the hospital's director, Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia.
Al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza reported six killed and eight wounded in strikes in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas.
The military said a June 19 strike killed Muhammad Nasr Ali Quneita, who it said had taken part in the October 7 attack and held hostage Emily Damari, a dual Israeli-British citizen, in his home at the start of the war.
There was no comment from Hamas nor independent confirmation.
Thousands of Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 people, most of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. The militants are still holding 50 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which has said women and children make up more than half of the dead.
It does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its tally.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and is led by medical professionals. The United Nations and other experts consider its figures to be the most reliable count of war casualties.
Israel's air and ground war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and driven some 90% of the population from their homes. Aid groups say they have struggled to bring in food and other assistance because of Israeli military restrictions and the breakdown of law and order, and experts have warned of famine.
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Israel issues new evacuation orders in central Gaza as hunger worsens
CAIRO, July 20 (Reuters) - The Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Sunday in areas of central Gaza packed with displaced Palestinians where it hasn't operated so far in its war with Hamas, while medics said at least 30 people were killed waiting for aid as hunger mounts. The military evacuation demand, which could signal an imminent attack on neighbourhoods in Deir al-Balah, alarmed the families of Israeli hostages, who fear their relatives are being held there. Much of Gaza has been reduced to a wasteland during more than 21 months of war and there are fears of accelerating starvation. Health officials at Al Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza said at least 30 Palestinians were killed and dozens of others wounded by Israeli fire as crowds gathered to await the entry of U.N. aid trucks. Israel's military said it was checking the report. Palestinian health officials said hundreds of people could soon die as hospitals were inundated with patients suffering from dizziness and exhaustion due to the scarcity of food and a collapse in aid deliveries. "We warn that hundreds of people whose bodies have wasted away are at risk of imminent death due to hunger," the health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said. The United Nations also said on Sunday that civilians were starving and needed an urgent influx of aid. The Israeli military dropped leaflets from the sky ordering people in several districts in southwest Deir al-Balah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans have been sheltering, to leave their homes and head further south. "The (Israeli) Defense Forces continues to operate with great force to destroy the enemy's capabilities and terrorist infrastructure in the area," the military said, adding that it had not entered these districts during the current conflict. Israeli sources have said the reason the army has so far stayed out is because they suspect Hamas might be holding hostages there. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in captivity in Gaza are believed to still be alive. Hostage families demanded an explanation from the army. "Can anyone (promise) to us that this decision will not come at the cost of losing our loved ones?" the families said in a statement. Some Palestinians suggested the move on Deir al-Balah might be an attempt to put pressure on Hamas to make more concessions in long-running ceasefire negotiations. Israel and Hamas are engaged in indirect talks in Doha aimed at reaching a 60-day truce and hostage deal, although there has been no sign of breakthrough. The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza. The Israeli military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed more than 58,000 Palestinians according to health officials, displaced almost the entire population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis. Local health authorities said a total of 45 people had been killed in separate Israeli gunfire and airstrikes across Gaza on Sunday. Residents said it was becoming impossible to find essential food such as flour. The Gaza health ministry said at least 71 children had died of malnutrition during the war, and 60,000 others were suffering from symptoms of malnutrition. Food prices have increased well beyond what most of the population of more than two million can afford. Several people who spoke to Reuters via chat apps said they either had one meal or no meal in the past 24 hours. "As a father, I wake up in the early morning to look for food, for even a loaf of bread for my five children, but all in vain," said Ziad, a nurse. "People who didn't die of bombs will die of hunger. We want an end to this war now, a truce, even for two months," he told Reuters. Others said they felt dizzy walking in the streets and that many fainted as they walked. Fathers leave tents to avoid questions by their children about what to eat. UNRWA, the U.N. refugee agency dedicated to Palestinians, demanded Israel allow more aid trucks into Gaza, saying it had enough food for the entire population for over three months which was not allowed in. "The Israeli Authorities are starving civilians in #Gaza. Among them are 1 million children. Lift the siege: allow UNRWA to bring in food and medicines," it wrote on X on Sunday. Israel has denied accusations it is preventing aid from reaching Gaza and has accused Hamas of stealing food, an allegation Hamas denies. It also says the United Nations has not picked up aid ready to move into Gaza.
The National
an hour ago
- The National
David Pratt: Israel's expansionism is the clear and present danger
Ever since the founding of the Jewish state, Israel has repeatedly presented to the world that its military actions have been motivated primarily by 'existential' need. That much was evident again during a speech in February when Israeli defence minister Israel Katz told how he had asked the country's military commanders what the main lesson was from the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. 'They said we will no longer allow radical organisations to exist near Israel's borders, whether in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria or near the settlements. And that is now our policy,' Katz's speech went on to recount the military chiefs as saying. But the truth of the matter is that this has always been Israel's policy, and at the heart of such a military doctrine lies the belief that territorial depth offers lasting security. Or, to put this another way, security through expansionism has forever been a core tenet of the Israeli military playbook. That said, rarely though has the country and its government been as determinedly expansionist as it is today. Writing recently in the Financial Times (FT), the Saudi author and commentator Ali Shihabi described Israel's current pursuit of more territory as one 'cloaked in the language of security and religious entitlement'. By 'entitlement', Shihabi is of course referring to the biblical idea of a 'Greater Israel' that many of the religious zealots and right-wingers that comprise Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's coalition government envisage in Gaza, the Occupied West Bank and beyond. Whether Netanyahu himself is fully aligned with his cabinet over ambitions for a 'Greater Israel' remains open to conjecture, but what's in no doubt is that Israel is now pushing back its borders like never before. In Gaza this past week, reports of an intensification in the demolition of buildings underscores what many observers see as Israel's long-term plan to move the Palestinian population out and fully control Gaza's post-war space. In the occupied West Bank, meanwhile, Israel's illegal settlement expansion and annexing of territory goes on apace. Further afield, the past week also saw Israel doubling down militarily on both Syria and Lebanon. In Syria, Israel continues to take territorial advantage of the country's political fragility in the wake of the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's regime. For months, the Israeli military have been assimilating the Druze residents of the Golan Heights, venturing territorially far beyond the line where their predecessors stopped during the conquest of this mountainous plateau that Israel has occupied since 1967. Since the ousting of Assad last December, Israel has struck Syria hundreds of times and invaded and occupied about 155 square miles of its territory. Last Wednesday, Israel launched air strikes on Syria's capital, Damascus. It also hit Syrian government forces in the south in an operation it says was aimed at protecting the Druze minority group caught up in clashes with Bedouin tribes in Syria's southern province of Sweida close to the Israeli border. But Netanyahu's claim that Israel is simply giving the Druze – one million of whom are spread across the region, including in Israel – a helping hand simply doesn't wash with many Middle East analysts. 'It's pure opportunism,' Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador and consul general in New York, told Al Jazeera. 'Of course, it's nice to pretend that we're helping our friends the Druze, in the same way as we never helped our other friends, the Kurds,' he said, referring to another regional ethnic group. Pinkas is not alone in his assessment that Israel doesn't want to see a unified Syria with a strong central government controlled by Ahmed al-Sharaa's fledgling presidency. Like other observers, Pinkas maintains that Netanyahu would far rather see 'a weak central government dealing with areas controlled by the Kurds (in the north) and the Druze and Bedouin in the south. 'Basically, if Syria remains un-unified, Israel can do what it wants in its south,' he added, underlining yet again the perceived importance of territorial depth offering lasting security. Few doubt that the sectarian violence that has gripped Syria's Sweida province these past days has underscored the country's fragility and presented Shaara with his most significant crisis yet. For his part, Netanyahu reiterated that Israel will continue to use military means to enforce its two red lines in Syria – the demilitarisation of the area south of Damascus, near Israel's border, and the protection of the country's Druze minority there. The most extremist members of Netanyahu's government meanwhile continue to make clear that Israel's intention is to go much further. Only a few months ago, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that Israel would not stop fighting until Syria was partitioned and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been expelled from Gaza into third countries. 'With God's help and the valour of your comrades-in-arms who continue to fight even now, we will end this campaign when Syria is dismantled, Hezbollah is severely beaten, Iran is stripped of its nuclear threat, Gaza is cleansed of Hamas and hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on their way out of it to other countries,' Smotrich declared during a pre-Memorial Day speech in the West Bank. According to the Times of Israel, Smotrich's comment about dividing Syria came just days after US Republican congressman Marlin Stutzman told the newspaper that Sharaa had expressed 'openness' to normalising relations with Jerusalem and cautioned against efforts to divide the country. 'The first (concern) – which I felt was most important to him – was that Israel may have a plan to divide up the nation of Syria into ... multiple parts. That was something that he was very opposed to,' Stutzman recalled. The plan, again according to the Times of Israel, appeared to be a reference to the lobbying Israel has reportedly been doing in Washington for the US to buck Sharaa's fledgling government in favour of establishing a decentralised series of autonomous ethnic regions, with the southern one bordering Israel being demilitarised. Going by last week's flare-up between Israel and Syria, that issue of partitioning Syria and creating a demilitarised southern area appears to be still on the cards as far as Netanyahu is concerned. This weekend, relations took a slightly more positive turn however after hostilities between the two sides were quelled on Friday by the announcement of a ceasefire. Israeli officials confirmed that 'due to the ongoing instability,' they had agreed to allow Syrian forces limited access to the Sweida area over the next few days. But even with this ceasefire in place, the situation remains incredibly volatile, and Shaara could now in effect be forced to either cede ambitions to reassert state control over southern Syria, undermining his attempts to unify the country, or risk an even greater confrontation with Israel. Israel's laying down of territorial markers in Syria is just the latest example of what some analysts say is a policy of pushing a dangerous expansionism in the region. With the Israeli air force bombing Beirut and the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, as well as the Syrian capital Damascus from which its infantry troops are now stationed a mere 40 minutes away, never has Israel engaged in such prolonged conflict on so many battlefronts. All this too before taking into consideration its recent onslaught on targets across Iran. With every day that passes, Netanyahu, it seems. raises the stakes even further while increasingly disregarding the occasional overtures from Washington to rein in Israel's military actions as was the case in Syria last week. To get a fuller picture of the scale and intensity of Israel's expansionist strategy right now, it's worth considering recent mapping compiled by the independent non-profit think tank the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). According to a recent analysis of its data, it shows that between October 7, 2023 – the date of the Hamas attack on Israel – and just before Israel attacked Iran on June 13, 2025, Israel carried out nearly 35,000 recorded attacks across five countries: the occupied Palestinian territory, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran. These attacks include air and drone strikes, shelling and missile attacks, remote explosives and property destruction. The majority of attacks have been on Palestinian territory with at least 18,235 recorded incidents, followed by Lebanon (15,520), Syria (616), Iran (58) and Yemen (39). Detailing ACLED's research, the broadcaster Al Jazeera noted that while the bulk of Israel's attacks have concentrated on nearby Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon, its military operations have also reached far beyond its immediate borders. Over the past six months, Israeli forces have launched more than 200 air, drone or artillery attacks across Syria, averaging an assault roughly every three to four days, according to ACLED. Meanwhile, reports last week confirmed that Israel has stepped up the demolition of buildings across Gaza with entire towns and suburbs levelled in the past few weeks. Heavy machinery has played a central role in this destruction, operated both by soldiers and civilians, reports indicate. Civilians operating heavy machinery in [[Gaza]] can earn as much as $9000 per month, according to reports in TheMarker, a Hebrew-language daily business newspaper. According to TheMarker, a trained heavy equipment operator can earn approximately 1200 shekels (£270) per day, drawn from the 5000 shekels (£1118) the Israeli Ministry of Defence pays daily to the equipment's owner. 'At first I did it for the money. Then for revenge. The work there is very hard and unpleasant. The army doesn't operate smartly, it just wants to destroy as much as possible and doesn't care about anything,' one heavy equipment operator told TheMarker. Gaza's demolitions – many of them buildings that have already been destroyed or damaged by Israel's military onslaught – are seen by observers as part of a longer post-war plan to control, contain or disperse what remains of Gaza's civilian Palestinian population and prepare the way for the territory's use for settlement expansion and commercial use. In the occupied West Bank, Israel is applying many of the tactics used in its war on Gaza to seize and control territory there. According to an analysis by the British research group Forensic Architecture, Israel has used building demolitions, armoured bulldozers and air strikes to establish a permanent military presence in areas such as Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps. Satellite imagery shows widespread destruction, with entire neighbourhoods flattened and roads reconfigured to facilitate troop movements and surveillance. The United Nations estimates that these operations have displaced at least 40,000 Palestinians. As Israel's expansionist strategy intensifies, many regional observers say it is simply fuelling chaos and stoking up a future widening regional conflict. Martin Gak is an Argentinian Jewish journalist based in Germany who is of the view that Israel's territorial ambitions are 'much bigger than the theological design of greater Israel'. In a recent interview, Gak drew parallels with the way Israel is now operating in the Middle East using tactics similar to those of Russia. He said: 'If you look at Gaza, if you look at what happened in southern Lebanon, the images should be very reminiscent of Grozny in the second Chechen war ... so, I think that what we're seeing is a Russian playbook of complete destruction,' Gak told Turkish media. Other regional observers like Shihabi, in the FT, recently posed the question as to what Israel truly gains from this relentless push to expand its borders. 'The cost is staggering: deepening international isolation, increasing threats to the global Jewish community, psychological trauma within a constantly targeted Israeli society and the further destabilisation of an already volatile region,' Shihabi concluded. Like other Middle East watchers, Shihabi is firmly of the view that more territory is not the answer to Israel's security problems and that 'the future is being held hostage by zealots who value conquest over coexistence'. While it might have been initially framed as an 'incursion' to eradicate Hamas and rescue the nearly 250 hostages seized on October 7, Israel's Gaza 'operation' has since moved into an entirely new and much wider military realm. It's one too for which it has been given virtual carte blanche by the US and Western countries to prosecute. Until that stops, Israel's dangerous expansionist ambitions will almost certainly continue to fuel an escalation in conflict across the Middle East. The days of framing such a military strategy as being driven by 'existential need' have gone. Israel, as many rightfully argue, is the real regional threat now.
North Wales Chronicle
an hour ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Israel issues new Gaza evacuation orders as military offensive widens
The evacuation cuts access between the city of Deir al-Balah and the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis in the narrow enclave. The announcement comes as Israel and Hamas have been holding ceasefire talks in Qatar, but international mediators say there have been no breakthroughs. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stressed that expanding military operations in Gaza will pressure Hamas to negotiate, though negotiations have been stalled for months. The area of Gaza under the evacuation order is also where many international organisations attempting to distribute aid are located. Military spokesman Avichay Adraee warned the military will attack 'with intensity' against militants. He called for residents, including those sheltering in tents, to head to the Muwasi area, a desolate tent camp on Gaza's southern shore that the Israeli military has designated a humanitarian zone. Gaza's population of more than two million Palestinians are in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Hamas triggered the 21-month war when militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. Fifty hostages remain, but fewer than half are thought to be alive. Israel's military offensive that followed has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many militants are among the dead but says more than half of those killed have been women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas government but the UN and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties. The Hostages Family Forum, a grassroots organisation that represents many of the families of hostages, condemned the evacuation announcement and demanded that Mr Netanyahu and the Israeli military explain what they hope to accomplish in the area of central Gaza, accusing Israel of operating without a clear war plan. It said: 'Enough. The Israeli people overwhelmingly want an end to the fighting and a comprehensive agreement that will return all of the hostages.' On Saturday night, tens of thousands of protesters once again marched in Tel Aviv to call for an end to the war.
