Israeli gunfire kills at least 25 in Gaza as Netanyahu says he will allow Palestinians to leave
Netanyahu wants to realize President Trump's vision of relocating much of Gaza's population of over 2 million people through what he refers to as 'voluntary migration' — and what critics have warned could be ethnic cleansing.
'Give them the opportunity to leave! First, from combat zones, and also from the Strip if they want,' Netanyahu said in an interview aired Tuesday with i24, an Israeli TV station, to discuss the planned offensive in areas including Gaza City where hundreds of thousands of displaced people shelter. 'We are not pushing them out but allowing them to leave.'
Witnesses and staff at Nasser and Awda hospitals, which received the bodies, said people were shot dead on their way to aid distribution sites and while awaiting convoys entering Gaza. Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Efforts to revive ceasefire talks have resumed after apparently breaking down last month. Hamas and Egyptian officials met Wednesday in Cairo, according to Hamas official Taher al-Nounou.
Israel has no plans to send its negotiating team to talks in Cairo, the prime minister's office said.
Israel's plans to widen its military offensive against Hamas to the areas of Gaza that it does not yet control have sparked condemnation and criticism at home and abroad, and could be intended to raise pressure on Hamas to reach a ceasefire.
The militants still hold 50 hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war. Israel believes around 20 of them are alive. Families fear a new offensive endangers them.
Netanyahu was asked by i24 News if the window had closed on a partial ceasefire deal and he responded that he wanted all of the hostages back, alive and dead.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry Badr Abdelatty told reporters that Cairo is still trying to advance an earlier proposal for an initial 60-day ceasefire, the release of some hostages and an influx of humanitarian aid before further talks on a lasting truce.
Hamas says it will only release the remaining hostages in return for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The militant group has refused to lay down its arms.
Israel and South Sudan are in talks about relocating Palestinians to the war-torn East African nation, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
The office of Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister, Sharren Haskel, said Wednesday she was arriving in South Sudan for a series of meetings in the first visit by a senior government official to the country, but she did not plan to broach the subject of moving Palestinians.
South Sudan's ministry of foreign affairs in a statement called reports that it was engaging in discussions with Israel about resettling Palestinians baseless.
The AP previously reported that U.S. and Israel have reached out to officials of three East African governments to discuss using their territories as potential destinations for moving Palestinians uprooted from Gaza.
Among those killed while seeking aid were 14 Palestinians in the Teina area approximately 1.8 miles from a food distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to staff at Nasser hospital.
Hashim Shamalah said Israeli troops fired toward them as people tried to get through. Many were shot and fell while fleeing, he said.
Israeli gunfire killed five other Palestinians while trying to reach another GHF distribution site in the Netzarim corridor area, according to Awda hospital and witnesses.
GHF said there were no incidents at or near its sites Wednesday.
The U.S. and Israel support GHF, an American contractor, as an alternative to the United Nations, which they claim allows Hamas to siphon off aid. The U.N., which has delivered aid throughout Gaza for decades when conditions allow, denies the allegations.
Aid convoys from other groups travel within 328 feet of GHF sites and draw crowds attempting to loot them. An overwhelming majority of violent incidents over the past few weeks have been related to those convoys, the GHF said.
Israeli fire killed at least six other people waiting for aid trucks close to the Morag corridor, which separates parts of southern Gaza, Nasser hospital said.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Tuesday shared the warning from the World Food Program and said Gaza's Health Ministry told U.N. staff that five people died over the previous 24 hours from malnutrition and starvation.
The Health Ministry says 106 children have died of malnutrition-related causes during the war and 129 adults have died since late June.
The U.N. and humanitarian partners still face significant delays and impediments from Israeli authorities who prevent the delivery of food and other essentials at the scale needed, Dujarric said.
Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the 2023 attack. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel's air and ground offensive has since displaced most of Gaza's population, destroyed vast areas and pushed the territory toward famine. The offensive has killed more than 61,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.
Lidman and Magdy write for the Associated Press.
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Newsweek
36 minutes ago
- Newsweek
How Number of Journalists Killed in Gaza War Compares to WW2, Vietnam, Iraq
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. This is the "deadliest period for journalists" in decades, a press advocacy group has said, after six journalists were killed in an Israeli attack on northern Gaza on Sunday. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a U.S.-based nonprofit, made its assessment based on figures from its database, which includes publicly available information dating back to 1992. Anas al-Sharif, a journalist for Al Jazeera, was killed along with another correspondent, Mohammed Qraiqea, and photographers Ibrahim Al Thaher and Mohamed Nofal in a drone attack on a journalists' tent outside the main gate of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Sunday, Al Jazeera said in a statement. A freelance cameraman, identified as Momen Aliwa, and a freelance journalist, Mohammed al-Khalidi, were also killed, the network said. The Israeli military confirmed it had targeted al-Sharif, saying that he was head of a Hamas terrorist cell and was involved in rocket attacks on Israel. "A press badge isn't a shield for terrorism," the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. Filipino activists light candles as they hold photos of Palestinian journalists who were killed in a recent Israeli airstrike in Gaza, during a protest in Quezon City, Philippines, on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. Filipino activists light candles as they hold photos of Palestinian journalists who were killed in a recent Israeli airstrike in Gaza, during a protest in Quezon City, Philippines, on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. AP Photo/Aaron Favila An Arabic-language spokesperson for the IDF had last month posted an image appearing to show al-Sharif alongside Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader killed by Israel in southern Gaza last October. The IDF had previously accused al-Sharif and other Al Jazeera journalists of working with Hamas. A Hamas official said of al-Sharif that they had "no knowledge of his affiliation with the movement or its military apparatus." Al-Sharif himself had denied he was a Hamas member shortly before his death. "The pattern of labeling journalists as terrorists before killing them, effectively granting themselves the authority to extinguish these journalists, has become a specialty of the Israel Defense Forces," Gypsy Guillén Kaiser, advocacy and communications director for the CPJ, told Newsweek. Israel has repeatedly denied targeting journalists and has said it "takes all operationally feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians including journalists." "Remaining in an active combat zone has inherent risks," the IDF said. It is difficult to accurately determine how many journalists are killed in a conflict, even in recent years. Those tallying often make a distinction between civilian and military journalists, as well as media representatives who are killed in the line of duty versus those who are killed away from the front lines. Others do not include those working for state-controlled outlets such as the Russian TASS news agency or the Hamas-operated Al Aqsa TV. Figures for the number of journalists killed in conflict zones before the early 1990s are even harder to verify. The CPJ has publicly available information stretching back to 1992. The Belgium-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said it had compiled accurate lists of journalist deaths since roughly two years prior. Before this, counts of media representatives killed likely omitted local or less high-profile journalists not working for mainstream outlets, Anthony Bellanger, the IFJ's general secretary, told Newsweek. How Many Journalists Have Been Killed in Gaza? At least 192 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and in Lebanon since October 2023, the CPJ said in a press release updated on August 12 this year. The organization distinguishes between "journalists" (editorial personnel) and "media support workers" (such as drivers, fixers, translators, distribution staff). Its says its database does not include deaths in which "journalists are clearly not killed for their journalism." Nor does it include media support workers unless their death is confirmed as work-related. It is the deadliest period for journalists since its records began in 1992, the CPJ said. It said it is investigating another 130 potential cases of journalists being killed, arrested or injured, as well as media offices and homes being damaged. Of the 192 journalists killed in these areas in close to two years of fighting, 184 were Palestinian, according to the CPJ. Two were Israeli and six were Lebanese journalists. Israel does not allow international media to enter Gaza, with the exception of highly controlled trips stewarded by the IDF. "The abysmal situation faced by journalists in Gaza is an aberration in the field of conflict reporting," Guillén said. Nearly half of journalists killed in Gaza in 2024 were killed by drones, Guillén said, describing this as "a new and growing trend in conflict reporting." Roughly 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive nearly two years ago, press freedom groups say. Roughly 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive nearly two years ago, press freedom groups say. Newsweek Illustration/Canva/Getty/AP Newsroom Other groups broadly agreed with the CPJ's figures. "Nearly 200 journalists have been killed" in this phase of hostilities from late 2023, according to International News Safety Institute. This is "an unprecedented toll in modern conflict reporting," the NGO said in a statement. The IFJ and the Paris-headquartered Reporters sans frontières (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders, both told Newsweek they had similar figures. "Unlike other conflicts in the past, where journalists were respected and often even welcomed to document the conflict because there were few or no means of communication, today in Gaza, journalists are very often targeted by the Israeli army," Bellanger of the IFJ said. Of the approximately 200 media operatives killed in Gaza in 22 months of war, around 50 have been deliberately targeted, while many others were killed in strikes impacting civilians in the strip, rather than while reporting, Thibaut Bruttin, RSF's director general, told Newsweek. The Israeli military has said it "has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists." Protection for journalists is enshrined in international law. As civilians, intentionally targeting members of the press is a war crime. Here, Newsweek uses available data from those monitoring groups to compare the death toll in Gaza to previous conflicts. Iraq A U.S.-led coalition of forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, and U.S. combat operations officially ended in 2010. Most Western troops had pulled out of the country by the end of 2011. Across these years, 228 journalists were killed in Iraq, according to the CPJ. Between 100 and 150 journalists were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2006, Bellanger of the IFJ told Newsweek. The RSF's numbers put the number of journalists killed while reporting in Iraq at 242, making it the "the bloodiest war for journalists." "It was somewhat different, in the sense that journalists were really heavily targeted by the military forces," Bruttin said. This included terrorist groups that carried out strikes followed by attacks on the media and first responders arriving at the scene. In February 2007, RSF said it was "deeply concerned by repeated violations of journalists' rights in Iraq." At the time, at least 150 journalists and media workers had been killed in the country, it said. Afghanistan There are varying numbers on how many journalists were killed in Afghanistan. Following 9/11, the U.S. led efforts to remove the Taliban from power and set up a new government in Kabul, setting the stage for two decades of involvement in the country before the Taliban took back control in 2021. According to the CPJ, 76 international and local journalists and media workers were killed in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021. In 2018 alone, 16 journalists and two media workers were killed in the country, according to these figures. Other counts come in slightly higher. Between 2010 and 2021, 87 Afghan journalists were killed, according to the IFJ. At least six journalists were killed between the Taliban coming to power in Kabul in August 2021 and November of that year, according to the IFJ. Vietnam The communist regime in North Vietnam—backed by the Soviet Union and China—fought the government in South Vietnam, supported by the U.S., from 1955. The U.S. become directly militarily involved in 1965, until the capture of Saigon by North Vietnamese forces in 1975. RSF research indicates around 60 journalists were killed during the Vietnam War, Bruttin said. One count referenced by the Associated Press in 2006 put the total number of journalists killed or presumed dead during the war at 71. Between 70 and 80 journalists were killed in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975, Bellanger said. Korea The Korean War began in 1950, when North Korean forces invaded South Korea in an attempt to unify the peninsula under communist rule. The North Korean forces were backed by the Soviet Union and later China. South Korea was supported primarily by the U.S. under the auspices of the United Nations. The Korean War lasted three years and was brought to a close with the signing of an armistice agreement in 1953. Approximately ten journalists died, Bellanger said. World War II It is "extremely difficult" to produce a casualty count for journalists during World War II, Bruttin said. Far predating meticulous records, the war sprawled across the civilian populations of many nations. Due to the unavailability of equivalent information, comparing these figures to more recent conflicts such as the war in Gaza is close to impossible. A total of 69 reporters covering the Allied campaign died during World War II, according to a count compiled by Ray Moseley, a former war correspondent. This number includes journalists who died in accidents or from disease. Moseley said that it is not clear how many journalists from the Soviet Union were killed, but that 16 reporters from the state-controlled Red Star newspaper died between mid-1941 and the spring of 1944. The IFJ estimates that between 60 and 80 journalists were killed between 1939 and 1945, Bellanger said. Ukraine A total of 29 journalists and media workers have been killed in Ukraine since 2014, when Moscow seized control of the Crimean peninsula to the south of the mainland and backed separatists in the country's eastern Luhansk and Donetsk region, according to the CPJ. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022. Nineteen journalists and media workers have been killed since then, CPJ figures show. The RSF estimates that 15 journalists have been killed in the conflict, Bruttin said. Ukrainian authorities have said 57 journalists have been killed in the country, but the RSF does not include those working for the military or communications operatives into its tally, Bruttin said. Unlike Israel in Gaza, Bruttin said, "other countries have been able to open up to the press — [to] maintain a sense of military censorship to prevent jeopardising their own military operation." "But it has not resulted in the killing of as many journalists as might have been expected or feared," he added. At the same time, Bruttin said, "we're globally seeing an increase in safety for journalists." This is driven by newsrooms putting their teams through more training on operating in conflict zones and equipping them properly, Bruttin said, but also by a feeling among military commanders and politicians that the media should be shielded. From roughly 1985, approximately 100 journalists were killed while carrying out their duties each year, Bruttin said. There was a "sharp decline" from 2018, down to just over half of this number by 2024, he added. "We are in an era where we have more military means to have precision strikes," the RSF chief said. "We have more safety within the newsrooms and more culture of safety," he added. For the last seven years, most of the journalists who have died were killed in non-conflict countries, like Mexico, Bruttin said. "Journalists were collateral victims of war, especially in World War Two and in the Vietnam War as well," Bruttin said. "Now they are targets. They are targeted and hit because they're journalists."
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Africa's youngest state dismisses deal to host Palestinians from war-torn Gaza
South Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has firmly denied claims that it is engaged in talks with Israel to resettle Palestinians from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. South Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied allegations of involvement in discussions to resettle Palestinians from Gaza. South Sudan emphasized its priorities are addressing internal challenges, stating these claims were unfounded. Other African nations, such as Somalia, have also previously rejected similar proposals concerning displaced Palestinians. The statement comes in response to an Associated Press report on citing six unnamed sources who alleged that discussions were underway between Juba and Tel Aviv to relocate some Palestinians to the East African nation. South Sudanese officials dismissed the claims as unfounded, stressing that no such negotiations had taken place and reaffirming the country's current priorities lie in addressing its own internal humanitarian and development challenges. In a statement sighted by Reuters, South Sudan's foreign affairs ministry described the claims as baseless and ' do not reflect the official position or policy of the Government of the Republic of South Sudan," The ministry's clarification seeks to put to rest mounting speculation over the reported arrangement, which had quickly drawn international attention due to the highly sensitive nature of the Israel–Palestine conflict and South Sudan's delicate diplomatic posture. African nations take a firm stance on hosting Palestinian refugees This marks the second time an African nation has rejected proposals to host displaced Palestinians from Gaza. In March, both Somalia and its breakaway region of Somaliland denied receiving any such proposal from the United States or Israel, with Mogadishu stating it categorically opposed the idea. The refusal by African states such as South Sudan, Somalia, and Somaliland to host displaced Palestinians from Gaza is rooted in a mix of political, security, and geopolitical considerations, all of which intersect with historical sensitivities about sovereignty and foreign influence. Gaza has become almost uninhabitable due to a combination of prolonged conflict, blockade, and the current war's unprecedented destruction. Years of restrictions on movement and goods imposed primarily by Israel and Egypt, have crippled Gaza's economy, infrastructure, and health systems. Water and electricity are scarce, and large parts of the territory lie in ruins after sustained Israeli military operations. These conditions have fueled occasional proposals to relocate some displaced Palestinians abroad. The AP report published in March disclosed that the United States and Israel engaged officials from several East African governments to discuss the possibility of using their territories as destinations for Palestinians displaced from the Gaza Strip under President Donald Trump's proposed postwar plan. The outreach to Sudan, Somalia, and the breakaway region of Somaliland highlighted Washington and Tel Aviv's determination to advance a proposal that has drawn widespread condemnation and raised serious legal and moral concerns. Given that all three locations face poverty and, in some cases, ongoing violence, the plan also casts doubt on Trump's stated aim of resettling Gaza's Palestinians in what he described as a 'beautiful area.'
Epoch Times
2 hours ago
- Epoch Times
Albanese Cautions Against Hamas ‘Propaganda' After Alleged Praise From the Terror Group
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has warned about Hamas propaganda after his government moved to officially recognise a Palestinian state on Aug. 11. In response, the terrorist group welcomed the Albanese government's decision. However, Hamas have now said that its co-founder, Hassan Yousef, who is in prison, could not have made the statement.
