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operation gideon's chariots 2
Israel Bombs Yemen as IDF Rolls Through Gaza City, Displacing Hundreds of Thousands
Dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombs and bullets, including many women and children, as IDF tanks and troops pushed deeper into Gaza City.
Sep 25, 2025
Israeli forces on Thursday resumed airstrikes on Yemen—whose Houthi rebels have been launching strikes targeting Israel in solidarity with Palestine—while pushing deeper into Gaza City, killing dozens of Palestinians, displacing hundreds of thousands of others, and trapping up to 1 million more.
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said dozens of warplanes and air support units pounded alleged "command headquarters of the Houthi General Staff” and other buildings used by members of the rebel army also known as Ansar Allah.
Thursday's strikes followed last week's IDF bombing of a media complex in the Yemeni capital Sanaa that killed 31 journalists and four other people including a child in what the Committee to Protect Journalists called the world's deadliest single attack on media workers in 16 years.
This, after an IDF airstrike last month assassinated Houthi officials including Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi. US forces—which have been bombing Yemen since 2002 as part of the so-called War on Terror—have also carried out airstrikes in Yemen that have killed and wounded hundreds of civilians.
The Israeli and US strikes came in retaliation for Houthi missile and drone attacks on Israel and Red Sea shipping. The Houthis and Iran have been the only actors in the world that have answered Israel's genocidal war on Gaza with military force.
The latest Israeli bombing of Yemen came as IDF tanks and troops pushed deeper into Gaza City as part of Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, an offensive aimed at conquering, occupying, and ethnically cleansing Palestinians from the embattled coastal exclave.
Gaza officials said dozens of Palestinians have been killed since dawn Thursday, including 25 aid-seekers. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that "intensified strikes on Gaza City, including on tents, residential buildings, [and] infrastructure continue to inflict heavy casualties."
The relentless Israeli airstrikes that hit multiple areas across Gaza City today; forcing thousands of Palestinian families to flee their homes into overcrowded and unsafe areas with no shelter, food, or medical care. pic.twitter.com/5Oj9VqtDFY
— Daniella Modos - Cutter -SEN (@DmodosCutter) September 25, 2025
Among the victims of Thursday's IDF strikes were at least 10 children and three women killed when the houses and tents in which they were sheltering were bombed, according to The Associated Press.
UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said Thursday that Palestinian children are being “killed while sleeping, playing, queuing for food and water, [and] seeking medical care."
“They’ve been bombed, maimed, starved, burned alive, buried in the rubble of their homes, separated from their parents... scraping through the rubble for food, enduring amputations without anesthetic,” Fletcher added.
More than 300,000 Palestinians have fled for their lives amid Israel's onslaught and engineered famine, while as many as 1 million others remain trapped in Gaza.
At least 65,419 Palestinians have been killed by US-backed Israeli forces since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—although experts caution that the actual death toll is likely much higher. More than 167,100 others have been wounded, and thousands more are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble.
Israel is facing a genocide case currently before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where the International Criminal Court last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
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With Genocide Confirmed and Gaza City a 'Lifeless Wasteland,' US Vetoes Another UN Ceasefire Resolution
“Israel kills every day and nothing happens," said Algeria's UN ambassador. "Israel starves a people and nothing happens. Israel bombs hospitals, schools, shelters, and nothing happens."
Sep 18, 2025
Against a backdrop of Israel's genocidal obliteration of Gaza City and a worsening man-made famine throughout the embattled Palestinian exclave, the United States on Thursday cast its sixth United Nations Security Council veto of a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all hostages held by Hamas.
At its 10,000th meeting, the UN Security Council voted 14-1 with no abstentions in favor of a resolution proposed by the 10 nonpermanent UNSC members demanding "an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire" in Gaza, the "release of all hostages" held by Hamas, and for Israel to "immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid" into the besieged strip.
Morgan Ortagus, President Donald Trump's deputy special envoy to the Middle East, vetoed the proposal, saying that the move "will come as no surprise," as the US has killed five previous UNSC Gaza ceasefire resolutions under both the Biden and Trump administrations, most recently in June.
Ortagus said the resolution failed to condemn Hamas or affirm Israel's right to self-defense and “wrongly legitimizes the false narratives benefiting Hamas, which have sadly found currency in this council."
The US has unconditionally provided Israel with billions of dollars worth of armed aid and diplomatic cover since October 2023 as the key Mideast ally wages a war increasingly viewed as genocidal, including by a commission of independent UN experts this week.
Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said the torpedoed resolution represented the "bare minimum" that must be accomplished, adding that “it is deeply regrettable and painful that it has been blocked.”
“Babies dying of starvation, snipers shooting people in the head, civilians killed en masse, families displaced again and again... humanitarians and journalists targeted... while Israeli officials are openly mocking all of this," Mansour added.
Following the UNSC's latest failure to pass a ceasefire resolution, Algerian Ambassador to the UN Amar Bendjama asked Gazans to "forgive" the body for not only its inability to approve such measures, but also for failing to stop the Gaza famine, in which at least hundreds of Palestinians have died and hundreds of thousands more are starving. Every UNSC members but the US concurred last month that the Gaza famine is a man-made catastrophe.
“Israel kills every day and nothing happens," Bendjama said. "Israel starves a people and nothing happens. Israel bombs hospitals, schools, shelters, and nothing happens. Israel attacks a mediator and steps on diplomacy, and nothing happens. And with every act, every act unpunished, humanity itself is diminished.”
Benjama also asked Gazans to "forgive us" for failing to protect children in the strip, more than 20,000 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockade over the past 713 days. He also noted that upward of 12,000 women, 4,000 elderly, 1,400 doctors and nurses, 500 aid workers, and 250 journalists “have been killed by Israel."
Condemning Thursday's veto, Hamas accused the US of “blatant complicity in the crime of genocide," which Israel is accused of committing in an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) case filed in December 2023 by South Africa and backed by around two dozen nations.
Hamas—which led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and is believed to be holding 20 hostages left alive out of 251 people kidnapped that day—implored the countries that sponsored the ceasefire resolution to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who along with former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, to accept an agreement to halt hostilities.
Overall, at least 65,141 Palestinians have been killed and over 165,900 others wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose figures have not only been confirmed by former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, but deemed a significant undercount by independent researchers. Thousands more Gazans are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of the flattened strip.
UK Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward stessed after Thursday's failed UNSC resolution that "we need a ceasefire more than ever."
“Israel’s reckless expansion of its military operation takes us further away from a deal which could bring the hostages home and end the suffering in Gaza," Woodward said.
Thursday's developments came as Israeli forces continued to lay waste to Gaza City as they push deeper into the city as part of Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from the strip's capital. Israeli leaders have said they are carrying out the operation in accordance with Trump's proposal to empty Gaza of Palestinians and transform it into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
In what some observers said was a bid to prevent the world from witnessing fresh Israeli war crimes in Gaza City, internet and phone lines were cut off in the strip Thursday, although officials said service has since been mostly restored.
Gaza officials said Thursday that at least 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces since dawn, including 40 in Gaza City, which Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum said is being pummeled into "a lifeless wasteland."
Azzoum reported that tens of thousands of Palestinians "are moving to the south on foot or in carts, looking for any place that is relatively safe—but with no guarantee of safety—or at least for shelter."
Israel has repeatedly bombed areas it advised Palestinians were "safe zones," including a September 2 airstrike that massacred 11 people—nine of them children—queued up to collect water in al-Mawasi.
"Most families who have arrived in the south have not found space," Azzoum added. "That’s why we’ve seen people setting up makeshift tents close to the water while others are left stranded in the street, living under the open sky."
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Probe Reveals Nearly 3,000 Gaza Aid-Seekers Killed by Israeli Forces
"These repeated attacks are grave violations of international humanitarian law that likely amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide."
Sep 17, 2025
An investigation published this week revealed that Israeli forces have killed nearly 3,000 Palestinian aid-seekers and wounded almost 20,000 others over 23 months of Israel's US-backed genocidal annihilation of Gaza.
The New Humanitarian's open-source investigation chronologically documents the killing of 2,957 Palestinian aid-seekers and the wounding of 19,866 others.
These figures include nearly 1,000 Palestinians who United Nations human rights officials say have been killed at or near aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Israeli soldiers have admitted to receiving orders to fire live bullets and artillery shells into crowds of civilians at GHF distribution points.
The New Humanitarian noted that these numbers represent approximately 4.6% of the more than 65,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose figures are likely a vast undercount.
“These are not isolated incidents. They're not just similar incidents. They are a pattern, and reflect policy and an acceptance on the part of the state that this should continue indefinitely,” Adil Haque, an international law professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told The New Humanitarian.
Haque and other experts interviewed for the investigation called Israeli attacks on Gaza aid-seekers "grave violations of international humanitarian law that likely amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide."
Israel is the subject of an ongoing genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The International Criminal Court (ICC), also located in the Dutch city, last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
The New Humanitarian's investigation identified "clearly discernible patterns... showing how Israel has used attacks on people seeking aid as a tool for different purposes at different points in the war: deadly crowd control, forced displacement, and the destruction of the collective ability of Palestinians in Gaza to survive."
Haque said that "if Israeli leaders were simply indifferent to the killing of so many Palestinian aid-seekers, not caring one way or the other, then international condemnation and potential liability for war crimes should be enough to lead them to change their policies to prevent or repress such killings."
"Their willingness to bear such costs is some evidence that they intend for these killings to continue,” he added.
The New Humanitarian's investigation comes as Israeli forces ramp up their assault on Gaza City during Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian exclave. Israeli leaders have publicly backed a proposal by US President Donald Trump to empty Gaza of Palestinians and transform the coastal strip into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
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'No Safe Place Left' as Israel Moves to Ethnically Cleanse Nearly 1 Million Gazans
"This is the latest chapter in the genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza and part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing engulfing the entire Gaza Strip," said Oxfam International.
Sep 11, 2025
Israel's US-backed campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza City has left nearly 1 million people—half of them starved by design—with nowhere to seek refuge, United Nations agencies and other humanitarian groups warned Wednesday.
"We are witnessing a dangerous escalation in Gaza City, where Israeli forces have stepped up their operations and ordered everyone to move south. This comes two weeks after famine was confirmed in the city and surrounding areas," said the UN Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), a strategic forum of UN agency heads and over 200 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
"While Israeli authorities have unilaterally declared an area in the south as 'humanitarian,' it has not taken effective steps to ensure the safety of those forced to move there and neither the size nor scale of services provided is fit to support those already there, let alone new arrivals," HCT continued.
"Nearly 1 million people are now left with no safe or viable options—neither the north nor the south offers safety," HCT added.
One elderly woman caring for an injured 8-year-old girl who is one of tens of thousands of children orphaned by Israeli attacks told Amnesty International Wednesday that "she's all that I have left, and I have tried everything I can to protect her."
"We have been displaced twice just in the last week," the woman added. "We don't have the means to go to the south, and we are tired of being forced to relive this ordeal all over again."
An elderly disabled woman living in a makeshift refugee camp in southern Gaza City told Amnesty that "we were displaced from Sheikh Radwan three weeks ago; my son had to carry me on his shoulders because I have no wheelchair and no transportation could reach our area."
"Now we are ordered to evacuate again. Where do we go?" she asked. "To secure transportation to the south, you have to pay close to 4,000 shekels ($1,200) and to buy a tent, you have to pay at least 3,000 shekels and we don't know if we'll find any land to pitch our tent on."
"We had already spent all our savings to survive this war, looking for food and basics," the woman added. "Every day is like the war is starting all over again, only far worse, but we are totally depleted, we have no will or strength to carry on."
Photos showing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—including some with donkey-drawn carts—slowly streaming southward from Gaza City evoked images from the Nakba, when more than 750,000 Arabs were ethnically cleansed from Palestine by Zionist terror militias during the establishment of modern Israel.
The World Health Organization (WHO), a UN body, warned Wednesday that "starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at the highest levels ever since the conflict began almost two years ago," and that "deliberate blocking and delay of large-scale food, health, and humanitarian aid has cost many lives."
"After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterized by starvation, destitution, and death," the agency added. "Another 1.07 million people (54%) are in 'emergency' (IPC Phase 4), and 396,000 people (20%) are in 'crisis' (IPC Phase 3)."
WHO also cited overall casualties in Gaza—now approaching at least 65,000 deaths, mostly women and children—and 164,000 injuries, according to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM)—and noted that "as of September 5, 2025, there have been 2,339 reported fatalities among aid-seekers near militarized distribution sites and along convoy routes since May 27."
Oxfam International—a coalition of over 20 independent NGOs focused on alleviating poverty—echoed the UN experts, asserting that "Israel's intent to displace around 1 million civilians, half of whom are living in famine, is impossible and illegal."
"Displacement orders, on leaflets thrown from the sky, or posted on social media, signal grave next steps, a scene all too familiar in Gaza where every order has preceded new waves of destruction and mass casualties," Oxfam said. "This is the latest chapter in the genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza and part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing engulfing the entire Gaza Strip, where nothing and no one has been spared."
Heba Morayef, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said Wednesday that Israel's mass displacement order for Gaza City residents "is cruel, unlawful, and further compounds the genocidal conditions of life that Israel is inflicting on Palestinians."
"Gaza City... is now facing complete obliteration," Morayef added. "It is evident that Israel is determined in pursuing its goal to physically destroy Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It is unconscionable that states with leverage over Israel continue to provide it with arms and diplomatic support to destroy Palestinian lives."
Operation Gideon's Chariots 2—Israel's plan to "conquer, cleanse, and stay" in Gaza and "annihilate everything" there—as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently put it—has ramped up in recent days, with intensified Israeli air and artillery strikes and ground troops pushing deeper into Gaza City.
According to GHM, at least 72 Palestinians were killed and a minimum of 356 others were wounded by Israeli forces across Gaza on Thursday, including children and infants. At least 53 of the victims were killed in Gaza City. Israeli strikes reportedly targeted homes, tents housing refugees, and aid distribution points.
Additionally, GHM said that seven Palestinians including a child died from starvation over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of famine-related deaths in Gaza to at least 411, 142 of them children.
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Palestinians Recount Night 'Like Hell' After Israel Pounds Gaza City
"It was a scorching night of fire from every side, from the explosions, to the dropping of incendiary bombs over our heads, to the aerial and artillery bombardment," said one local journalist. "We can't believe how we survived!"
Sep 03, 2025
Residents of Gaza City on Wednesday described an infernal night of relentless Israeli aerial and artillery attacks preceding the official launch of what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the "decisive stage" of the 698-day assault and siege on the embattled strip.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warplanes, drones, and artillery unleashed a ferocious wave of attacks on Gaza's largest city Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, killing dozens of Palestinians and obliterating neighborhoods including Sheikh Radwan, where residents described their utter terror as drones dropped incendiary bombs and panicked families attempted to flee.
Gaza officials said later on Wednesday that at least 113 Palestinians were killed in the strip over the past 24 hours.
"Gaza is being erased," Hadi, a 27-year-old from Sheikh Radwan, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "Artillery everywhere, airstrikes everywhere, helicopters everywhere. Even quadcopters are firing at people in the streets, like they are being hunted down. No one knows where to go. We are fleeing to the unknown."
Journalist Mohammed Haniya posted on social media: "The bloody, explosive, Earth-shaking night of Gaza! How did we survive this morning? I can't believe it."
"It was a scorching night of fire from every side, from the explosions, to the dropping of incendiary bombs over our heads, to the aerial and artillery bombardment," he added. "We can't believe how we survived!"
Madleen Abu Saif, a 29-year-old Gaza City resident, told the Emirati newspaper The National that "it was very difficult; the shelling came with all kinds of weapons from quadcopters, tanks, warplanes—from everywhere. It was like hell."
"We tried to stay away from the windows and the street, and we stayed close to the house door so that we could evacuate immediately if necessary," she added.
The Israeli occupation launched intense bombardment on Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, accompanied by a heavy deployment of illumination flares across the area pic.twitter.com/5F5AL9B8o5
— TRT World (@trtworld) September 3, 2025
Around 60,000-80,000 of the approximately 1 million Palestinians in Gaza City are believed to have fled over the past 72 hours. IDF officials—who are proven frequent liars—claimed Wednesday that Hamas, whose political arm rules Gaza and whose militant wing led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, is blocking civilians from leaving.
Hadi told Haaretz that "the war machines are closing in, but there's no official declaration of any invasion. Still, the feeling is that the occupation of Gaza has already begun."
That declaration came Wednesday morning, as IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir conducted a field visit to Gaza and said that Operation Gideon's Chariots 2—the campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse the strip—had officially begun.
"We will continue operating against Hamas' main strongholds until its defeat; we are instilling in them a sense of being constantly pursued everywhere," Zamir vowed.
The Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing, responded by announcing a series of operations it called "Moses' Staff." Qassam Brigades said its fighters blasted an IDF bulldozer with a rocket near Salah al-Din Mosque in al-Zaytoun and fired mortar shells at Israeli troops gathered at Haj Fadel.
Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity—and IDF commanders told reservists Wednesday that the assault on Gaza was entering its "decisive stage."
More than 365 of the 60,000 IDF reservists being mobilized to invade Gaza said Tuesday that they would not report for duty.
A group of Israeli reservist soldiers declared they will not report for duty because of plans to take over Gaza City.
The group of over 365 reservists say the assault puts the lives of Israeli hostages at risk while also 'killing, maiming and starving' Gazan civilians.
Israel… pic.twitter.com/edbyl1sUMH
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 2, 2025
"We refuse to take part in Netanyahu's illegal war, and we see it as a patriotic duty to refuse and to demand accountability from our leaders," IDF reservist Max Kresch explained at a press conference.
"Netanyahu's ongoing war of aggression needlessly puts our own hostages in danger, and has wreaked havoc on the fabric of Israeli society, while at the same time killing, maiming, and starving an entire population of Gazan civilians," Kresch added.
Israel's nearly 23-month assault and siege on Gaza—which is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice genocide case—has left more than 235,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing and hundreds of thousands of others starving in what is now officially an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification-designated famine that has killed at least hundreds of people.
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Israel Massacres Gaza Children Fetching Water, Starves 13 More Palestinians to Death
"A child in Gaza shouldn't have to die for a sip of water," said one Palestinian American critic. "Families are starving, fleeing under bombs, with nowhere safe to go. Humanity is failing them."
Sep 02, 2025
Israeli occupation forces killed scores more Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday, including 13 people who starved to death and at least 11 others—including seven children—massacred while collecting water in a so-called "safe zone."
The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) said that at least 89 Gazans were killed in Israeli attacks throughout the embattled strip since dawn Tuesday, including 42 in Gaza City, where Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops are pushing ahead with Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian exclave.
At least 11 Palestinians, including nine children, were killed in an IDF airstrike as they gathered water in al-Mawasi, an area where Israeli authorities encouraged people to flee ahead of the invasion of northern Gaza.
Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF's spokesperson for Arab media issued an advisory stating, "To all residents of the Gaza Strip, in preparation for the expansion of fighting into Gaza City, we remind you that the al-Mawasi area will witness the provision of better humanitarian services, particularly those related to healthcare, water, and food."
Responding to the massacre, Palestinian American journalist Alexandra Halaby wrote on X: "A child in Gaza shouldn't have to die for a sip of water. Families are starving, fleeing under bombs, with nowhere safe to go. Humanity is failing them. Demand a ceasefire. Demand aid. Demand justice."
Assal Rad, a media critic and scholar of Middle East history, posted a graphic photo of some of the slain children on X, quipping, "More Israeli 'self-defense' today in Gaza."
Also on Tuesday, GHM said it registered 13 deaths, including three children, due to starvation and malnutrition over the past 24 hours. That brings the total number of deaths from the Gaza famine caused by Israel to at least 361—130 of them children.
All told, Israel's 697-day annihilation and siege of Gaza have killed at least 63,633 Palestinians—most of them women and children—while wounding more than 160,900 others and leaving thousands more missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Experts say the actual number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces is likely far higher than the official GHM figures.
Israel's conduct in the war and Israeli leaders' statements of intent to destroy Gaza and its people are the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case. On Monday, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) joined the growing number of groups and individuals calling Israel's war on Gaza a genocide.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued arrest warrants accusing the pair of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
Two more Palestinian journalists were also killed by Israel forces on Tuesday. Eman Al-Zamli was reportedly killed by IDF drone fire while fetching drinking water near the Hamad City neighborhood, north of Khan Younis. Rasmi Salem of the Manara Media Company was killed in an IDF strike on Abu al-Amin Street near al-Jalaa Square in Gaza City.
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), United Nations experts, and Gaza officials, between 210 and 275 Palestinian media workers have been killed by IDF bombs and bullets since October 2023.
On Sunday, dozens of Lebanese journalists and others rallied in Beirut's Martyrs' Square for a sit-in protest to express solidarity with Palestinian colleagues killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
"Journalists are being killed in Gaza because they show the world what they see with their own eyes," Walid Kilani, Hamas' media official in Lebanon, told the demonstrators, according to L'Orient Today.
The Beirut rally followed a Saturday silent protest march for slain Palestinian journalists held in the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Göteborg, and an open call by more than 200 advocacy groups, media outlets, and journalists for Israel to let foreign reporters into Gaza.
"At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed," said RSF.
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Smotrich Proposes Annexing Gaza and Carrying Out Trump Ethnic Cleansing Plan
The far-right Israeli finance minister's remarks follow comments last week in which he said: "Whoever doesn't evacuate, don't let them. No water, no electricity; they can die of hunger or surrender."
Aug 28, 2025
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday proposed the systematic annexation of Gaza over the coming months if Hamas keeps fighting, as well as the implementation of US President Donald Trump's plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian enclave.
Smotrich, who leads the far-right Religious Zionism party, announced his plan to "win in Gaza by the end of the year" during a press conference in Jerusalem.
Israel "must completely hold control of the entire strip, forever," he said.
The minister explained that "an ultimatum will be presented to Hamas between two options," surrendering, disarming, and returning all hostages kidnapped during the October 7, 2023 attack, or "gradual annexation of areas of the Gaza Strip and reduction of the enemy's territory, and implementation of the Trump plan for voluntary emigration of the strip's residents."
"Voluntary emigration" is widely viewed as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, given most Palestinians' unwillingness to voluntarily abandon their homeland. Most Gazans are descendants of survivors of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948. Some are actual Nakba survivors.
Smotrich also called for a tightening of the siege on Gaza—which has caused the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—in order to "starve and dehydrate Hamas fighters to death."
The minister's remarks followed comments last week in which he said that "whoever doesn't evacuate, don't let them. No water, no electricity; they can die of hunger or surrender. This is what we want."
Earlier this year, Smotrich said: "We conquer, cleanse, and stay until Hamas is destroyed. On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains."
Last month, the Israeli Knesset hosted an annexation conference at which Smotrich declared that "we will occupy Gaza and make it an inseparable part of Israel."
Smotrich's annexation plan comes as the Israel Defense Forces carries out Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer and occupy Gaza and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians. Trump said earlier this year that he wants to transform Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
Some critics, including the Israeli jurist Itay Epshtain, said Smotrich's comments will surely be noticed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—which is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel—and International Criminal Court (ICC), which last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
The ICC has also reportedly prepared arrest warrants for Smotrich and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for the crime of apartheid related to their Trump-backed plans to expand illegal settler colonies in the West Bank and annex the occupied territory.
Last year, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion that Israel's occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible.
Over the past 693 days, Israeli forces have killed at least 63,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. However, experts say the actual death toll is likely much higher. More than 158,600 Palestinians have been wounded, and thousands more are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. A growing famine engineered by Israel has claimed at least hundreds of lives and is threatening hundreds of thousands more.
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Entire UN Security Council Except US Says Gaza Famine 'Man-Made' as 10 More People Starve to Death
While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza," the US ambassador to the UN repeated a debunked claim that the world's leading authority on starvation lowered its standards to declare a famine.
Aug 27, 2025
Every member nation of the United Nations Security Council except the United States on Wednesday affirmed that Israel's engineered famine in Gaza is "man-made" as 10 more Palestinians died of starvation amid what UN experts warned is a worsening crisis.
Fourteen of the 15 Security Council members issued a joint statement calling for an immediate Gaza ceasefire, release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, and lifting of all Israeli restrictions on aid delivery into the embattled strip, where hundreds of Palestinians have died from starvation and hundreds of thousands more are starving.
"Famine in Gaza must be stopped immediately," they said. "Time is of the essence. The humanitarian emergency must be addressed without delay and Israel must reverse course."
"We express our profound alarm and distress at the IPC data on Gaza, published last Friday. It clearly and unequivocally confirms famine," the statement said, referring to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification's declaration of Phase 5, or a famine "catastrophe," in the strip.
"We trust the IPC's work and methodology," the 14 countries declared. "This is the first time famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region. Every day, more persons are dying as a result of malnutrition, many of them children."
"This is a man-made crisis," the statement stresses. "The use of starvation as a weapon of war is clearly prohibited under international humanitarian law."
Israel, which is facing a genocide case at the UN's International Court of Justice, denies the existence of famine in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Court of Justice for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation.
The 14 countries issuing the joint statement are: Algeria, China, Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Somalia, and the United Kingdom.
While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza and that there are significant humanitarian needs which must be met," US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea rejected the resolution and the IPC's findings.
"We can only solve problems with credibility and integrity," Shea told the Security Council. "Unfortunately, the recent report from the IPC doesn't pass the test on either."
Shea also repeated the debunked claim that the IPC's "normal standards were changed for [the IPC famine] declaration."
The Security Council's affirmation that the Gaza famine is man-made mirrors the findings of food experts who have accused Israel of orchestrating a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in the strip.
The UN Palestinian Rights Bureau and UN humanitarian officials also warned Wednesday that the famine in Gaza is "only getting worse."
"Over half a million people currently face starvation, destitution, and death," the humanitarian experts said. "By the end of September, that number could exceed 640,000."
"Failure to act now will have irreversible consequences," they added.
Wednesday's UN actions came as Israel intensified Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, the campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from Gaza, possibly into a reportedly proposed concentration camp that would be built over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.
The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) on Wednesday reported 10 more Palestinian deaths "due to famine and malnutrition" over the past 24 hours, including two children, bringing the number of famine victims to at least 313, 119 of them children.
All told, Israel's 691-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to the GHM.
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'Stop the Genocide': Thousands of Israelis Rally Against War and Famine in Gaza
"We stood proud and tall together because there is nothing that will stop the just civilian resistance to the genocide and occupation," said one protester.
Aug 24, 2025
Thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv Saturday in multiple demonstrations demanding an end to their government's genocidal war and engineered famine in Gaza and a deal to free the remaining hostages held by Hamas since October 2023.
Israelis—both Arab and Jewish—rallied in Habima Square holding signs reading "Stop the Genocide" and photos of some of the at least 115 Palestinian children who have starved to death in what the world's leading authority on hunger has officially declared a full-blown famine.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that police initially prohibited protesters from holding photos of Gazan children or Israeli hostages and also banned use of the word "genocide," but then allowed such displays.
The protest was organized by the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee—an umbrella Arab Israeli advocacy group—with the participation of the Arab political parties Hadash, Balad, and Ta'al, and activist organizations including Peace Now, Breaking the Silence, Looking the Occupation in the Eye, and the Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families Forum.
Protesters implored the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call off Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, the nascent campaign to conquer and occupy Gaza and ethnically cleanse 1 million Palestinians—approximately half the strip's population—and possibly confine them in a proposed concentration camp that would be built over the ruins of Rafah.
💥 #BREAKING | Today in Tel-Aviv: thousands protested against the genocide in Gaza. The protest included both Palestinian and Jewish activists.Chanting: "Gaza, Gaza, don't despair. We will end the occupation."
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— Resist 🕎🍉 (@antizionistjew.bsky.social) August 23, 2025 at 11:41 AM
"We only have a few days left to stop this, because if the invasion of Gaza begins there will be no deal," Yotam Cohen, brother of hostage Nimrod Cohen, told the crowd. "The invasion will blow up the negotiations and hostages and soldiers will die."
"Instead of saving lives Netanyahu is sentencing the living hostages to death and causing the fallen to be lost forever," Cohen added. "He is condemning us to a needless eternal war, sending solders to their death."
Other demonstrators condemned Netanyahu for repeatedly sabotaging ceasefire deals in order to prolong the war and delay his criminal corruption trial.
Saturday's protests followed last week's massive nationwide demonstrations in which an estimated 1 million Israelis took part.
In addition to the demonstrations in Israel, at least tens of thousands of people rallied and marched in cities across Australia on Sunday to demand an end to the Gaza genocide and sanctions on Israel. The protests followed the Australian government's decision earlier this month to formally recognize Palestinian statehood.
"With Israel's announced ground invasion of Gaza, the call is clear: Australia must demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, impose a two-way arms embargo, and act to ensure perpetrators are brought to justice," said Amnesty International, which backed the protests.
Despite Hamas' acceptance of a proposal for a ceasefire and hostage release, Netanyahu—a fugitive from the International Criminal Court wanted for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes—last week approved the invasion and occupation of Gaza City.
On Wednesday, Israeli Settlement Minister Orit Strook suggested that she and other Cabinet ministers "will vote to continue the war at the expense of the hostages' lives" and said that she would personally assent to the invasion and occupation of Gaza "even if it is clear that Hamas will execute the hostages."
The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) said Sunday that Israeli forces killed scores more Palestinians across Gaza within the past 24 hours, including children and aid-seekers, as Operation Gideon's Chariots 2 ramped up, with Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tanks advancing into the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City.
In addition to those killed by IDF bombs and bullets, health authorities said that eight more Palestinians, including two children, starved to death, bringing the famine death toll to at least 289, including 115 children. All told, the GHM says Israel's 688-day assault and siege on Gaza—which is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice genocide case—has left at least 229,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, with no end to the slaughter in sight.
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'All Eyes On Gaza City' as Israel Ramps Up Campaign of Conquest and Ethnic Cleansing
"The explicit goal of turning Palestine's largest city into a wasteland has nothing to do with hostages or Hamas and everything to do with genocide," said one critic.
Aug 21, 2025
Operation Gideon's Chariots 2—Israel's plan to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse Gaza—intensified Thursday, with fugitive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israeli forces will take over all of the embattled strip even if Hamas agrees to a ceasefire and one of his far-right ministers vowing to continue the genocidal war even "at the expense of the hostages' lives."
"We have begun the preliminary actions and the initial stages of the offensive on Gaza City, and already now [Israeli] forces are holding positions on the outskirts of Gaza City," Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Effie Defrin told reporters. "We will intensify the strikes on Hamas in Gaza City, the political and military stronghold of the terror organization."
Defrin added that the IDF is warning residents to evacuate in a bid to "minimize harm to civilians." However, critics say "evacuate" is a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, the stated goal of Israeli officials including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said earlier this month: "We conquer, cleanse, and stay until Hamas is destroyed. On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains."
Arutz Sheva reported that Operation Gideon's Chariots 2—which ultimately aims to force much of Gaza's population into a concentration camp in order to make way for possible Jewish recolonization of the strip—will involve five IDF divisions, two of them reserves. The news site said that the IDF will issue new emergency draft orders to 60,000 reservists, who will augment the 70,000 who are already activated.
IDF Col. (Res.) Marco Moreno said Thursday that the only way to achieve security is via the "voluntary migration" of everyone in Gaza—another euphemism for ethnic cleansing, given Palestinians' unwillingness to voluntarily abandon their homeland.
"Even if Hamas disarms, raises a white flag, and disappears, it won't be long before a new organization rises in Gaza with the same agenda to destroy the state of Israel," Moreno said during a TV interview. "The only way to ensure true security is through the voluntary migration of all Gaza residents."
Israeli Settlement Minister Orit Strook, a member of the far-right Religious Zionism Party, told the radio station Kol BaRama Wednesday that she favors continuing the war "even if it is clear that Hamas will execute the hostages," 20 of whom remain imprisoned since the October 7, 2023 attack.
"Of course, it is not only me who will vote to continue the war at the expense of the hostages' lives," added Strook, who is known for her extreme support for illegal Israeli settler colonization of Palestine and for allegedly filming her and her husband's sexual abuse of their daughter for pornographic videos.
Hamas condemned the Israeli operation in a statement accusing the Netanyahu government of "continuing its brutal war against innocent civilians, escalating its criminal operations in Gaza City with the aim of destroying it, and displacing its residents in a full-fledged war crime."
The United Nations human rights office said Wednesday that "Israel's reported decision to take full control of Gaza City and to forcibly displace its population will lead to mass killings of civilians and destruction of infrastructure vital to the survival of the population."
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said President Donald Trump—who has said he wants to empty Gaza of Palestinians and transform the strip into the "Riviera of the Middle East"—is "fully supportive" of Israel's campaign.
Israel is facing an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice, while Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
The Gaza Health Ministry said that at least 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces Thursday, including nine aid-seekers and five family members massacred in a drone strike in Khan Younis. Two massacres in Gaza City's Sabra neighborhood killed four and eight people respectively, while four people were killed in a separate strike on a family home in the al-Shanti area.
Two more Palestinians also reportedly starved to death in Gaza, where at least 271 people including 112 children have died from malnutrition driven by Israel's "complete siege."
Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 62,122 Palestinians—most of them women and children—and wounded more than 156,700 others, with thousands more missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Expert analyses including multiple peer-reviewed studies have concluded the official Gaza Health Ministry death toll is likely a vast undercount.
As Common Dreams reported Thursday, a joint investigation by Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine and Local Call and Guardian senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison revealed that, contrary to Israeli claims of a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio in Gaza, a staggering 5 out of 6 Palestinians killed in the strip between October 2023 and May were noncombatants.
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