Hamas video of emaciated captive sparks outrage amid Witkoff's Israel visit
US envoy Steve Witkoff met with Israeli families, as outrage grew over a new video of an emaciated captive held by Hamas. Relatives demanded Netanyahu's government agree to a ceasefire, which would also bring relief to starving Palestinians in Gaza.
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Al Jazeera
5 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Palestinians distraught over relatives missing at deadly Gaza aid sites
As Israeli-induced forced starvation tightens its grip on Gaza's entire population, an increasing number of Palestinian families are frantically searching for news of relatives who undertook perilous journeys to get food from aid distributions points, never to return. Khaled Obaid has been searching for his beloved son, Ahmed, for two months, scanning every passing vehicle on the coastal road in Deir-el-Balah, hoping against all odds that one of them might bring him home. The boy had left the displaced family's tent in the central town on a mission to find food for his parents and his sister, who lost her husband during the war, heading to the Zikim crossing point for aid trucks entering northern Gaza. 'He hasn't returned until now. He went because he was hungry. We have nothing to eat,' the distraught father told Al Jazeera, he and his wife breaking down in tears under the sheets of blue tarpaulin where they are sheltering. Khaled reported his son's disappearance to the International Committee of the Red Cross and every official body he could reach – to radio silence. To this day, he has received no answers on the whereabouts of his son. Khaled's story is all too common under Israel's ongoing punishing blockade of Gaza, where the largely displaced population faces a stark choice between starvation or braving bullets fired by Israeli soldiers and United States security contractors in a bid to find food from US- and Israel-backed GHF sites dubbed 'death traps' and 'human slaughterhouses' by the United Nations and rights groups. It is a life-or-death gamble that has taking the lives of nearly 1400 people, gunned down mainly by the Israeli army, at the aid sites since they started operations in late May, according to figures released by the UN this week. That is without counting the untold numbers of missing aid seekers – people like Ahmed. Human rights monitors have been collecting harrowing first-hand accounts of individuals who have gone missing in Gaza, only to be found later, killed by Israeli forces. 'In many cases, those who went missing are apparently killed near the aid distribution points, but due to the Israeli targeting, their bodies remained unreachable,' Maha Hussaini, Head of Media at Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, told Al Jazeera. 'Many Palestinians left home with empty hands, hoping to return with a bag of flour. But many never came back,' said Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir-el-Balah. 'In Gaza, the line between survival and disappearance is now heartbreakingly thin.' As the numbers of missing aid seekers mounts, famine stalks the enclave, with over 80 adults reportedly dying of starvation over the past five weeks alone and 93 children succumbing to man-made malnutrition since the war began. Authorities in Gaza say an average of 84 trucks have entered the besieged enclave a day since Israel eased restrictions on July 27. But aid organisations say at least 600 aid trucks are needed per day to meet the territory's basic needs. 'Death circle' On Monday, amid growing international condemnation over mass starvation widely seen as deliberately engineered by Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to double down on his war goals. Netanyahu announced that he would convene a meeting of his cabinet Tuesday to ensure 'Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel'. Israel's Channel 12 cited an official as saying that Netanyahu was tending towards expanding the offensive. The announcement came on another bloody day in the Strip, with at least 74 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks since dawn on Monday, including 36 aid seekers, according to medical sources. Among the attacks, at least three were killed by an Israeli strike on a house in Deir-el-Balah, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. A source at al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City reported that seven people were killed in Israeli shelling on multiple areas in the Shujayea neighbourhood, east of Gaza City. Emergency services said that two were killed in an Israeli bombing of Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza. It also emerged on Monday that a nurse at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah was killed when he was hit by an airdropped box of aid. This week, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini described the dangerous airdrops as a 'distraction' and a smokescreen. On Monday, UNICEF warned that 28 children – essentially an entire 'classroom' – are dying a day from Israeli bombardment and lack of aid. 'Gaza's children need food, water, medicine and protection. More than anything, they need a ceasefire, NOW,' said the UN agency on X. Death by by malnutrition and by lack of aid and vital Gaza, an average of 28 children a day - the size of a classroom - have been killed. Gaza's children need food, water, medicine and protection. More than anything, they need a… — UNICEF (@UNICEF) August 4, 2025 The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the UN Security Council to 'assume its responsibilities' by enforcing an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, conducting an official visit to the territory and implementing calls at a recent UN conference in New York for a two-state solution. In a statement posted on social media on Monday, the ministry warned that more than two million Palestinians in Gaza are 'living in a tight death circle of killing, starvation, thirst, and deprivation of medicine, treatment, and all basic human rights'.
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Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
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US House Speaker Mike Johnson visits Israeli West Bank settlement
Mike Johnson, the top legislator in the United States Congress, has visited an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, drawing condemnation from Palestinians. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called the trip by the speaker of the US House of Representatives on Monday a 'blatant violation of international law'. Johnson, who is next in line for the US presidency after the president and vice-president, is the highest-ranking US official to visit a West Bank Israeli settlement. His trip comes amid escalating settler violence against Palestinian communities that killed two US citizens in July. The Israeli military has also been intensifying its deadly raids, home demolitions and displacement campaigns in the West Bank as it carries out its brutal assault and blockade on Gaza. Johnson's visit contradicts Arab and US efforts to 'end the cycle of violence' as well as Washington's public stance against settlers' 'aggressions', the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said. 'The ministry affirms that all settlement activity is invalid and illegal and undermines the opportunity to implement the two-state solution and achieve peace,' it added. According to Israeli media reports, Johnson visited the settlement of Ariel, north of Ramallah, on Monday. 'Judea and Samaria are the front lines of the state of Israel and must remain an integral part of it,' Johnson was quoted as saying by the Jerusalem Post newspaper, using a biblical name for the West Bank. 'Even if the world thinks otherwise, we stand with you.' The House speaker's comments appear to be in reference to recent moves by some Western countries – including close allies of the US and Israel – to recognise a Palestinian state. 'Illegal under international law' Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. The International Court of Justice, the top United Nations tribunal, reaffirmed that position last year, saying that Israel's presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and must end 'as rapidly as possible'. Asked about Johnson's visit, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters on Monday: 'Our standpoint on the settlements, as you know, is that they are illegal under international law.' Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967, and annexed the entire holy city in 1980. Successive Israeli governments have been building Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank on land that would be the home of a Palestinian state if a two-state solution were to materialise. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers now live in the occupied West Bank. The Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory, bans the occupying power from transferring 'parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies'. While the Oslo Accords granted the Palestinian Authority some municipal powers over parts of the West Bank, the entire area remains under full Israeli security control. Israel also controls the airspace and ports of entry in the territory. Israeli settlers in the West Bank have full citizenship rights, while Palestinians live under Israel's military rule, where they can be detained indefinitely without charges. Leading rights groups have accused Israel of imposing a system of apartheid on Palestinians. 'It's a matter of faith for us' For decades, the US has publicly rejected West Bank settlements and called for a two-state solution despite providing Israel with billions of dollars in military aid. However, US President Donald Trump has taken US policy further in favour of Israel, refusing to criticise settlement expansion or commit to backing a Palestinian state. Many Republicans, meanwhile, have long expressed support for Israel from a theological perspective, arguing that it is a Christian religious duty to back the US ally. 'Our prayer is that America will always stand with Israel. We pray for the preservation and the peace of Jerusalem. That's what scripture tells us to do. It's a matter of faith for us,' Johnson said on Sunday during a visit to the Western Wall. In a social media post, Marc Zell, chair of the US Republicans Overseas Israel, cited Johnson as saying on Monday that the mountains of the West Bank are 'the rightful property of the Jewish People'.
