8/4/25: Palestine in Pictures: July 2025
Yazan Abu Foul, 2, is held by his mother in Beach refugee camp west of Gaza City, 19 July. The child shows signs of severe malnutrition due to a lack of food, nutritional supplements and healthcare.
Yousef Zaanoun ActiveStillsMore than 2,600 Palestinians were killed between 2 and 30 July as Israel’s genocide raged on in Gaza and another 11,677 were injured, according to health ministry data. Seventeen Israeli soldiers were reported killed in Gaza during that same period.
The death toll in Gaza since October 2023 surpassed 60,000, the health ministry in the territory announced at the end of July, 18,500 of them children, and more than 146,000 were injured. These figures include 8,970 people killed and more than 34,000 injured after Israel broke a two-month ceasefire on 18 March 2025.
The cumulative figure since October 2023 includes 279 fatalities who were added on 24 July after their identification details were consolidated and approved by a committee, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated, citing the health ministry. The fatality count does not reflect those who died as a result of lack of medical care or other excess deaths resulting from Israel’s destruction and siege or the thousands who remain missing.
Relatives and medical staff mourn over the body of Dr. Marwan Sultan, the director of Indonesian Hospital, who was killed along with several relatives in an Israeli attack on a Gaza City apartment, 2 July.
Omar Ashtawy APA imagesSince 27 May, nearly 1,250 people have been killed and 8,150 injured while attempting to access food aid, according to the ministry. Meanwhile, malnutrition-related deaths surged in Gaza, with the health ministry announcing the deaths of seven children within the preceding 24 hours on 30 July.
A global food security monitor warned at the end of the month that “amid relentless conflict, frequent displacements, extremely limited humanitarian access and collapsing health care systems, the worst-case scenario is rapidly unfolding in Gaza.”
Israel continued to forcibly displace and confine Palestinians in Gaza into less and less space. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than two million people in Gaza are now living in less than 45 square kilometers – the size of Gaza City – while 88 percent of the territory is now a military zone or under displacement orders.
In the occupied West Bank, 24 Palestinians – including eight children, a US citizen, an elderly man and a prominent activist – were killed by Israeli forces, settlers and settlement guards between 2 and 30 July. Additionally, a Palestinian man succumbed to wounds sustained last year and another died in Israeli custody.
Around 170 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank so far this year.
One settlement guard was killed in July by two Palestinians who were among those killed during the month.
An overwhelming number of injured and killed people are brought to Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, after Israeli forces fired on a group of people seeking aid, 3 July.
Doaa Albaz ActiveStillsThe month of July began with optimistic statements by US President Donald Trump that a Gaza ceasefire deal would soon be reached between Israel and Hamas.
But instead of a deal that would allow for a surge in aid and stop the bloodshed, famine sunk its teeth into Gaza’s population after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize during his visit to Washington, which concluded without a ceasefire agreement being reached.
Instead of imposing sanctions and other measures in line with the obligation to stop genocide, some of Israel’s allies, including France, the UK and Canada, moved toward recognizing Palestinian statehood during the month. More than 30 countries, including Australia, France, and the UK, issued a statement on 21 July calling for an end to the war in Gaza and for Israel to “immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid.”
Slovenia, which recognized Palestinian statehood last year, imposed an embargo on weapons trade with Israel on 31 July, citing failure by the EU to adopt concrete measures to uphold human rights obligations. The move – the first by an EU country – came two weeks after Ljubljana declared far-right Israeli cabinet ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich persona non grata.
The Netherlands banned the pair from entering the country in July; Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have previously been sanctioned by the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway – a move condemned by the US, which announced in July that it imposed sanctions on unspecified Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization officials over efforts to pursue accountability at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
Damage at the site of an Israeli strike that damaged and destroyed residential buildings in Beach refugee camp, west of Gaza City, 4 July.
Omar Ashtawy APA imagesThe daily mass casualty events at distribution sites run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation had turned Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza into “one massive trauma ward,” a representative of the World Health Organization saidduring a visit to the facility at the beginning of July.
The World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders warned of a rise in cases of meningitis among children while there is no space for patients to isolate in Gaza’s overcrowded and under-resourced hospitals.
Israel’s blockade has forced hospitals in Gaza to cram several babies needing life support into a single incubator due to fuel shortages and has also forced them to cut back or shut down dialysis treatment.
The unsanitary conditions in which Palestinians are being forced to live in Gaza give rise to the spread of diseases like meningitis as well as polio.
Five new cases of acute flaccid paralysis, a syndrome that can be caused by the polio virus, were reported in Gaza during one week in July. A new variant of the vaccine-derived polio virus was detected in environmental samples collected in May.
The Municipality of Gaza City warned on 15 July of a “looming health catastrophe” with the imminent overflow of a rainwater collection pond in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood.
The pond is filled with untreated wastewater while the fuel shortage has caused the municipality to severely reduce the operating hours of the pond’s drainage pumps.
The accumulation of large quantities of wastewater in the pond has “created a severe environmental and public health crisis in the area, due to foul odors and harmful insects that significantly increase the risk of disease outbreaks and epidemics,” the municipality stated.
Palestinian firefighters attempt to extinguish a blaze started by an Israeli settler militia during an attack on the outskirts of the northern West Bank town of Beita on 5 July.
Wahaj Bani Moufleh ActiveStillsOn 1 July, more than 200 nongovernmental organizations demanded “immediate action to end the deadly Israeli distribution scheme” in Gaza.
The groups called for a reversion to “existing UN-led coordination mechanisms, and [to] lift the Israeli government’s blockade on aid and commercial supplies.”
Four hundred aid distribution points were active during the ceasefire that began in late January and which Israel violently and unilaterally ended in March.
These distribution points have “now been replaced by just four military-controlled distribution sites,” the nongovernmental organizations said, forcing Palestinians into “overcrowded, militarized zones where they face daily gunfire and mass casualties” while attempting to access basic necessities.
Among those killed while waiting for aid was Abdullah Hammad, a hygienist who worked for a Doctors Without Borders clinic in al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.
The charity said that Hammad, who was the 12th employee of the organization to be killed in Gaza since October 2023, was part of a group of people who were “deliberately targeted” by Israeli forces “without warning as they waited for aid trucks.”
Sixteen people were reported killed in the 3 July incident in Khan Younis.
Hala Dahliz, 12, who suffered a severe head injury in an Israeli bombing that resulted in the complete burning of her scalp, is seen in Khan Younis, southern Gaza on 5 July. Hala has been battling infections for two months and waits for the day she can regrow her hair with proper treatment.
Moaz Abu Taha APA imagesIn early July, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, released a report detailing “how corporate profiteering and monetary gain has enabled and legitimized Israel’s illegal presence and actions.”
“In the past 21 months, while Israel’s genocide has devastated Palestinian lives and landscapes, the Tel Aviv stock exchange soared by 213 percent,” according to Albanese. “For some, genocide is profitable.”
“Corporate actors are deeply entwined in the system of occupation, apartheid and genocide in the occupied Palestinian territory,” she added.
“For decades, Israel’s repression of Palestinian people has been scaffolded by corporations, fully aware of and yet indifferent to, decades of human rights violations and international crimes.”
Albanese urged states to impose an arms embargo and economic sanctions on Israel over “one of the cruelest genocides in modern history,” as she told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The Trump administration imposed sanctions on the UN expert days after the release of her report. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said that the measure was a punishment for Albanese’s advocacy for accountability for American and Israeli officials and entities at the International Criminal Court.
Last month, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court over its investigations of war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Afghanistan.
ICC judges, including two under US sanctions, rejected Israel’s request to withdraw arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant on 16 July but said they have yet to rule on Tel Aviv’s challenge to the court’s territorial jurisdiction.
Palestinian children from the village of Halhul, north of the West Bank city of Hebron, look at a new outpost built by Israelis on village land, 6 July.
Mosab Shawer ActiveStillsOn 3 July, Hamas authorities in Gaza warned residents not to assist the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US- and Israeli-backed scheme to supplant the UN as the main provider of aid in the territory.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while attempting to access food aid at the GHF distribution sites since it began operating in late May.
The previous day, Hamas authorities demanded the surrender of Yasser Abu Shabab, a warlord whose forces operating in Rafah, southern Gaza, have looted aid trucks with the backing of Israel.
Hamas rejected US accusations that it was involved in a grenade attack that injured two Americans at a GHF site on 5 July.
Hamas says that more than 800 police officers and security guards affiliated with the organization have been killed while protecting aid vehicles and convoy routes during UN-coordinated missions.
The UN states that a breakdown in law and order, due in part to the collapse of Gaza’s civilian police force, is one of the primary constraints hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid.
A man mourns at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital after the loss of a loved one in an Israeli airstrike on the Rimal Clinic building, which is now serving as a shelter for displaced families, 7 July.
Omar Ashtawy APA imagesAlso in early July, UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, released a studyhighlighting how Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza “has had a disproportionate impact on older persons who face acute and often overlooked protection risks.”
While older persons make up 5 percent of Gaza’s population, “they account for approximately 7 percent of all recorded fatalities,” according to UNRWA.
“The use of a triage system to maximize survival rates in situations of conflict and during mass casualty events also means that older persons who have been injured are less likely to be prioritized by overwhelmed medical teams,” the agency added.
“Older persons who lack support networks or the physical or financial means to look after themselves are also at risk of becoming isolated and dying from neglect, starvation or untreated medical conditions.”
UNRWA added that “whether due to illness, disability or lack of support, they are also more likely to remain behind in areas where residents have been forcibly displaced and where active hostilities are taking place, exposing them to heightened danger.”
Boys check the destruction after an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in al-Bureij refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, 8 July.
Belal Abu Amer APA imagesOn 4 July, the herding community of al-Muarrajat East near the West Bank city of Jericho was displaced from their land due to intensified settler violence, the Global Protection Cluster and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees stated.
The community “joins hundreds of other Palestinian herders” who were “forced to leave their homes and livelihoods across the West Bank in 2025 due to settler violence, which is often facilitated and supported by Israeli forces.”
The protection cluster and the UN agency added that “the displaced remain in limbo, dependent on humanitarian assistance and without a viable return strategy.”
The UN human rights office said that between 2 and 4 July, settlers established new outposts in the middle of the community and stole dozens of sheep “and harassed the Palestinian residents in their homes.”
Settlers “occupied one of the homes, vandalized it, and forced the residents to leave” and then took over the homes of the remaining 25 families in the community.
The UN office said the displacement of al-Muarrajat East is “part of a longstanding, state-sanctioned process through coordinated efforts by settlers, backed by the Israeli army, to empty parts of the occupied territory in the West Bank of Palestinians.”
Nearly 2,900 Palestinians from 69 communities in the West Bank have been displaced due to intensifying settler violence and access restrictions since January 2023, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in mid-July, with 636 of those cases occurring in 2025.
Relatives of Palestinian prisoners hold photos of their loved ones held in Israeli jails during a rally in the West Bank city of Nablus, 8 July.
Mohammed Nasser APA imagesOn 5 July, the World Food Program said that according to a recent assessment, “nearly one person in three is not eating for days, placing more people at risk of starvation.”
“Malnutrition is surging and some 90,000 children and women urgently need treatment,” the UN food agency added.
“Flour for bread is 3,000 times more expensive than before the war,” according to the WFP. “And cooking fuel is simply nowhere to be found.”
Carl Skau, deputy director of the agency, said after a visit to Gaza on 1 and 2 July that “the situation is the worst I’ve ever seen … People are dying just trying to get food.”
“Our kitchens are empty; they are now serving hot water with a bit of pasta floating in it,” he said.
Deprived of basic needs such as adequate shelter, food and clean water, displaced people live in makeshift tents and the rubble of collapsed buildings in Gaza City, 9 July.
Omar Ashtawy APA imagesOn 7 July, Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, announced that he instructed the military to draw up plans to establish a “humanitarian city” in Rafah, the southernmost area of Gaza that has been depopulated and destroyed.
Katz’s scheme would see the forced transfer of 600,000 people into the zone after “security screening” and once there, they would not be allowed to leave.
That same day, Reuters reported on a $2 billion proposal submitted to the Trump administration bearing the name of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to build “Humanitarian Transit Areas” inside and potentially outside Gaza to house Palestinians on a supposedly voluntary basis.
According to Reuters, the plan outlines a vision to replace “Hamas’ control over the population in Gaza.”
“A slide deck seen by Reuters goes into granular detail on the ‘Humanitarian Transit Zones,’ including how they would be implemented and what they would cost,” the agency stated.
“It calls for using the sprawling facilities to ‘gain trust with the local population’ and to facilitate US President Donald Trump’s ‘vision for Gaza,’” which would see a US takeover and redevelopment of the depopulated territory, Reuters added.
The Gaza Humanitarian Fund said that “it is not planning for or implementing Humanitarian Transit Areas.”
Mourners carry the body of Ahmad al-Awiwi, 19, in the West Bank city of Hebron, 9 July. The teen died from brain damage sustained after being shot in the head by Israeli colonial forces during a raid on Hebron around six months ago.
Mosab Shawer ActiveStillsIsrael attacked three ports and a power plant in Yemen on 7 July in response to the launching of missiles and drones from the country. Yemen’s Ansarullah fired what it said were domestically produced surface-to-air missiles towards Israel in retaliation.
Hours before the Israeli strikes, a ship with a crew of 22 plus three armed guards was attacked off the coast of Yemen. Ten of those aboard were rescued a week after the attack and video footage released at the end of the month showed 11 who were missing to be alive and well.
The remaining five are feared dead.
Ansarullah has imposed a maritime embargo on Israel by blocking ships in the Red Sea in protest of the genocide in Gaza.
Later in the month, on 16 July, the US Central Command announced that Yemeni forces opposed to Ansarullah seized more than 750 tons of munitions shipped by Iran.
Israel killed three people in Tripoli in Lebanon’s north on 8 July, claiming that it targeted a Hamas commander.
On 15 July, Israeli strikes killed 12 people in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
“A security source told Reuters that five of the dead were Hizballah fighters,” the news agency reported. The governor of the area said that the remainder were Syrian nationals who work in agriculture.
Israel also carried out strikes in the province of Sweida in Syria during July.
People observe the rubble of a home belonging to the Jouda family destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in Beach refugee camp, west of Gaza City, 9 July.
Omar Ashtawy APA imagesOn 9 July, Physicians for Human Rights, an advocacy group based in New York City, and the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School published a study finding that “Israel’s extreme restrictions on medical supplies entering Gaza have caused death and anguish.”
Israel’s “sweeping and unpredictable restrictions” on supposed dual-use items have “resulted in foreseeable and severe pain to children, women and men in Gaza who seek medical care,” Sam Zarifi, the director of Physicians for Human Rights, stated.
This has involved “amputations without anesthesia. Surgeries without scalpels. Infections untreated. Treatable injuries transformed into terminal harm.”
Health care workers told researchers that items restricted from entering Gaza include “anesthesia, strong pain killers, sanitation materials, scalpel handles, insulin, orthopedic tools (drills, screws, metal plates), suture materials, dressings and gauze, point of care testing for war-related trauma injuries, water purification materials, chest tubes, hormone medications for reproductive health, dialysis supplies, batteries, oxygen cylinders, airway and intubation supplies, tourniquets, clamps, skin staplers and pulse oximeters.”
Israel has significantly intensified restrictions in 2025, affecting both medical supplies and the entry of volunteer health care providers, according to the study.
Muhammad Muslih, 10, who was injured an Israeli attack when he followed his father to get aid for their family in the Netzarim corridor, now lives with his family in a tent set up on the campus of the Islamic University of Gaza in Gaza City, 9 July.
Omar Ashtawy APA imagesAlso on 9 July, Abraham Azulay – a staff sergeant in the Israeli military who resided in Yitzhar, a West Bank settlement notorious for violence against Palestinians – was killed in a reported abduction attempt in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
The Israeli military claimed that the soldier’s death “was the result of a severe operational failure,” Haaretz reported.
Mourners at Azulay’s funeral called for vengeance and for the elimination of Palestinians in Gaza. They also recounted how Azulay, a heavy equipment operator, boasted of having destroyed homes in Gaza in order to prevent the return of their residents.
Later in the month, Haaretz reported that the Israeli military and defense ministry were recruiting contractors to raze homes in Gaza.
“Working there is very hard and very bad. The army doesn’t work intelligently,” one contractor told the paper. “It wants to demolish as much as possible, and nothing else matters.”
A relative of artist Frans al-Salmi shows her drawings after she was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a seafront café in Gaza City weeks earlier, 10 July.
Omar Ashtawy APA imagesOn 11 July, Catherine Russell, the head of the UN children’s agency UNICEF, condemned the killing of 15 Palestinians, including nine children, by Israeli forces while they were waiting in line for nutritional supplies distributed by a partner organization in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, earlier in the day.
“These were mothers seeking a lifeline for their children after months of hunger and desperation,” Russell said.
“Among them was Donia, whose 1-year-old boy, Mohammed, was killed. She said he spoke his first words to her just hours earlier.”
Five days later, Russell told the UN Security Council that “over the past 21 months of war, more than 17,000 children have reportedly been killed and 33,000 injured in Gaza.”
“An average of 28 children have been killed each day – the equivalent of an entire classroom,” Russell added. “Consider that for a moment. A whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years.”
Palestinians inspect the damage to displaced people’s tents after Israeli occupation forces withdrew from the center of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 11 July.
Moaz Abu Taha APA imagesAlso on 11 July, the UN human rights office said that between 8 and 9 July, at least 77 people, including 30 children and women, were killed in 21 attacks on tents housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza. Of these attacks, nine occurred in al-Mawasi, an area that Israel has ordered people to evacuate to.
“As these tents generally shelter families in close quarters, any strike on them often results in the killing of entire families,” the UN office stated.
With Israel reportedly planning to concentrate the population of Gaza in a so-called “humanitarian city” in Rafah, “possibly with the intention to forcibly displace them” outside of the territory, Israel’s actions “may amount to atrocity crimes,” according to the UN office.
The empty community of al-Muarrajat in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley following the flight of all its residents due to a surge in Israeli settler attacks, 12 July. Hundreds of residents were forcibly displaced at the beginning of July after Israelis established a new outpost on their land, the final blow after years of violent attacks and constant harassment.
Omri Eran Vardi ActiveStillsThe United Nations warned on 12 July that fuel, which it described as “the backbone of survival in Gaza,” was in critically short supply after an Israeli blockade lasting 130 days.
Fuel is a lifeline for more than 2 million people in Gaza, the UN said, as it “powers hospitals, water systems, sanitation networks, ambulances and every aspect of humanitarian operations.”
UN agencies would be forced to suspend operations in Gaza without adequate fuel, meaning “no health services, no clean water, and no capacity to deliver aid,” the world body said.
Israel began allowing only two trucks of fuel per day, five days a week, on 9 July – “a fraction of what is required to run essential life-saving services in Gaza, where every aspect of life depends on fuel,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated.
Israeli authorities reconnected a desalination plant in southern Gaza to the electricity grid on 26 July, “significantly boosting its capacity to produce safe drinking water,” according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
At full operational capacity, the desalination plant has the “potential to serve up to one million people with drinking water at a rate of 6 liters per person per day, when complemented by domestic water for other uses.”
But this is dependent on “the availability of fuel and spare parts for water trucks, the operation and construction of filling stations, the establishment of water distribution points, and the feasibility of expanding the water distribution network,” OCHA added.
Nearly all households surveyed in early July were experiencing moderate to high levels of water insecurity, according to OCHA. More than 40 percent of households were lacking soap as hygiene items remained out of reach due to high cost and insufficient distributions, while access to toilets had also worsened since June.
Palestinians react next to an injured relative at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after two separate Israeli attacks in Beach refugee camp, 12 July. Sources at the hospital said at least seven people were killed and 40 wounded, most of them children and women, following the attacks on the densely populated camp west of Gaza City.
Yousef Zaanoun ActiveStillsIsraeli settlers killed two Palestinians – one of them a US citizen – in the West Bank village of Sinjil, near Ramallah, on 11 July.
Sayfullah Musallet, 20, was beaten to death while Hussein al-Shalabi, 23, was shot in the chest.
Musallet’s family, who are from Florida, demanded that the State Department lead an investigation and “hold the Israeli settlers who killed Saif accountable for their crimes.”
The US defers to Israel’s long-discredited self-investigation mechanisms, even when American citizens were killed by its military.
Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel who adheres to Christian Zionism, calledon Israel to “aggressively investigate” Musallet’s killing, which he called a “criminal and terrorist act.”
Mourners in the West Bank village of al-Mazraa al-Sharqiya, near Ramallah, carry the body of Sayfullah Musallet during his funeral, which was held alongside that of Hussein Shalabi after the two were killed by Israeli settlers, 13 July. The coordinated attack by a large group of Israelis targeted dozens of Palestinians attempting to access their land between the villages of Sinjil and al-Mazraa al-Sharqiya.
Avishay Mohar ActiveStillsThe UN human rights office demanded that Israel stop killings and home demolitions in the West Bank in a statement issued on 15 July, noting that Israeli setters and occupation forces had “intensified their killings, attacks and harassment of Palestinians” in the preceding weeks.
Around 30,000 Palestinians remain forcibly displaced after the launch of a major military offensive in the northern West Bank two days after a ceasefire was declared in Gaza in January.
At least 964 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 7 October 2023, the UN office said. During the same period, the UN office added, 53 Israelis were “killed in reported attacks by Palestinians or in armed clashes, 35 in the West Bank and 18 in Israel.”
Since late January, Israel has issued demolition orders for around 1,400 homes in the West Bank and demolitions have displaced more than 2,900 Palestinians in the territory since 7 October 2023.
“In the same period, a further 2,400 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, have been forcibly displaced as a result of the actions of Israeli settlers thus emptying large parts of the West Bank of Palestinians,” the UN office said.
“In line with the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice, Israel must bring to an end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory,” the UN office added.
Displaced Palestinians live by the sea in al-Mawasi, east of Khan Yunis, 13 July. People living there rely on seawater to keep cool in the summer heat, as well as for washing and fishing. The previous day, the Israeli government declared that Palestinians were forbidden from fishing or entering the water, further worsening the already catastrophic situation.
Doaa Albaz ActiveStillsOn 15 July, the Global Protection Cluster – a network of nongovernmental organizations, international organizations and UN agencies – issued a report on the “risks and barriers faced by persons with disabilities and older persons” in Gaza.
According to the report, 20 months of “intense hostilities” have left more than 134,100 people, including more than 40,500 children, with new war-related injuries; 25 percent “are estimated to have new disabilities requiring acute and ongoing rehabilitation.”
More than 35,000 people “are believed to have significant hearing damage due to Explosions” while 10 children per day “lose one or both of their legs,” the Global Protection Cluster states.
“Over 83 percent of persons with disabilities in Gaza have lost their assistive devices, and 80 percent of older persons in Gaza are in urgent need of medication or medical supplies,” the network adds.
Palestinians watch as Israeli forces raze a three-story home inhabited by a family of 10, 14 July. The home, in a village south of the West Bank City of Bethlehem, was demolished on the pretext that it was allegedly built without a permit. Journalists were briefly detained and questioned while documenting the demolition.
Mosab Shawer ActiveStillsOn 16 July, the UN human rights office in the West Bank and Gaza Strip condemnedthe killing of medical professionals in Gaza “in multiple attacks by the Israeli military.”
The UN had “recorded at least 10 strikes in less than two months, killing at least 10 doctors and five nurses,” the office added. “Out of these incidents, seven involved strikes on residential buildings or tents and killed them along with their families, including children.”
“In one strike, a pregnant woman doctor was killed on the street along with her husband,” the UN office added.
Majed Salah, a nurse, and his three daughters, all children, were killed in a strike on their tent in Khan Younis on 14 July, the UN office said.
Nearly 10 days earlier, on 5 July, the physician Khalooq Khafaja was killed along with his two daughters and a son in a strike on their tent in the Khan Younis area.
On 2 July, Dr. Marwan al-Sultan, a renowned cardiologist and director of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, was killed in a strike on a residential building in Gaza City along with his wife, sister, daughter and son-in-law. He was the 70th healthcare worker killed in a 50-day period, according to Healthcare Workers Watch-Palestine.
Palestinians in Ras Ein al-Auja document with their phones as Israelis hold a party at a nearby settlement outpost celebrating the displacement of the residents of nearby al-Muarrajat in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley, 14 July. More than 50 settler attacks and incidents of harassment have been recorded since January in Ras Ein al-Auja, a Bedouin community of around 550 residents. After the settlers expelled the people of al-Muarrajat, they’re focusing on this community as the next target.
Avishay Mohar ActiveStillsAt least 1,581 health workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Israel has destroyed many of Gaza’s hospitals and severely restricts the entry of medicine and medical equipment and supplies. Doctors and nurses have been arrested and detained during attacks on hospitals and multiple medical professionals have diedin Israeli custody, some apparently due to torture and other abuses.
Medical professionals “remaining in Gaza are operating under unprecedented constraints, including facing daily threat of death or injury to themselves or their families, as they struggle for survival,” the UN human rights office said.
“These strikes on medical professionals happened in a context where close to 200,000 Palestinians have been either killed or injured, the vast majority civilians and mainly as a result of Israel’s choices of methods and means of warfare,” the UN office added.
Premature infants are being treated at Al Helou International Hospital in Gaza City amid ongoing Israeli attacks, 16 July. The babies are at severe risk due to Israel’s fuel blockade, as their incubators depend on generators for power.
ousef Zaanoun ActiveStillsOn 17 July, Doctors Without Borders called on Israel to “facilitate the medical evacuation of all patients who require it – and without prejudice to their right to a safe, voluntary and dignified return to Gaza.”
The charity said that some 11,000 to 13,000 people, including more than 4,500 children, require medical treatment that is unavailable in Gaza.
“Yet Israeli authorities have allowed only a few of those requesting medical evacuation to do so, with many critical cases being delayed or denied regardless of medical urgency,” the charity added.
“The situation is particularly critical for patients in need of burn care or reconstructive surgery.”
Doctors Without Borders said it has only been able to medically evacuate 22 patients to different countries after a great deal of coordination with multiple host countries, the World Health Organization and the Israeli authorities.
COGAT, the Israeli military body that authorizes travel outside Gaza, has rejected many cases, the charity said.
Israeli flags fly from the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron, 16 July. Palestinian officials condemned the recent Israeli decision to strip the Palestinian Ministry of Religious Endowments and the Hebron Municipality of the authority to administer the Ibrahimi Mosque. The decision claims the mosque is a Jewish religious site with which Muslims and Palestinians have no connection.
Mosab Shawer ActiveStillsAt least 20 people were crushed to death or fatally stabbed at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site on 16 July.
GHF blamed armed Hamas agitators for the mass casualty event. Hamas in turn blamed GHF guards and Israeli troops for firing pepper gas and opening fire towards crowds of people desperate to secure food aid.
“Witnesses told Reuters that guards at the site sprayed pepper gas at them after they had locked the gates to the centre, trapping them between the gates and the outer wire-fence,” the news agency reported.
Amjad al-Shawa, the head of the Palestinian NGO Network, told Reuters that the thousands of people who flock to GHF sites “are hungry and exhausted, and they get squeezed into narrow places, amid shortages of aid and the absence of organization and discipline by the GHF.”
Children carry jerry cans filled with water from tankers in Gaza City, 17 July.
Omar Ashtawy APA imagesOn 18 July, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa entered Gaza on a rare visit by a foreign dignitary after three people were killed in an Israeli strike on the only Catholic church in the territory. Around 600 displaced people were sheltering on the church grounds at the time of the attack, according to the Jerusalem Patriarchate.
Father Gabriel Romanelli, a parish priest from Argentina who provided regular updates on the situation at the church to the late Pope Francis, was among several people injured in the attack.
Netanyahu blamed “stray ammunition” for the strike on the church, which hit close to the main cross on the roof, and called Pope Leo after the attack.
Cardinal Pizzaballa said that “we are not a target. [The Israelis] say it was an error. Even if everybody here believes it wasn’t.”
Andrea Tornielli, a Vatican official, cast doubt on Israel’s claim, noting the widespread destruction of mosques in Gaza and that “after a year and a half, there are still no results from the investigation into the killing of two Christian women shot by a sniper in the Gaza parish.”
The following day, Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, called a settler attack on a 5th-century church in the West Bank village of Taybeh an “act of terror” and demanded the prosecution of those responsible.
On 21 July, Pope Leo told Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, that he opposed the forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the “indiscriminate use of force” against them.
Palestinians observe the damage after Israeli forces demolished a home in the town of Qabatiya near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, 17 July.
Mohammed Nasser APA imagesOn 18 July, UN human rights experts called for Israeli and Palestinian authorities “to disclose the fate and whereabouts of all victims of enforced disappearance.”
Around 4,000 Palestinians – including medical professionals and journalists – and 51 Israelis “are still missing since 7 October 2023,” the experts said.
They added that the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances continues to register cases, “in particular with persons last seen while trying to cross from the north of Gaza to the south or vice-versa at checkpoints, from hospitals and persons arrested” during Israeli military ground operations.
But the number of Palestinians who have been forcibly disappeared and missing “are hugely underreported,” the experts said, with relatives of victims reluctant to report eases out of fear for their safety.
“The pain and suffering for relatives of the disappeared can constitute a form of psychological torture and other inhumane treatment,” the experts said.
Health staff with UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, screen and treat children suffering from severe acute malnutrition at an UNRWA medical point in a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City, 17 July.
UNRWA APA imagesOn 20 July, the Israeli military fired on large crowds of civilians awaiting a World Food Program convoy carrying food aid near the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza.
“We are deeply concerned and saddened by this tragic incident resulting in the loss of countless lives,” the UN organization stated the following day. “Many more suffered life-threatening injuries.”
“These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation,” the World Food Program added.
“Nearly one person in three is not eating for days,” the organization said.
“Only a massive scale-up in food aid distributions can stabilize this spiraling situation, calm anxieties and rebuild the trust within communities that more food is coming.”
Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, said that the facility was overwhelmed by casualties after the Zikim incident and that most of the cases received had been injured in the head or chest.
“Based on available reports, this appears to be the highest number of fatalities among Palestinians seeking food in a single location and on a single day since 27 May,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
People inspect the damage following Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on 18 July.
Moaz Abu Taha APA imagesOn 22 July, Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that new Israeli forced displacement orders and intensive attacks in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, “have added more misery to the suffering of hungry Palestinians.”
Noting the concentration of civilians in the area and Israel’s “methods and means of warfare,” Türk added that “the risks of unlawful killings and other serious violations of international humanitarian law are extremely high.”
“The area targeted by these attacks is also home to several humanitarian organizations, including clinics, other medical facilities, shelters, a community kitchen, guesthouses, warehouses and other critical infrastructure,” he said.
“It seemed the nightmare couldn’t possibly get worse. And yet it does,” Türk said of Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
On 21 July, Israeli undercover forces abducted and detained Marwan al-Hams, a senior health ministry official, outside an International Committee of the Red Cross field hospital in southern Gaza. Tamer al-Zaanin, a journalist who was filing an interview with al-Hams, was killed and another journalist was injured when Israeli forces opened fire during the incident.
People call for an end to Israel’s continued war of extermination and starvation during a protest organized by journalists in Gaza City, 19 July.
Omar Ashtawy ActiveStillsOn 22 July, the UN’s World Health Organization condemned “in the strongest terms” an Israeli attack on a building housing its staff in Deir al-Balah the day after the evacuation orders were issued.
WHO said that its staff residence was attacked three times, exposing staff and their families “to grave danger” and causing “a fire and significant damage.” The Israeli military “entered the premises, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward al-Mawasi amid active conflict,” WHO added.
“Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot and screened at gunpoint,” WHO stated. Two staff members and two family members were detained, and one employee remained in detention at the time WHO issued its statement.
WHO’s main warehouse was damaged on 21 July “after an attack caused explosions and fire inside” and “was later looted by desperate crowds.”
The attack has left WHO “severely constrained in adequately supporting hospitals, emergency medical teams and health partners, already critically short on medicines, fuel and equipment.”
Jorge Moreira da Silva, the head of the United Nations’ operational arm UNOPS, statedon 21 July that its central Gaza premises in Deir al-Balah had been hit, causing damage to buildings and infrastructure. UNOPS staff at the Deir al-Balah site have been “working tirelessly in extremely difficult circumstances to deliver critical fuel and aid.”
The same location was hit by Israeli artillery fire in March, killing a UN worker.
Israeli authorities informed humanitarian organizations that they had rescinded the displacement orders affecting the area of Deir al-Balah serving as a hub for relief operations on 27 July.
The uncle of 3-month-old Fadi al-Najjar holds his body at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, after he died as a result of malnutrition.
Doaa Albaz ActiveStillsOn 22 July, Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, called for immediate action to halt the unfolding “femi-genocide” in Gaza, where an estimated two-thirds of those killed are women and girls.
Alsalem recently submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council stating that Israel’s “large-scale, deliberate and systematic killing of Palestinian women, because they are both Palestinian and female, is put at the service of genociding Palestinians.”
Noting the psychological dimension of the genocide, Alsalem said that “the horrors that Palestinian mothers, in particular, continue to endure – watching their children slowly starve, killed, maimed and buried alive – is killing them repeatedly in a single day.”
Some 150,000 pregnant and lactating women do not have access to essential care, while an estimated 17,000 women and 60,000 children under the age of five “now suffer from acute malnutrition,” Alsalem added.
Israel is blocking the entry of baby formula while its blockade on fuel threatens to end life support for newborns in incubators.
According to Alsalem, “dozens of infants have been born prematurely, died shortly after birth, while others have been born with unprecedented genetic mutations, likely caused by starvation, trauma, and exposure to radioactive and toxic material.”
A woman embraces the body of her child who was killed by Israeli forces who targeted a crowd of people trying to receive aid, Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City, 20 July.
Yousef Zaanoun ActiveStillsAlso on 22 July, the UN human rights office warned that Palestinians are being killed by starvation or by the Israeli military while trying to access food in Gaza.
Fifteen Palestinians who died from malnutrition within a 24-hour period are among the more than 100 deaths due to starvation, most of them children.
“Many more have presented at hospitals in a state of severe exhaustion caused by a lack of food,” the UN office stated. “Others are collapsing in the streets. Many more may be dying unreported.”
More than 1,000 people were killed by the Israeli military while attempting to access food between 27 May, when the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operating in Gaza, and 21 July.
“Of these, 766 were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites and 288 around UN and other aid convoys,” the UN office said.
“The Israeli military must immediately stop shooting at people trying to get food,” the UN office added, and “must immediately lift its unlawful restrictions on the work of the UN and other humanitarian actors.”
A camp for displaced families struggling to survive under difficult conditions near Yarmouk Stadium in Gaza City, 21 July.
Omar Ashtawy APA imagesOn 23 July, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency UNFPA warned of “catastrophic birth outcomes for pregnant women and newborns, threatening the survival of an entire generation.”
The profound humanitarian crisis is due to “severe food deprivation, a shattered healthcare system and immense psychological stress,” UNFPA added.
The agency, citing data from the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, said that births have declined by more than 41 percent within three years.
During the first six months of 2025, at least 20 newborns died within 24 hours of birth and 33 percent of babies “were born prematurely, underweight or required admission to neonatal intensive care.”
“The statistics underscore the profound challenges faced by mothers and newborns in an environment where health care is being systematically targeted, with starvation and the deprivation of basic necessities driving these outcomes,” UNFPA stated.
Mourners carry the body of journalist Tamer al-Zaanin during his funeral in front of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, 21 July. Al-Zanin was killed and another journalist was injured when Israeli forces abducted Dr. Marwan al-Hams, a senior health ministry official, outside the International Committee of the Red Cross field hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza.
Omar Ashtawy APA imagesMore than 130 humanitarian organizations warned on 23 July that “their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes.”
They called on governments to act to “open all land crossings; restore the full flow of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel through a principled, UN-led mechanism; end the siege and agree to a ceasefire now.”
Tons of urgently needed food, water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel are amassed in warehouses outside of Gaza and even within Gaza but “humanitarian organizations [are] blocked from accessing or delivering them.”
The organizations added that “Israel’s restrictions, delays and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation and death.”
The organizations noted a 10 July announcement by Israel and the EU to scale up aid “but these promises of ‘progress’ ring hollow when there is no real change on the ground.”
“States must pursue concrete measures to end the siege, such as halting the transfer of weapons and ammunition,” the organizations stated.
Palestinians rush to rescue the wounded and recover the dead after Israeli airstrikes targeted the home of the Mushtaha family on Mukhabarat Street in Gaza City, 22 July. Ten people were killed in the strike and an ambulance was hit during the bombardment.
Yousef Zaanoun ActiveStillsOn 24 July, UN human rights experts called for an end to Israeli state and settler violence against Palestinian peasants and rural workers in the West Bank.
“We are deeply troubled by alleged widespread intimidation, violence, land dispossession, destruction of livelihoods and the resulting forcible displacement of communities, and we fear this is severing Palestinians from their land and undermining their food security,” they said.
“Settler violence has reportedly involved arson, livestock theft and the poisoning or destruction of water sources, severely undermining the ability of Palestinians to sustain their agricultural way of life,” the experts added.
Such attacks have caused an estimated $76 million in direct agricultural damage in the West Bank between October 2023 and late 2024, the experts said. The gross domestic product in the West Bank is estimated to have declined by more than 19 percent while the unemployment rate rose to 35 percent.
“It is essential that the West Bank be kept under Palestinian control, based on the rights to self-determination of the Palestinian people and full respect of international law,” the experts said.
People make their way along al-Rashid Street in western Jabaliya towards trucks carrying humanitarian aid after they entered the northern Gaza Strip through the Israeli-controlled Zikim crossing, 22 July.
Abdullah Abu Al-Khair APA imagesOn 25 July, Reuters reported that an internal US government review found no evidence of systematic theft by Hamas of humanitarian supplies funded by Washington, challenging the main rationale given by that country and Israel for the militarized Gaza Humanitarian Foundation operations.
The analysis examined more than 150 cases of theft or loss of US-funded supplies between October 2023 and May 2025.
“It found ‘no reports alleging Hamas’ benefited from US-funded supplies, according to a slide presentation of the findings seen by Reuters,” the agency reported.
A White House spokesperson cast doubt on the existence of the report, telling Reuters that it “ ‘was likely produced by a deep state operative’ seeking to discredit President Donald Trump’s ‘humanitarian agenda.’”
On 26 July, Israel announced the establishment of humanitarian corridors in Gaza and that it would observe tactical pauses in fighting and allow airdrops of limited quantities of food following international pressure over the unfolding famine.
The Protection Cluster said that it welcomed the announcement but said “airdrops are an inadequate alternative to principled and coordinated humanitarian delivery.”
They pose the risk of injury or death to civilians and are “insufficient in scale to meet the extensive needs inside Gaza, and risk deflecting from legal obligations of Israel to facilitate meaningful humanitarian access.”
“Aid dropped during the night on 27 July is reported to have landed on tents, injuring residents, and in damaged buildings and areas affected by heavy bombardment, exposing people attempting to reach it to risk of injury or death by explosive ordnance,” the Protection Cluster stated.
“The use of airdrops as implemented last night in densely populated areas of Gaza is not only insufficient to meet the volume of need – it is dangerous, inequitable, unpredictable and unsustainable,” the Protection Cluster added.
Palestinians and solidarity activists gathered in Jaffa to demonstrate against the ongoing starvation and genocide in Gaza, 25 July.
Oren Ziv ActiveStillsOn 27 July, the World Health Organization said that of the 74 malnutrition-related deaths recorded in Gaza during 2025, 63 occurred in July, “including 24 children under 5, a child over 5 and 38 adults.”
“Most of these people were declared dead on arrival at health facilities or died shortly after, their bodies showing clear signs of severe wasting,” WHO added.
“Nearly one in five children under 5 in Gaza City is now acutely malnourished,” according to WHO. “In Khan Younis and the Middle Area, rates have doubled in less than one month.”
The UN health organization noted that the figures “are likely an underestimation due to the severe access and security constraints preventing many families from reaching health facilities.”
Palestinians protest at Manger Square, near the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, denouncing the ongoing genocide in Gaza and rejecting Israel’s starvation policy, 26 July.
Mamoun Wazwaz APA imagesOn 29 July, UN agencies stated that “Gaza faces the grave risk of famine as food consumption and nutrition indicators have reached their worst levels since the conflict began.”
Two out of three famine thresholds have been breached in parts of Gaza, according tothe latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Alert.
More than one in three people – 39 percent of Gaza’s population – “are now going days at a time without eating,” the UN agencies stated.
“More than 500,000 people – nearly a quarter of Gaza’s population – are enduring famine-like conditions, while the remaining population is facing emergency levels of hunger.”
The agencies added that “acute malnutrition – the second core famine indicator - inside Gaza has risen at an unprecedented rate.”
All children under the age of 5 in Gaza “are at risk of acute malnutrition, with thousands suffering from severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form of undernutrition.”
“Time is running out to mount a full-scale humanitarian response,” the agencies warned.
Humanitarian aid is airdropped north of Gaza City on 27 July. The United Arab Emirates and Jordan confirmed to news outlets that they have begun implementing daily aid drops, claiming these are to alleviate famine caused by the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip, despite criticism that they are merely a smokescreen for Israel and can cause injury to civilians.
Yousef Zaanoun ActiveStills“Israel is using thirst as a weapon to kill Palestinians,” UN human rights experts said on 29 July.
“Cutting off water and food is a silent but lethal bomb that kills mostly children and babies,” added the experts, who called for deployment of aid including fuel, water, supplies and personnel, from all Mediterranean ports.
“The sight of infants dying in their mothers’ arms is unbearable. How can world leaders sleep while this suffering continues?”
Alice Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture, who has been criticized for her perceived lack of public condemnations of Israeli policies, said that “the psychological impact of being deprived of food and water is inherently cruel.”
“Constantly changing rules, militarized distributions and daily and hourly uncertainty about when one is going to access these basic necessities is causing utter despair, stress and trauma,” she added in her 30 July statement.
A newborn receives medical care at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, after doctors managed to save him following the death of his seven-months-pregnant mother, Suad Zaarab, in an Israeli airstrike on a building near tents sheltering displaced families in the al-Mawasi area, 28 July.
Moaz Abu Taha APA imagesOn the last day of July, Jewish settlers, under the protection of the Israeli army, attacked three villages in the area of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Abdulatif Ayyad, 40, died from suffocation while attempting to extinguish vehicles that were set on fire by settlers, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Settlers have carried out more than 2,150 attacks in the West Bank so far this year, according to Wafa, resulting in the deaths of four Palestinians.
Among them was Awdah Hathaleen, a prominent activist who was allegedly shot and killed by settler Yinon Levi in Umm al-Kheir, a village in the South Hebron Hills, on 28 July.
Levi, who has worked for the army destroying buildings in Gaza, was arrested and charged with reckless homicide and released from house arrest after only a few days.
The Israeli military is withholding Hathaleen’s body on condition that his family agrees to their conditions that Hathaleen be buried in the city of Yatta rather than Umm al-Kheir and that the funeral be limited to 15 attendees.
The military declared a mourning tent erected after Hathaleen’s killing to be a closed military zone and “forcibly removed journalists, activists and Palestinians who are not residents of the village,” according to Haaretz.
Levi was sanctioned by the US, Canada and the UK last year for his role in the forcible transfer of Palestinians from Zanuta village last year.
The Trump administration lifted sanctions on Levi earlier this year while Hathaleen was refused entry to the US after being invited to speak with Jewish groups in California in June.
Palestinians collect food aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution point in Rafah, southern Gaza, amid warnings of catastrophic hunger and imminent famine, 30 July.
Abed Rahim Khatib DPA via ZUMA PressFollowing the killing of Awdah Hathaleen, the UN human rights office said on 30 July that “escalating settler violence, with the acquiescence, support and in some cases participation, of Israeli security forces, has worsened the coercive environment in the occupied West Bank.”
Settlers forced 17 Palestinian herding families from their homes in the Bethlehem area between 24 and 26 July, the UN office said.
“The settlers threatened to kill the residents if they did not leave, vandalized Palestinian property and cut off the water supply to the community,” according to the office, which noted that Israeli forces informed residents that they were unable to protect them.
Meanwhile, after a four-year pause, Israeli authorities have “resumed implementation of the E1 settlement plans, which include the construction of over 3,400 housing units for Israeli settlers between occupied East Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement.”
Israeli forces killed eight Palestinians over the previous week, including five boys, “who were shot despite the fact that they posed no threat to life,” the UN office stated.
On 23 July, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, adopted by a large majority a motion calling on the government to officially extend sovereignty to the West Bank.
“The non-binding motion advocated for its formal annexation under Israeli law, which would be a flagrant violation of international law,” the UN office stated.
Israeli right-wing settlers march to the Gaza boundary on 30 July.
Ilia Yefimovich DPA via ZUMA PressIsraeli forces killed eight Palestinian children in the West Bank during July.
Amjad Awad, 17, was shot in the chest and killed by an Israeli soldier positioned inside a military vehicle from a distance of around 50 meters away near the al-Manara roundabout in the center of Ramallah. According to Defense for Children International Palestine, Amjad was crossing the roundabout “with a relative when confrontations erupted between Palestinian youths and Israeli forces, who opened fire at the Palestinians.”
Eyad Shalkhti, 14, was shot by an Israeli soldier positioned inside an armored military vehicle near Askar refugee camp in the northern West Bank on 6 July. Soldiers fired toward the boy’s friends who attempted to evacuate Eyad, injuring one of the boys in the hand and another in the foot.
Eyad succumbed to his injuries on 9 July.
Amr Qabha, 13, was shot and killed in Yabad in the northern West Bank after unknowingly walking towards a group of soldiers who had taken up positions in the village. “As Amr turned back and attempted to take cover, the soldiers opened fire on him with live ammunition from a distance of 10 meters,” according to Defense for Children International-Palestine.
Soldiers prevented medics from rendering first aid and handcuffed and beat the boy’s father after he managed to reach and embrace Amr, who the father said was still alive at the time. Amr’s father was detained next to his bleeding child for around 40 minutes.
“Only after the soldiers were certain Amr had died, they allowed the ambulance to approach and transport him to the Yabad Government Emergency Center and then transferred to Jenin Government Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival,” DCIP stated.
Israeli forces shot and killed Ibrahim Ali Nasr, 15, during an incursion in Qabatiya near Jenin in the northern West Bank on 22 July. The boy was shot by soldiers from a distance of around 10 to 15 meters away while he and another boy were running away from them, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine.
People driven to the brink of starvation under the Israeli army’s attacks and blockade gather at an aid distribution point in Gaza’s Zikim corridor to access a limited supply of flour on 30 July.
Omar Ashtawy APA imagesAhmad Salah, 15, and Muhammad Issa, 17, were shot and killed by Israeli troops in the town of al-Khader near the West Bank city of Bethlehem on 23 July.
“Ahmad and Muhammad allegedly threw Molotov cocktails towards the bypass road” near where they were killed, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine. Soldiers prevented ambulance crews from reaching the boys and confiscated their bodies.
Also on 23 July, Muhammad Mabrouk, 15, was deliberately targeted by a soldier who shot him in the thigh during a raid in al-Ain refugee camp near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine. Israeli forces fired toward a young man who attempted to lift Muhammad up but he too came under fire. Muhammad succumbed to his injuries on 25 July.
On 24 July, Israeli forces shot and killed Ibrahim Hamran, 13, near Araba, a town in the northern West Bank. Soldiers exited military vehicles and fired directly at the children after they threw stones towards military vehicles withdrawing from Qabatiya.
Israeli forces have killed 38 Palestinian children in the West Bank so far this year, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine, which said that 212 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the territory since 7 October 2023.
“Israeli forces have withheld the bodies of at least 53 Palestinian children since June 2016,” according to DCIP. “Six of the children’s bodies have since been released to their families, while 47 Palestinian children’s bodies remain withheld by Israeli authorities.”
A protester in Amsterdam chains themselves to the US Embassy to denounce Washington’s support for the genocide in Gaza, 31 July. Thousands of protesters gathered in central Amsterdam to demand an end to the famine in Gaza resulting from Israel’s blockade.
Wahaj Bani Moufleh ActiveStillsOn 31 July, the UN human rights office said that Palestinians were still being shot and shelled by the Israeli military along food convoy routes and near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, despite the army’s announcement of “humanitarian pauses” days earlier.
As starvation deepens in Gaza, more than 100 Palestinians were killed and 680 injured along convoy routes and near GHF sites between 30 and 31 July, the UN office stated.
At least 1,373 people have been killed while seeking food aid in Gaza since 27 May.
“This humanitarian catastrophe is human-made,” the UN office added. “It is a direct result of policies imposed by Israel that have severely reduced the amount of life-saving assistance in the Gaza Strip.”
The UN office said that “states must use all available means to stop these violations of international law and to fulfill their legal and moral obligations to avert further killings of civilians.”
Text and production by Maureen Clare Murphy.