Updates: Israel starves Gaza as global condemnation grows

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If you want to know more about how pressure is mounting in the UK for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to recognise Palestinian statehood, see our story here.

This comes after French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France will recognise Palestine as a state at the next UN General Assembly. Read more here.

And to understand the latest developments on the Gaza ceasefire talks, here is what US President Donald Trump said.

But before, let’s bring you up to speed with the latest updates:

• Sources at hospitals in the Gaza Strip tell Al Jazeera that at least 38 people have been killed by Israeli attacks since the early hours of this morning.
• Sources at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis told Al Jazeera that a six-month-old infant has succumbed to medical complications that arose from starvation. At least nine other Palestinians starved to death in Gaza today, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.
• Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, reports that the military has destroyed and buried tens of thousands of aid items – including food and medical supplies – that spoiled after sitting too long at the Gaza border.
• Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed a hypersonic missile attack on Israel, saying it was aimed at Beersheba in the south of the country. The Israeli government said it intercepted the missile.
• The UN’s World Food Programme said on X that it has distributed 22,000 metric tonnes of food aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza since May 21, and dispatched 349 trucks carrying about 4,200 tonnes of food in the last week alone, but that this is a “tiny fraction” of what is needed to keep the Strip’s population alive.

Palestinians welcomed France’s pledge to recognise Palestinian statehood and urged other countries to do the same, though some voiced frustration over continued inaction on Gaza.

“We hope it will be implemented, and we hope that most or all countries around the world will follow France’s lead in recognising the Palestinian people’s right to an independent state,” Nabil Abdel Razek, a resident of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, told the AFP news agency.

“All of these decisions not only affirm the rights of the Palestinian people, but also contribute to changing the violent reality in the region and lead to greater stability,” Ahmed Ghoneim, another Ramallah resident, told the agency.

Ines Abdel Razek, co-director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD), said Western nations should focus more urgently on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“What France should have recognised is the genocide and taken measures to end it and end the occupation,” Razek told AFP, adding that Paris should cut relations with Israel and impose a trade embargo.

Israel has bombed Gaza’s only Catholic church – the latest religious site hit in the war.

Hundreds of mosques were also damaged or destroyed, and cemeteries were obliterated, too.

In the occupied West Bank, attacks on Christians and Muslims are increasing.

Why is this happening?

Watch our video to hear the discussion:

Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, reports that the military has destroyed and buried tens of thousands of aid items – including food and medical supplies – that spoiled after sitting too long at the Gaza border.

Citing military sources, the report says the wasted aid amounted to the contents of roughly 1,000 trucks and was either burned or buried.

“Even today, there are thousands of packages waiting in the sun, and if they are not transferred to the Gaza Strip, we will be forced to destroy them too,” one military source was quoted as saying.

The broadcaster attributed the spoilage to a “problem in the aid distribution mechanism”. For months, Israel has faced sharp criticism from the UN and rights groups over its obstruction of aid deliveries into Gaza.

The Yemeni rebel group has claimed the earlier missile attack on Israel that we reported on, saying it was aimed at Beersheba in the south of the country and was carried out with a hypersonic missile.

“We attacked vital Israeli enemy targets in Umm al-Rashrash, Ashkelon, and Hadera with three drones”, Yahya Saree, the group’s military spokesperson, said.

“We are studying further escalation options to stop the aggression, starvation and genocide in Gaza”, he added.

The Houthis have been carrying out attacks on Israel and on commercial ships it says are linked to Israel for the duration of Israel’s war on Gaza.

The foundation, named for a little girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, tracks the movements of Israeli soldiers who have operated in Gaza, urging world governments to arrest and prosecute them on war crimes charges.

Its latest criminal complaint was filed against Israeli paratrooper Tameer Mulla, an Arab Druze soldier it says is currently on Cypriot soil, “for his direct involvement in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts potentially amounting to genocide during Israel’s onslaught in the Gaza Strip between 2023 and 2025”.

The foundation alleges Mulla deliberately attacked civilian infrastructure, educational institutions, participated in the forced displacement of Palestinians and participated in incitement to genocide.

The UN’s World Food Programme says on X that it has distributed 22,000 metric tonnes of food aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza since May 21, and dispatched 349 trucks carrying about 4,200 tonnes of food in the last week alone.

“Despite these efforts, the quantity of food aid delivered to date is still a tiny fraction of what a population of over 2 million people need to survive”, it said in its post.

It called on Israel to show “commitment” to speeding up approval of the entry of aid convoys to the Gaza Strip.

As we’ve been reporting, Palestinians are dying from complications related to malnutrition, in effect starving to death, daily, with at least nine people passing in this manner today. Israel maintains a blockade on the Gaza Strip.

A group of Israeli settlers has stormed the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir, near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, and opened fire at people there, according to Wafa news agency.

One shot hit a 14-year-old in the leg near their home, according to witnesses cited by the agency, adding that Israeli forces also stormed the village later on.

Earlier, the Palestinian Authority said Israeli forces killed two other Palestinians, including a 19-year-old, in the Hebron area in the occupied West Bank.

There has been a lot of news in the past few days on prospects for a deal between Hamas and Israel. Here’s the latest:

• Israel and the United States withdrew their delegations on Thursday from the ceasefire talks in Qatar, hours after Hamas submitted its response to a truce proposal.
• Sources initially said that the Israeli withdrawal was only for consultations and did not necessarily mean the talks had reached a crisis.
• Hours later, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said he was cutting short talks, accusing Hamas of “acting in good faith”.
• Hamas said it was surprised by Witkoff’s remarks, affirming its eagerness to continue negotiations.
• Earlier today, Netanyahu and Trump made comments that appear to leave little or no room for further discussion.
• Netanyahu said Israel was now mulling “alternative” options to achieve its goals of bringing the captives home from Gaza and ending Hamas rule in the enclave.
• “Hamas really didn’t want to make a deal. I think they want to die. And it’s very bad. And it got to be to a point where you’re going to have to finish the job,” Trump told reporters.
• Qatar and Egypt released a joint statement to affirm their continued mediation efforts to reach an agreement, emphasising that it is normal in the context of complex negotiations to suspend engagement to hold consultations. They also said that progress had been made in the latest round of talks.

A group of Israeli families has met Secretary of State Marco Rubio, urging the US to take all possible steps to bring back the captives.

“We trust that President Trump and his administration will do everything in their power to ensure this deal does not collapse and that this pressing opportunity is not lost,” the families said in a statement, adding that Rubio reaffirmed his “unwavering commitment – 100% – to achieving a hostage deal”.

The statement comes after Netanyahu and Trump appeared to abandon Gaza ceasefire negotiations with Hamas, both saying it had become clear that the Palestinian group did not want a deal. The Israeli prime minister said Israel was now mulling “alternative” options to achieve its goals of bringing the captives back.

“Only a massive scale-up in food aid can stabilize the hunger catastrophe engulfing Gaza,” the World Food Programme has said in a statement.

The UN agency said severe acute malnutrition is surging, and almost a third of families miss meals for days at a time. Humanitarian assistance is the only way for people to access food as market prices have skyrocketed, the WFP said.

“A huge humanitarian scale-up is also needed to calm anxieties and rebuild trust within communities that more food is coming,” it added.

According to UN data:

• The entire population of Gaza faces acute levels of food insecurity.
• 470,000 people are facing catastrophic hunger.
• 70,000 children need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition.

Gaza-based journalist Noor al-Shana said people in the enclave are tired of what she called empty expressions of solidarity from the international community.

“We don’t want just words … we want actions,” al-Shana pleaded. “We want you to open borders. We want you to stop this genocide.”

Hear the rest of her comments in our video below:

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has released a statement calling for an immediate end to the “abhorrent suffering” in Gaza.

“There is no excuse for what is happening in Gaza,” said ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric. “The scale of human suffering and the stripping of human dignity have long exceeded every acceptable standard – both legal and moral.”

“People are being relentlessly killed in hostilities and while attempting to get food,” said Spoljaric. “Children are dying because they do not have enough to eat. Families are being forced to flee again and again in search of safety that does not exist.”

“This tragedy must end now – immediately and decisively,” she added. “Every political hesitation, every attempt at justification of the horrors being committed under international watch will forever be judged as a collective failure to preserve humanity in war.”