Updates: ‘Unforgivable’ that world standing by as Israel starves Gaza: UN

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A former security guard who worked at GHF aid distribution sites told Israeli media about the abuses he witnessed there, including the potentially lethal use of pepper spray and tear gas. You can learn more here.

Today, a coalition of more than 100 aid groups warned of “mass starvation” inside the Strip, even as lifesaving emergency aid remains blocked just outside the enclave. This is what the situation looks like on the ground.

You can find all our coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict here.

This live page will be closing soon. Here are today’s top developments:

• Israeli attacks across Gaza killed at least 77 people, including 25 aid seekers, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
• More than 100 aid agencies have warned of “mass starvation” of Palestinians in Gaza and called for an immediate ceasefire and all restrictions on humanitarian aid.
• The Israeli government rejected the letter from the aid agencies, referring to them as echoing “Hamas propaganda”.
• Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in Gaza, said: “Hunger has become as deadly as the bombs; families are no longer asking for enough, they are asking for anything.”
• Israeli forces have shot and killed a teenager in the town of Arrabeh, south of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency reported.
• Brazil said it is in the final stages of formally joining South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
• Amid ongoing ceasefire negotiations, far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich called for ceasefire talks to end with Hamas and for the total destruction of the group.

Jaime Chicon, a medical activity manager with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), working in the occupied West Bank, says teams are witnessing an unprecedented level of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.

“We have received cases reporting nightmares or panic attacks during the night” as a result of the settler violence, Chicon said in a video shared by MSF on X.

Qusai al-Amoor, an MSF patient, also described being attacked by Israeli settlers in the Hebron area, in the southern West Bank. “Three cars with about 17 people [came]. They attacked us and beat me, my father and my brother Ahmad,” al-Amoor said.

#WestBank: At our mobile clinics in Hebron, our teams are seeing how never-ending violence committed by Israeli settlers and forces is taking a massive toll on the mental health of Palestinians.

Watch patients and our staff speak on this issue: pic.twitter.com/zVp6SB6FIy

— Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (@MSF_canada) July 23, 2025

Humza Yousaf and his wife, Dundee Councillor Nadia El-Nakla, have released a video message urging the world to take action to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza.

“My cousin Sally, her husband and four children are starving. My aunt Hanan, her children and grandchildren, including a seven-month-old baby, are being starved,” El-Nakla said.

“This is a deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people. Food and water are mere kilometres away. This form of warfare is sickening, and the stories and images from my families and millions of others in Gaza are absolutely gut-wrenching.”

Israeli settlers have attacked the village of Khirbet Ibziq in the northern Jordan Valley and stolen animal feed in the latest attack in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency reports.

Human rights activist Aref Daraghmeh told Wafa that a group of settlers stormed the village and stole fodder owned by resident Mohammad Mithqal Daraghmeh.

Settler attacks are becoming a daily occurrence in the northern Jordan Valley, with Israelis raiding and assaulting Palestinian homes, pursuing shepherds into pastures, and assaulting them and their livestock.

The escalation resulted in the forced displacement of two families from the al-Maleh community last week.

Israeli forces have fired live bullets at Palestinians during a raid in the town of al-Khader, southwest of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society also reported that Israeli forces were preventing ambulances from reaching those injured by Israeli gunfire.

عاجل| إصابة شبان برصاص الاحتلال خلال اقتحام بلدة الخضر جنوبي بيت لحم pic.twitter.com/Ipm4KD3Cjb

— القسطل الإخباري (@AlQastalps) July 23, 2025

Translate: Urgent | Young men injured by [Israeli army] gunfire during a raid on al-Khader town, south of Bethlehem.

As criticism mounts over the brutal starvation caused by Israel’s blocking of humanitarian aid, an Israeli government spokesperson told reporters “aid has been flowing into Gaza”.

“In Gaza, there is no famine caused by Israel. There is, however, a manmade shortage engineered by Hamas,” said David Mencer.

In a media briefing, he said aid had been coming into the Strip through food packages distributed by the GHF and through UN-coordinated shipments of materials for bakeries and communal kitchens.

More than 1,000 people have been killed at GHF sites, where Israeli soldiers routinely attack desperate aid seekers. The UN has repeatedly said Israel’s restrictions have prevented them from providing adequate aid and begged Israel to allow it to coordinate food delivery.

The Iraqi government has denounced Israel’s ongoing siege on Gaza, which it said was “part of a systematic and inhumane policy of starving … afflicted Palestinian citizens”.

In a statement received by the Iraqi News Agency (INA), Iraqi government spokesperson Bassem al-Awadi said that images of starving children, men and women massed in front of “meagre” aid trucks show “heinous, immoral practices” by Israeli forces.

“Major powers, international organisations, and institutions are now facing a real test in strengthening the rule of law, sustaining peace, and defending human rights and dignity,” al-Awadi said.

“Therefore, we call on the [Israeli] government to halt the policy of starvation against the people of Gaza, and for concerned parties to pressure the politicians of the Zionist entity to urgently allow the entry of relief supplies to the people of Gaza,” the spokesperson added.

A former security guard who worked at GHF aid distribution sites has described to Israeli media abuses he witnessed firsthand, including the potentially lethal use of pepper spray and tear gas.

See more in our report below.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has rejected the Israeli parliament’s passage of the nonbinding motion in support of annexing the occupied West Bank.

Abu Rudeineh said the measure “violates all resolutions of international legitimacy and international law”, the Wafa news agency reported.

“He warned that such dangerous calls to annex occupied Palestinian land represent a challenge to the will of the international community to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution and UN resolutions,” the report said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is calling on US lawmakers to take action to end Israel’s deadly bombardment and blockade of Gaza.

“Demand an end to US weapons transfers. Demand an end to Israel’s blockade. Demand that Israel accept an immediate permanent, and comprehensive ceasefire that ends the genocide for good and frees all captives. Demand immediate, unrestricted humanitarian access through border crossings. Demand justice for the dead and the dying,” CAIR wrote on X.

“We are imploring you. Do not wait until there is no one left to starve or kill. Do not wait until history or God Almighty judges us,” the group said.

“The time to stop this horror and save these starving men, women and children is now.”

The US provides Israel with at least $3.8bn in military assistance annually. It has sent billions more since the Gaza war began, as well as shielded Israel from criticism at the UN and other international bodies.

An Open Letter to Congress:

We are writing to you today not as policy analysts or civil rights activists, but as human beings. As Americans. As parents. As people who were taught that starving children is always wrong. That mass murder cannot be rationalized. That the words… pic.twitter.com/l7wq4s70Ye

— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) July 23, 2025

Brazil says it’s in the final stages of formally joining South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The decision “is based on the duty of States to comply with their obligations under international law and international humanitarian law, given the plausibility that the rights of Palestinians to protection against acts of genocide are being irreversibly impaired”, the Brazilian foreign ministry said.

South Africa brought the case to the ICJ in late 2023, accusing the Israeli government of carrying out “genocidal acts” in Gaza and urging the UN’s top court to take action to prevent further such actions from taking place.

The ICJ has since issued several provisional orders seeking to get Israel to halt its offensive and to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But the Israeli government has continued the war on the enclave.

In its statement, the Brazilian foreign ministry said “the international community cannot remain inactive in the face of ongoing atrocities”.

“Brazil believes there is no longer room for moral ambiguity or political omission. Impunity undermines international legality and undermines the credibility of the multilateral system,” it said.

We’ve been speaking with Sam Rose, acting director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, about the crisis unfolding in the enclave.

“The deprivation, the hunger, the exhaustion, the bombardment, the stress that people are under is on a level that we’ve not seen through more than 20 months of absolutely brutal conflict. And it will be worse tomorrow if the situation doesn’t change,” he told Al Jazeera.

Rose said UNRWA staff members in Gaza – from teachers to nurses, doctors and sanitation workers – are “carrying on because they have no choice”.

“Many of the staff that I spoke to earlier this week have yet again been displaced as a result of the evacuation orders in central Gaza but were then going back to work. And all of them are hungry,” Rose said.

“People are going for days without proper meals. Their children are not eating … We have staff who are fainting, who are collapsing, who are really at their wits’ end. What they are being asked to do is beyond what anyone should have to do,” he said.

“It’s unacceptable and it’s unforgivable that this continues and the world knows about it.”

Israeli activists gathered at the offices of the country’s national broadcaster to protest what they called the “censorship” of the war in Gaza.

Activists chanted and held signs condemning the Israeli media’s disregard of the atrocities in Gaza, asking the broadcasting station, “What is the media hiding?”

The “Standing Together” movement launched a public petition calling for an end to the “concealment” of the situation in Gaza and calling for balanced and transparent coverage of the war.

In the petition, the group said it wanted to directly challenge the dominance of the far-right discourse in Israeli media, calling for news agencies to report on the killing of 100 children in one week and the erasure of entire cities in Gaza.

פעילי מחאה נכנסו לבניין תאגיד השידור "כאן" ודרשו שהתקשורת תתייחס לזוועות שקורות בעזה.
תקשורת מכל העולם רואה את מה שאצלנו מסתירים,
תקשורת מכל העולם הגיעה לראיין את המוחים שעומדים בנחישות אל מול השתיקה שהיא שיתוף פעולה עם ההרג ההמוני וההרעבה בעזה.

נמשיך להגיע שוב ושוב
עד שזה… pic.twitter.com/ayFw5ExXuf

— משנים כיוון ↩️ (@change_dir_il) July 23, 2025

Translation: Protest activists entered the “Kan” public broadcasting corporation building and demanded that the media address the atrocities happening in Gaza 

Media from around the world see what is being hidden here. Media from around the world came to interview the protesters who stand resolutely against the silence that is complicity with the mass killing and starvation in Gaza. We will keep coming back again and again until this stops!

More than 50 former British diplomats and UN officials have signed an open letter calling on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to recognise a Palestinian state amid “an unprecedented level of threat” to Palestinians in the occupied territory.

The signatories pointed to Israel’s war on Gaza and increased violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, stressing that the “enormity of the situation” requires a strong response from the UK.

“Recognising a Palestinian state would be a foundational first step towards breaking the deadly status quo. A coordinated multilateral approach is the only credible way forward, and will be supported by many countries in Europe, the Middle East, and the wider world,” they wrote.

“By joining the 147 states that have already recognised the State of Palestine and exerting its influence as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the UK will reaffirm the broad international consensus that Palestinian self-determination and statehood are not only non-negotiable but essential elements in practice for any viable and just peace process.”