Updates: Israeli fire kills dozens searching for food in famine-hit Gaza

For more on Canada recognising the State of Palestine in September, see here.

Watch our video following a Palestinian family’s day trying to find food in Gaza here.

Stay up to date with our latest coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

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

• Since dawn, Israeli attacks killed at least 86 people throughout Gaza despite the army claiming to be following “tactical pauses” with more than 70 aid seekers shot dead.
• Canada said it intends to recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September, citing the need for a two-state solution as Israel attacks Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
• Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz joined a chorus of Israeli condemnation over growing announcements of the recognition of a Palestinian state, calling the move “encouragement” for Hamas.
• Former captive Emily Damari has criticised as “deeply saddening” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s announcement to recognise a Palestinian state.
• US special envoy Steve Witkoff will visit Israel on Thursday to “discuss next steps” on the dire situation in the Gaza Strip.
• Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles said 13 sick children and their families from Gaza will be flown from Jordan to Spain for urgent medical care.
• The United Arab Emirates has begun construction on a major pipeline to carry desalinated water from Egypt to southern Gaza.
• Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said in a televised address that those demanding the group disarm are “serving the Israeli project”.

Ninety-two House Democrats signed a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding an investigation into the operations of the controversial GHF.

“We have serious concerns with the operations of GHF, a newly established, private, US-linked organisation with no prior humanitarian experience, and the possibility that it could become the sole or primary aid provider in Gaza,” the lawmakers wrote.

“Providing secure and efficient humanitarian assistance to Palestinians is not only a moral obligation – it is also vital to Israel’s long-term security and the safe return of Israeli hostages. Enhancing aid operations is essential to stabilizing the region and achieving lasting peace.”

Israel has tightened its blockade in Gaza since May, allowing food into the territory almost exclusively through GHF, which has four sites set up in the south of the enclave. That compares with about 400 distribution areas operated by the United Nations.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire while attempting to reach or leave GHF centres.

The United Nations’ humanitarian agency says the conditions for delivering aid into Gaza are “far from sufficient” to meet the immense needs of its “desperate, hungry people”.

Four days into Israel’s “tactical pauses”, deaths from hunger and malnutrition are rising as are casualties among those seeking aid, it said.

“For UN drivers to access the Kerem Shalom [Karam Abu Salem] crossing – a fenced-off area – Israeli authorities must approve the mission, provide a safe route through which to travel, provide multiple ‘green lights’ on movement, as well as a pause in bombing and, ultimately, open the iron gates to allow them to enter.”

OCHA also said fuel deliveries are nowhere near what is needed to keep health, emergency, water and telecommunications services running in the besieged Palestinian territory.

“Desperate, hungry people” continue to offload the small amounts of aid from the trucks that are able to exit the crossings, it said.

“Current fuel entries are insufficient to meet life-saving critical needs and represent a drop in the ocean,” said OCHA.

Israel rejected a statement by Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney over a planned recognition of a Palestinian state, saying it represented a reward for Hamas.

“The change in the position of the Canadian government at this time is a reward for Hamas and harms the efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and a framework for the release of the hostages,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Carney said earlier his decision was informed by Canada’s “long-standing” belief in a two-state solution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He referenced Israel’s “ongoing failure” to prevent humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, as well the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling on Americans to contact their US senators and demand they vote “yes” on two resolutions introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders to stop sending more weapons to Israel.

Sanders is expected to force the Senate to vote as early as today.

• SJ Res 34 – Blocks the $675.7m sale of 1,000-pound MK 83 bombs, BLU-110A/B general-purpose bombs, and over 5,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits used in air strikes that have flattened homes, hospitals, and refugee shelters across Gaza.
• SJ Res 41 – Blocks the sale of tens of thousands of fully automatic assault rifles to Israeli forces and police under the command of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has armed violent settlers carrying out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli soldiers arrested a Palestinian farmer, Mohammad Mahmoud Taqatqa, in the town of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.

Citing local sources, the Wafa news agency reported Israeli troops stormed the town following a settler attack, detained Taqatqa’s family members, and demanded they leave their grapevine farm.

Israeli soldiers also entered the town of Janata, east of Bethlehem, and fired sound bombs and tear gas at shops to force business owners to close them.

As food stocks ran out, the situation in Gaza escalated in June and July, with the World Health Organization warning of mass starvation and images of emaciated children shocking the world.

The Gaza Health Ministry says 154 people, including 89 children, have died of malnutrition, most in recent weeks. A global hunger monitor said on Tuesday that a famine scenario is unfolding.

“Children with underlying conditions are more vulnerable. They get affected earlier,” said Marko Kerac, clinical associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who helped draw up the WHO’s treatment guidelines for severe acute malnutrition.

The youngest babies in particular need special therapeutic formulas made with clean water, and supplies are running low.

“All the key supplies for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition, including medical complications, are really running out,” said Marina Adrianopoli, WHO nutrition lead for the Gaza response. “It’s really a critical situation.”

The Palestinian Health Ministry has called on citizens in Gaza to protect a convoy of six medical trucks that will enter the enclave on Thursday as looting escalates during mass starvation.

In a statement, the ministry said six trucks carrying medical supplies and equipment are scheduled to enter Gaza Strip hospitals through the World Health Organization.

“The items expected to arrive are of great importance and urgent need to continue providing medical care to the wounded and sick and save lives,” it said.

“The Ministry of Health calls on honourable citizens, all dignitaries, families, and relevant parties to make every effort to protect the convoy, to prevent any interference with the trucks, and to enable their safe arrival to hospitals to save the lives of patients and the wounded.”

Steve Sosebee, executive director and co-founder at HEAL Palestine, says there are “tens of thousands” of wounded children in Gaza who need to be evacuated for medical care.

“[That’s] not counting those kids who have common injuries, common diseases, afflictions or medical conditions which normally could be treated within the Gaza health system but now have to go outside because the health system has been destroyed,” Sosebee told Al Jazeera.

With 37 people, including 11 Palestinian children and their mothers on their way to the US after being evacuated by HEAL Palestine, Sosebee said that the logistical process is “pretty huge”.

Yet while the organisation identifies children and works with families to submit their medical records abroad and sort out clearances with the Israeli and Jordanian officials, children are still caught in a mass starvation crisis.

“There is a point of no return for malnutrition. For children who have been suffering from malnutrition, they reach some point where they suffer irreversible damage to their immune system,” Sosebee warned.

Hamas has highlighted the situation of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails who it said experience “torture and abuse” by Israeli authorities.

In a statement, the group accused Israel of using “medical negligence as a means of slowly killing prisoners”.

“The inhumane conditions our brave prisoners are facing constitute clear violations of all international conventions and laws. The countries of the world, both officially and popularly, must raise their voices against the occupation and deter it from its crimes and terrorism,” Hamas said.

The group called on Palestinians in the occupied territories to support those held in Israeli prisons.

According to the Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, the number of detainees in Israeli prisons now exceeds 10,800.

Among the prisoners are 48 women, more than 440 children, and about 2,450 people classified as “illegal combatants”, it said.

The Israeli army says an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) launched from Yemen has been intercepted. In a post on Telegram, the army said air raid sirens were sounded.

Yemen’s Houthis say their attacks on Israel are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza who are under Israeli attack.

The group has fired hundreds of missiles at Israel and launched more than 100 attacks on commercial vessels in the vital Red Sea corridor since Israel’s war on Gaza began in 2023.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and US special envoy Steve Witkoff have discussed intensifying pressure to reach a ceasefire deal in Gaza in a phone call as talks stall.

According to US officials speaking anonymously to news agencies, Witkoff will visit Israel on Thursday to “discuss next steps” on Gaza.

Witkoff has said a deal would initially see the release of 10 living Israeli captives and the bodies of others for Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas has repeatedly said a permanent troop withdrawal and end to the war must be part of any agreement – something Israel has refused to agree to.

The United Arab Emirates has begun construction on a major pipeline to carry desalinated water from Egypt to southern Gaza, a news report says.

Technical teams sent by the UAE have started transporting equipment needed for the project, the Emirati state news agency WAM reported.

Earlier this week, COGAT – the Israeli defence ministry body overseeing the occupied Palestinian territory – said construction of the pipeline would begin in the coming days and is expected to take weeks.

The project would link a desalination plant in Egypt to the al-Mawasi area along Gaza’s coast and could supply about 600,000 people daily, COGAT said.

Access to clean drinking water is extremely limited across Gaza, forcing its 2.3 million residents to rely on salty, often undrinkable water.

More than 80 percent of Gaza’s water infrastructure has been damaged during Israel’s war on Gaza.

After Israeli supply cuts, most people rely on polluted wells or sporadic NGO water deliveries, hindered by limited aid access.

“The water crisis in Gaza continues to deteriorate rapidly amid a severe fuel shortage, extensive infrastructure damage, and inaccessible water sources,” said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Israeli news outlet Channel 13 reports the government will present Hamas with an ultimatum: agree to its ceasefire terms or Israel will begin annexing Gaza.

Citing unnamed officials, it said the perimeter that Israel is pushing to be annexed is an area adjacent to the fence and could reach up to a “kilometre into the Strip”.

The threat comes after Israeli media reported Israel submitted a document to truce mediators – including the US, Qatar and Egypt – in response to Hamas’s response to a ceasefire proposal last week.

According to Channel 12, Israel told the mediators it’s prepared to significantly withdraw forces from Gaza during a 60-day ceasefire, but not end the war.

A humanitarian organisation says the UK government’s proposal to tie recognition of a Palestinian state to negotiations aimed at easing Israel’s assault on Gaza is “unacceptable and dangerous”.

“This approach risks legitimising the ongoing genocide and delaying meaningful action while lives are lost,” Action For Humanity said in a statement.

“Recognition of Palestinian statehood is welcome, but only as an immediate, unconditional act in line with international law, not as a bargaining chip in the midst of mass atrocity.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Tuesday his country will recognise the state of Palestine by September unless Israel takes “substantive steps” to end its war on Gaza.

Action For Humanity said a survey in June showed more than half of Britons oppose Israel’s war on Gaza with 45 percent “recognising it as genocide”.