40,000 Gaza babies malnourished, as Israel blocks aid on technicalities – War on Gaza Day 678

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40,000 Gaza babies malnourished, as Israel blocks aid on technicalities – War on Gaza Day 678
Aid trucks loaded with humanitarian supplies remain stranded at the Rafah Border Crossing on the Egyptian side due to Israeli attacks and closed border crossings, on August 6, 2025. (Mohamed Elshahed – Anadolu Agency)

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

Israeli forces killed at least 32 Palestinians in Gaza on Thursday, including at least 13 aid seekers. In total, Israel has killed at least 1,898 aid seekers since May 27, 2025 (learn about aid seekers here).

The total known number of Palestinians who have died from malnutrition stands at 240, including 107 children.

For detail on Israeli attacks in Gaza on Thursday, go here.

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Mahmoud Bassal, spokesperson for Gaza Civil Defense, urges action as Israel destroys Gaza City:

GAZA NEWS:

(For some basic info on the Palestine-Israel conflict, go here. For a bit more critical context, skim this, this, and this.To read about a remarkable but underreported, 20-month-long peaceful protest in Gaza against Israel, go here.)

Gaza Resistance warns of Israeli drones dropping spy devices, explosives

Resistance Security forces in the Gaza Strip on Thursday warned residents about an increase in activity by Israeli Quadcopter drones in recent days. These drones have dropped surveillance devices and explosive objects across various parts of the Strip.

The security statement noted that several of these items were found on the rooftops of homes and near tents sheltering displaced people.

It stressed the need to take the utmost caution, especially public and abandoned buildings, and advised people not to approach or tamper with any suspicious object, and to report any such items immediately to the relevant authorities.

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40,000 BABIES IN GAZA ARE SUFFERING FROM MALNUTRITION: Dr Munir al-Bursh, director of Gaza’s Health Ministry, said Israel is starving to death “all sorts of people”, including children and women. He warned that 40,000 children under one were suffering from malnutrition, 250,000 children under five face life-threatening food shortages, and 1.2 million children under 18 are living in severe food insecurity.

100+ ORGS PROTEST ISRAEL’S RESTRICTIVE “AID” SCHEME: More than 100 nonprofit groups warned Thursday that Israel’s rules for aid groups working in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank will block much-needed relief and replace independent organizations with those that serve Israel’s political and military agenda. The nonprofit groups, including Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, and CARE, were responding to registration rules announced by Israel in March that require organizations to hand over full lists of their donors and Palestinian staff for vetting.

UNRWA CHIEF SAYS WAREHOUSES IN EGYPT, JORDAN CAN FILL 6,000 AID TRUCKS: Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), says the organization has been banned from delivering aid to Gaza for more than five months. He said UNRWA warehouses in Egypt and Jordan are “full with food, medicine and hygiene supplies”, enough to fill 6,000 trucks. Gaza’s civil defense says 1,000 aid trucks needed daily.

As Palestinian girls and women struggle to find the most basic items—soap, sanitary pads, diapers, thousands of hygiene kits are packed and ready in UNRWA warehouses in Jordan and Egypt, just waiting for the green light.
As Palestinian girls and women struggle to find the most basic items—soap, sanitary pads, diapers, thousands of hygiene kits are packed and ready in UNRWA warehouses in Jordan and Egypt, just waiting for the green light. (social media)

ISRAELI ATTACKS DESTROY HOSPITAL SEPTIC SYSTEM, FLOODING IT WITH SEWAGE: Severe damage to the sewage lines, resulting from ongoing Israeli attacks, has reportedly caused waste to flood directly into Nasser hospital and its surrounding complex in Khan Younis. The hospital’s administrative director said that the Israeli army is preventing technical crews from reaching these lines for repair, exacerbating the crisis and negatively affecting the health services provided to patients.

38 MEDICAL EVACUATIONS FACILITATED, 14,800 TO GO: The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday announced that it had facilitated the medical evacuation of 38 critically ill patients from the Gaza Strip. However, WHO Director-General Tedros warned that more than 14,800 patients in Gaza still require urgent medical treatment that is unavailable in the enclave due to the ongoing conflict and collapse of health services. “Peace is the best medicine,” he added. Over 600 patients in Gaza have reportedly died while awaiting approval to travel abroad for urgent medical care.

GAZA SEES SHARP RISE IN SKIN DISEASES AMID SEVERE HEAT WAVE: Gaza is experiencing a widespread increase in skin diseases due to a severe heat wave, Al-Shifa Hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya said Thursday. Abu Salmiya highlighted that soaring temperatures combined with a severe shortage of drinking water are putting residents of all ages at increased health risk across the Gaza Strip, local media reported. Temperatures in Gaza have been around 104°F). With very limited water available, dehydration is increasing.

Umm Muhammad al-Masri, a Palestinian refugee and mother of five living in a shelter, shows her 10-month-old baby, Ramadan, who suffers a bacterial skin infection, in Gaza on August 12, 2025.
Umm Muhammad al-Masri, a Palestinian refugee and mother of five living in a shelter, shows her 10-month-old baby, Ramadan, who suffers a bacterial skin infection, in Gaza on August 12, 2025. (Abed Rahim Khatib – Anadolu Agency)

ISRAEL TRIED TO BRIBE ANAS AL-SHARIF INTO SILENCE: The brother of martyred journalist Anas Al-Sharif revealed in an interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher that four days before his assassination, Anas was offered a “tempting” deal, one he firmly rejected. The offer was to stop his coverage from Gaza in exchange for leaving Gaza. Anas refused outright, choosing instead to continue reporting the truth until his final breath, a decision that ultimately cost him his life at the hands of the Israeli Occupation Forces who have killed hundreds of journalists in Gaza for the same reason. 

OCCUPIED WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM HEADLINES:

(For background on the West Bank, read this and this. For information on the significance of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, read this and this.) 

Israeli Army Abducts Eight Palestinians in Bethlehem and Qalqilia

Israeli Army Abducts Youth, Ignites Fire Near Hospital in Nablus

Israeli Army Abducts Three Palestinians Amid Colonizer Attack in Hebron

Israeli Colonizers Reestablish Outpost Near Ramallah

Jerusalemite Forced to Demolish Large Section of His Home in Silwan

An Israeli army excavator demolishes a residential building in the Tulkarem camp for Palestinian refugees during an ongoing Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025.
An Israeli army excavator demolishes a residential building in the Tulkarem camp for Palestinian refugees during an ongoing Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency)

ISRAEL NEWS & HEADLINES:

(Get a glimpse inside Israel and the turmoil within its government. Most of the below news items and headlines are taken from Israeli media.)

Israel moves forward with new settlement* plan, which ‘ends hope of Palestinian state’

Israel will proceed with plans to build thousands of illegal new housing units in the occupied West Bank, with extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich saying the new settlement quashes any hope of a Palestinian state.

Smotrich – a West Bank settler himself – said the project would see the construction of 3,401 new houses in the E1 area of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement near Jerusalem, linking Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem and effectively severing the connection between the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem.

The extremist minister noted that this project “eliminates the idea of a Palestinian state” and is part of the “de facto sovereignty plan” being implemented by the Israeli government.

*NOTE: Israel has illegally built around 280 settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are home to more than 700,000 illegal settlers. Some settler groups have a history of violence against Palestinians, often with the assistance of Israeli military forces.

In a landmark advisory opinion on July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

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‘Provocative, delusional’: Arab states slam Netanyahu’s comments on ‘Greater Israel’

Arab states have condemned recent comments made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressing support for the idea of an expanded, “Greater Israel.”

Jordan said in a statement that Netanyahu’s remarks were a “dangerous and provocative escalation” and “a threat to the sovereignty of states,” while a Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesman called Netanyahu’s comments “delusional” and “inflammatory.”

Iraq called Netanyahu’s comments “a clear provocation to the sovereignty of countries” and proof of Israel’s “expansionist ambitions,” while Qatar called them “absurd” and “inflammatory” (continue reading here).

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Ben Gvir storms into Marwan Barghouti’s prison cell, threatens to kill him

Hebrew-language Channel 7 revealed on Thursday evening that the Israeli far-right Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the leader of the Fatah movement, prisoner Marwan Barghouti, inside his prison cell in Ganot, and made direct death threats to him, saying: “Whoever kills our children or women, we will erase him.” You will not defeat us.”

The incident provoked angry Palestinian reactions. The Palestinian Prisoners’ Information Office said the incident “reveals the mentality of revenge and incitement that drives the Israeli prison system.”

Palestinian Deputy President Hussein Al-Sheikh described the episode as “the height of psychological, moral and physical terrorism practised against prisoners…and a violation of international and humanitarian conventions.”

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MORE ISRAEL HEADLINES (a quick skim of headlines can be very informative!):

OTHER HEADLINES:

Germany’s partial arms freeze to Israel garners 83% public approval

Kuwait decision to ban entry of Israelis receives wide public praise

Greek Protesters block military Cargo bound for Israel

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NOTABLE QUOTE: “Sadness and grief are for natural disasters”

Caitlin Johnstone, journalist/essayist, comments on celebrities finally reacting to the situation in Gaza.

Gaza doesn’t need our sadness, it needs out anger. It needs our rage. That’s the only appropriate response to a live-streamed genocide supported by your own government.

Sadness and grief are for natural disasters. Cancer diagnoses. Terrible accidents. This is not something that has passively happened to the people of Gaza, it’s something that’s been done to them by other people, and the people who are doing it have names and faces. It’s not a tragedy, it’s a crime. A crime that is still currently being perpetrated and urgently needs to be stopped, by any means necessary.

The correct response is rage. Rage toward the people who are responsible for this mass atrocity. The officials of the Israeli government and all their western allies. Their apologists and propagandists in the mainstream press. The war profiteers who are benefiting from an active genocide. Individual members of the IDF. The hasbarists who swarm social media and pollute our information ecosystem with manipulation and lies.

Celebrities and influencers who urge us to weep for Gaza are pushing us into passivity and defeatism by urging us to treat this like an unavoidable tragedy that has already happened instead of an unforgivable atrocity that is still underway. This is power-serving propaganda, and it deserves nothing but scorn.

Starving Palestinians including women and children wait to receive food distributed by a charity organization as Israel continue to block humanitarian aid from reaching the Gaza Strip on August 10, 2025.
Starving Palestinians including women and children wait to receive food distributed by a charity organization as Israel continue to block humanitarian aid from reaching the Gaza Strip on August 10, 2025. (Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency)

ICYMI (IN CASE YOU MISSED IT) – A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:

‘Millions of dollars’ of Gaza aid stranded in warehouses as Israel rejects NGO requests for entry

Israeli assault on Gaza City’s destroys 300 homes, kills entire families

Armed Israeli Colonizers Kill a Palestinian Near Nablus

New U.S. Report on Israel’s Human Rights Abuses Is 91 Percent Shorter

People gather to hold a solidarity demonstration at the entrance of their village to protest Israeli attacks and blockade-induced starvation in Gaza on August 08, 2025 in East Jerusalem.
People gather to hold a solidarity demonstration at the entrance of their village to protest Israeli attacks and blockade-induced starvation in Gaza on August 08, 2025 in East Jerusalem. (Saeed Qaq – Anadolu Agency)

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – AUGUST 14, 2025*:

  • At least 62,858 Palestinians killed, 164,505 injured – including:
  • at least 61,827 killed in Gaza (~18,500 children) 
  • at least 1,031 killed in the West Bank (~210 children)
  • at least 155,275 injured in Gaza
  • at least 9,230 injured in the West Bank
  • at least 240 have died from malnutrition in Gaza, including 107 children

According to Palestinian authorities, during the ceasefire Jan. 19 – March 18 2025, Israeli attacks killed at least 170 Gazans, and Israel committed at least 962 ceasefire violations.

At least 1,898 Palestinians have been killed while trying to access aid parcels from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which started operating on May 26, 2025.

Since the Israeli army resumed its assaults on Gaza on March 18, 2025 it has killed at least 10,300 people. 50 Israeli soldiers (most recent July 26) have been killed during the same time period.

*NOTE: Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 14,000 more are still buried under rubble. Additionally, the numbers of injured and starved are very conservative estimates.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – August 14, 2025: ~1,629 – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 454 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel. (72 soldiers have reportedly died due to “operational incidents.”)

By one count, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 234 Palestinian journalists and media workers; Palestinians have killed 4 Israeli journalists (other groups have tallied between 192 and 304 Palestinian journalists killed – depending on the criteria used).

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

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