Desperate Israel kills its own in Gaza “Hannibal Directive” – War on Gaza Day 694

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

Israeli forces killed at least 85 Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday, including at least 30 aid seekers. In total, Israel has killed at least 2,248 aid seekers since May 27, 2025 (learn about aid seekers here).

Among the dead are at least 12 Palestinians who were killed while queueing for bread from ovens serving communities of displaced people.

The total known number of Palestinians who have died from malnutrition stands at 339, including 124 children.

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

GAZA NEWS:

(For some basic info on the Palestine-Israel conflict, go here. For 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.)

A delegation from the US Senate, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Senators Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, on Saturday visited the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, 

An Egyptian spokesman told the delegation that “more than 5,000 trucks loaded with food and relief supplies are waiting in logistical centers, with goods rotting due to Israeli restrictions.”

He stressed that the Egyptian side of Rafah “has never been closed,” saying authorities are “fully prepared to let the aid in once Israeli obstacles are removed.”

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Israeli media reported that 4 soldiers were missing, and others were killed and wounded in Gaza, as part of a large ambush to capture Israeli soldiers carried out by the Qassam Brigades in the Zeitoun neighborhood east of Gaza City.

Reports also indicated that the Israeli army activated the Hannibal Protocol, an emergency military measure used in such situations to prevent its soldiers from being captured.

NOTE: Journalists – including those in Israel – have reported widely on Israel’s use of the Hannibal Directive on October 7th. Western media have for the most part ignored this policy, in which Israeli soldiers kill their own, rather than allow them to be captured. Read more about it:

Israel is still killing Israeli hostages with the Hannibal directive – but now in Gaza itself

How Israel killed hundreds of its own people on October 7

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.) 

‘Nakba All Over Again’: West Bank Palestinians Still Displaced More Than 6 Months After Israel Forced Them to Flee

In January, the Israeli military began a new and devastating military campaign in the West Bank, which it labeled “Operation Iron Wall.” At first, working with the Palestinian Authority and, then, on its own, the Israeli military invaded village after village in the occupied West Bank, killed dozens, instituted lockdowns, and launched an airstrike on Jenin Camp.

Israel’s stated goal of the operation is to root out elements of armed Palestinian resistance from the West Bank, but what has resulted is the largest mass displacement of Palestinians outside of Gaza since the Naksa during the 1967 Six-Day War – more than 40,000 have been forced from their homes in the West Bank this year. And like in Gaza, there appears to be no prospect that those displaced will ever be allowed to return to their homes.

It’s “the Nakba all over again,” one Jenin resident told me (continue reading here).

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New Israeli settlement established in occupied West Bank: Report

Escalating Colonial Violations, Systematic Attacks In West Bank

Israeli Soldiers Injure A Palestinian In Nablus

Army Abducts A Palestinian Woman Near Ramallah

Invasions, Abductions And Violations Across West Bank

ISRAEL NEWS & HEADLINES:

(Get a glimpse inside Israel and the turmoil within its government. Often, our news items and headlines are taken from Israeli media.)

ISRAELI JUDICIARY HELPED CONCEAL FATE OF GAZA DETAINEES: RIGHTS GROUP: The Palestinian Prisoner Society accused Israel’s judiciary on Saturday of legitimizing the enforced disappearance of thousands of detainees from Gaza since the war began nearly two years ago. The practice has included women and children, and has provided cover for systematic torture, leading to the deaths of dozens of prisoners.

ISRAELI MILITARY ID’S REMAINS OF 2ND RECOVERED HOSTAGE: The IDF and Shin Bet security service recovered the body of Idan Shtivi, who was murdered on October 7 and abducted to the Gaza Strip, on Thursday. His body, retrieved in the same operation in which the body of hostage Ilan Weiss was recovered to Israel, was identified at the Institute of Forensic Medicine.

NOTE: As traumatizing as October 7th was for Israelis, it can not be stressed enough that “many, if not most of the civilians killed that day were killed by the overwhelming firepower the Israeli military deployed” using the Hannibal Directive.

Jerusalem man arrested for painting ‘There is a Holocaust in Gaza’ graffiti at Jerusalem Light Rail

Israel’s President Herzog May Pardon Jewish Terrorist to Ease Right-wing Opposition to Hostage Deal

OTHER NEWS:

The United States is once again demonstrating that it is unfit to serve as host of the United Nations Headquarters. Reports that Washington may deny a visa to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for an upcoming UN encounter evoke bitter memories of 1988, when Yasser Arafat was prevented from entering New York to address the General Assembly.

Then, the world body did the dignified thing: it simply shifted the session to Geneva, where Arafat spoke to overwhelming support. The message was clear—no single host state, however powerful, has the right to police the doors of an international institution meant to belong to all of humanity.

The principle has not changed since 1988. What has changed is that U.S. arrogance has only grown, even as its global legitimacy erodes. The UN Headquarters Agreement, signed in 1947, obligates the host country to grant visas to representatives of all member states “irrespective of the relations existing between the governments.”

Any denial of Abbas’s entry would not only be a breach of that agreement, but an open act of sabotage against multilateralism itself. Washington knows this. Yet it persists, because power—not law—remains its compass (continue reading here).

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U.S. control, cash for Palestinians to ‘relocate’*: Trump plan for ‘Gaza Riviera’ leaked

 

 

 

 

 

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Rights lawyers file suit in Argentina demanding Netanyahu’s arrest

TAKE ACTION FOR GAZA

Time to end the slaughter in Gaza – New resources!

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

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – AUGUST 30, 2025*:

• At least 64,491 Palestinians killed, 169,486 injured – including:
• at least 63,459 killed in Gaza (~18,500 children) 
• at least 1,032 killed in the West Bank (~210 children)
• at least 160,256 injured in Gaza
• at least 9,230 injured in the West Bank
• at least 339 have died from malnutrition in Gaza, including 124 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 2,248 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 11,328 people. 52 Israeli soldiers (most recent Aug. 29) 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 30, 2025: ~1,629 – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 456 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 240 Palestinian journalists and media workers; Palestinians have killed 4 Israeli journalists (other groups have tallied between 197 and 313 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.

• Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
• Palestinian Liberation From Israeli Colonization Will Liberate the United States, Too
• U.S. Support for Israel Comes at a Staggering, Multifaceted Price
• The CIA, Mossad, and Epstein: Unraveling the Intelligence Ties of the Maxwell Family
• ‘Starvation Is Everywhere’: Virtual Tours of Gaza Clinics Expose the Scale of the Horror
• The Palestine Chronicle Case: When Truth Becomes the Crime
• More US lawmakers publicly blame Israel for starvation, deaths in Gaza
• Even Former AIPAC Democrats Are Signing On to Block Arms Sales to Israel
• Bootstraps or Bailouts? The Hidden Truth of Israel’s Military Power
• The ‘General of Bloodshed’ in the West Bank Is Israel’s Moral Face
• Why Tony Blair and Jared Kushner were at the White House to discuss Gaza
• Palestine urges global churches to stop Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza
• Save The Children CEO Warns UN: Indecision On Gaza Is Complicity As Children Are Being Starved To Death
• Time to end the slaughter in Gaza – New resources!
• ‘I lost my family, my home, my sight’: Israel blinds thousands in Gaza
• In defiance of voter base, DNC rejects resolution calling for Israel arms embargo
• The New “Free Press” Editorial Defending its Famine Denial Includes Fundamental Errors
• How western media helped turn Israel’s genocide into ‘fake news’
• Gaza: US Forces Can Be Liable for Assisting Israeli War Crimes
• US groups demand release of American-Palestinian teen imprisoned by Israel