Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
August 2 marked 5 months of Israel’s full blockade of the Gaza Strip, and one full week of implementation of so-called “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza. At least 593 Palestinians were confirmed killed across Gaza during the past week, according to health ministry figures and news reports, including 300 seeking aid, and over 1,967 injured. At least 169 are known to have died from starvation since the blockade began.
Israeli forces killed at least 62 Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday, including at least 38 aid seekers. In total, Israel has killed at least 1,487 aid seekers since May 27, 2025 (learn about aid seekers here).
7 Palestinians in Gaza died of starvation Saturday. The total number of Palestinians who have died from malnutrition is 169, including 93 children.
Israeli forces also killed a 17-year-old boy in the West Bank (see below).
Just 36 aid trucks entered the enclave on Saturday, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office – far short of the 600 trucks it said were needed to meet the humanitarian needs of the population. The Israeli government said it allowed five countries to airdrop a limited number of aid packages over the starved enclave
For detail on Israeli attacks in Gaza on Saturday, go here.
GAZA NEWS & HEADLINES:
(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 TEEN SPORTS STAR DIES OF STARVATION: Atef Abu Khater, 17, died on Saturday, a source at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City told Al Jazeera. Abu Khater was reportedly a local sports champion, with no prior health conditions; his weight had dropped from 70kg (154lbs) to just 25kg (55lbs) when he died, his family said – roughly what a nine-year-old child should weigh.
INVESTIGATION FINDS ISRAEL SHOT CHILDREN IN HEAD, CHEST IN MORE THAN HALF OF CASES: The BBC World Service said it compiled evidence on over 160 cases where children were shot by Israeli forces in Gaza, and found that in 95 cases, the child was shot in the head or chest. Most of the victims were under the age of 12, according to the investigation. The cases stretch from the opening weeks of the conflict through to July this year.
(Get familiar with the charges against Israel: genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced transfer, starvation as a weapon of war, use of human shields, indiscriminate shooting at civilians, and more.)
In Gaza, we’ve resorted to drinking salty water just to keep ourselves from fainting
WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM, AND ISRAEL NEWS AND 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 COLONIZERS*, SOLDIERS KILL PALESTINIAN, INJURE EIGHT: Illegal Israeli paramilitary colonizers and occupation forces shot and killed a Palestinian young man, Mo’in Sobhi Mohammad Asfar, and wounded eight others, on Saturday evening, after invading the town of Aqraba, southeast of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank. Asfar was reportedly shot in the chest with live ammunition by a settler.
*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.
Israel closes 88% of cases of alleged war crimes or abuse without charges – report
Unresolved Israeli military investigations into allegations of war crimes or abuses since October 7, 2023 include the killing of at least 112 Palestinians queueing for flour in Gaza City in February 2024, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said, and an airstrike that killed 45 in an inferno at a tented camp in Rafah in May 2024.
The team at AOAV said the statistics suggested Israel was seeking to create a “pattern of impunity” by failing to conclude or find no fault in the vast majority of cases involving “the most severe or public accusations of wrongdoing by their forces” (continue reading here).
‘Year of threats’: Report reveals US-Israeli campaign to sabotage ICC arrest warrants
The US and Israel carried out a nearly year-long campaign to pressure the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prevent and cancel arrest warrants issued against Israeli leaders committing war crimes in Gaza, Le Monde detailed in a report published (in French) on 2 August.
In March 2024, ICC chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced his intention to seek the indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant.
In response, the Israeli prime minister launched a campaign to use “all means” to stop the prosecutor with the help of his allies in London, Washington, and Berlin (continue reading here).
Israel slams Macron’s reference to Palestinian prisoners as ‘hostages’
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has denounced French President Emmanuel Macron for suggesting Palestinian prisoners in Israel were “hostages” and juxtaposing them with Israelis being held captive in Gaza.
In the viral clip of the event, Macron outlines his vision for ending the war in Gaza, saying in English: “First the freeing of the hostages and then a ceasefire.” When a person in the audience asks whether this includes Palestinian hostages, Macron replies, “Yes, all,” then reaffirms: “on both sides,” as the audience applauds.
Sa’ar on X called Macron’s remarks an “Example of the lie and moral distortion of French policy.” In Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza, “there are Israeli civilians who were abducted from their homes. In Israeli prisons, there are Palestinian terrorist murderers*. This abhorrent symmetry — that’s the whole story.”
*NOTE: Of the roughly 10,000 Palestinians in prison, 583 have been sentenced to life imprisonment, many of them for involvement in resistance campaigns decades ago that killed Israelis.
The vast majority of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons are political prisoners; thousands are administrative detainees, being kept behind bars without charge, trial, or access to a lawyer. A growing number are children. Israeli prisons regularly use torture (and have done so for over 50 years). It is not a stretch to call them hostages.
Each year, hundreds of Palestinians (many of them minors) are imprisoned for throwing stones, which can carry a sentence of up to 20 years (for Palestinians, not Israeli Jews).
For every Palestinian Israel freed in the January 2025 ceasefire deal, it apprehended 15 more. The number of political prisoners in its jails has doubled since the war began.
RECOMMENDED: A nation behind bars: Why has Israel imprisoned 10,000 Palestinians?
ISRAEL DETAINS OVER 18,500 WEST BANK PALESTINIANS SINCE OCT 7: Over 18,500 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been detained by Israeli forces since October 2023, according to a report by the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, and the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. The report notes a sharp rise in detentions, including of children and journalists. NOTE: Many thousands more are being held from Gaza.
ISRAELI BULLDOZERS DEMOLISH PALESTINIAN SEED BANK: Israeli bulldozers demolished facilities belonging to the only Palestinian seed bank in the occupied West Bank, officials revealed Saturday. The incident constituted a direct targeting of the Palestinian people’s attempts to regain their food sovereignty, according to a spokesperson for the Union of Agricultural Work Committees. The seed bank contained more than 70 varieties of indigenous local seeds, many of which are no longer found anywhere else in the West Bank.
MORE HEADLINES ON ISRAEL, WEST BANK (a quick skim just of headlines can be very informative!):
Including A Mother, Army Abducts 7 Palestinians In Tubas, Nablus And Qalqilia
Israeli Army Injures 4-yr-old and 2 young women in Jenin
PALESTINIAN STATE NEWS AND HEADLINES:
Momentum for recognition of a Palestinian state has never been greater. Although 147 out of 193 Un member states already recognize Palestine, some of the most powerful have not – including the United States.
Hamas rules out giving up arms unless ‘independent, sovereign’ Palestinian state established
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas stated on Saturday: “[R]esistance and its weapons are a national and legitimate right as long as the occupation continues — a right recognized by international laws and conventions*…[Such rights] cannot be relinquished except with the full attainment of our national rights, foremost being the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
*NOTE: Resistance, including armed resistance, is indeed an internationally recognized right.
Recognizing Palestine Won’t Stop the Genocide in Gaza – Sanctions on Israel Will
International recognition of a Palestinian state rewards Israel, which should be thanking each and every country doing so, since such recognition serves as a misleading alternative to what must actually be done – imposing sanctions.
Recognition is an erroneous substitute to boycotts and punitive measures that should be taken against a country perpetuating genocide. Recognition is hollow lip service that the hesitant and weak European governments are using to show their enraged public that they’re not holding their silence.
There’s talk of a diplomatic “tsunami” in Israel, in the knowledge that it won’t reach Israel’s shores, as long as recognition isn’t accompanied by the imposition of a price tag for genocide (continue reading here).
Palestinian Statehood Is Not a Political Bargaining Chip
OTHER NEWS AND HEADLINES:
MORE JEWISH AMERICAN GROUPS SPEAK OUT OVER GAZA FAMINE: As global outrage intensifies over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a growing number of prominent Jewish American organizations, including some traditional defenders of Israel, are speaking out. Among them are the American Jewish Committee, the Reform movement, and the Rabbinical Assembly. More than 1,200 rabbis have signed a public letter calling on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
MORE HEADLINES:
Sanctions Against Israel Are Long Overdue
ICYMI (IN CASE YOU MISSED IT) – A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:
Gaza youths abducted, imprisoned and tortured for information
Israel’s starvation of Gaza ‘will be felt for generations’, UN right to food rapporteur says
Israel’s international isolation has begun
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – AUGUST 2, 2025:
- At least 61,867 Palestinians killed, 158,818 injured – including:
- at least 60,839 killed in Gaza (~18,500 children)
- at least 1,028 killed in the West Bank (~210 children)
- at least 149,588 injured in Gaza
- at least 9,230 injured in the West Bank
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.
Since the Israeli army resumed its assaults on Gaza on March 18, 2025 it has killed at least 9,350 people. 50 Israeli soldiers (most recent July 26) have been killed during the same time period.
At least 1,487 Palestinians have been killed while trying to access aid parcels from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which started operating on May 26, 2025.
Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 14,000 more are still buried under rubble.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – August 2, 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 229 Palestinian journalists and media workers; Palestinians have killed 4 Israeli journalists (other groups have tallied between 186 and 298 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)
- American Nurse Who Tried to Save “No Other Land” Activist Was Detained & Deported By Israel
- Gaza starvation widens MAGA’s rupture with Israel
- The Information Warfare Consortium Shaping Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s PR Offensive
- As Gaza Starves, Republicans Take Aim at Another Lifeline. Almost No One Noticed
- Google Helped Israel Spread War Propaganda To 45 Million Europeans
- BREAKING: In a First, Majority of Democratic Senators Vote to Stop Arming Israel
- A Cry from the Heart: an Episcopal priest talks about Gaza
- Tucker Carlson on Israel’s Shocking War Crimes and Genocide in Gaza
- The New York Times Repeated Israeli Claims of Hamas Stealing Aid Without Evidence
- Israel Caused the Hunger Crisis in Gaza, No Matter How Much It Tries to Blame the UN
- Fmr. Green Beret Who Worked at Gaza Food Sites Reveals Rampant War Crimes
- Zohran Mamdani’s support for Palestinian rights sealed mayoral primary win, poll shows
- US Consular Officials from US Embassy-Israel Have NOT Visited US Citizens from Gaza Flotilla Who Have Been in Israeli Prison For Four Days
- Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls Gaza Crisis a ‘Genocide’
- Palestinians facing starvation pick food scraps from waste
- Israel has deliberately starved the people of Gaza. It couldn’t have done it without the West’s help
- 22 Months of Complicity: Why The Media Suddenly Changed Its Mind On Gaza
- How much is shoddy, pro-Israel journalism worth? Ask Bari Weiss.
- ‘Worse than Abu Ghraib’: Palestinian lawyer details sexual torture of Gaza prisoners in Israeli jails
