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'People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses,' says Unrwa
The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has said his workers are fainting at work from hunger.
Philippe Lazzarini wrote on ‘X’: “‘People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses’: a colleague in #Gaza told me this morning.
“This deepening crisis is affecting everyone, including those trying to save lives in the war-torn enclave. Unrwa frontline health workers, are surviving on one small meal a day, often just lentils, if at all.
“They are increasingly fainting from hunger while at work. When caretakers cannot find enough to eat, the entire humanitarian system is collapsing.”
“People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”: a colleague in #Gaza told me this morning.
Meanwhile, according to @UNRWA latest findings: one in every five children is malnourished in Gaza City as cases increase every day.
When child malnutrition…
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There have been 45 starvation deaths in four days this week and two deaths today so far, according to deaths reported by hospitals in Gaza.
By comparison, only 68 deaths are attributed to all other days since 7 October 2023, new stats from the Ministry of Health in Gaza show.
More than 40 of the 113 recorded starvation deaths in Gaza occurred over a four-day period this week.
A meeting between Syrian foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani and Israeli strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer is expected to take place in Paris on Thursday, a senior diplomat told AFP.
“There will be a Syrian-Israeli security meeting in Paris today, and Tom Barrack will facilitate it,” the diplomat said, referring to the US special envoy for Syria.
The diplomat added that Shaibani and Dermer, ministers from the two countries technically at war, will meet.
Several dozen French passengers were removed from a flight leaving the Spanish city of Valencia for Paris for what Spanish police and the airline on Thursday described as unruly behavior.
The carrier, Vueling, denied reports that Wednesday’s incident, which involved the removal of 44 minors and eight adults from flight V8166, was related to the passengers’ religion.
Some Israeli news outlets reported that the students are Jewish and that their removal was religiously motivated, a claim that was repeated by an Israeli minister online.
Spain’s Civil Guard said the minors and four adults are French nationals. A Civil Guard spokesperson said the agents involved were not aware of the group’s religious affiliation.
'People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses,' says Unrwa
The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has said his workers are fainting at work from hunger.
Philippe Lazzarini wrote on ‘X’: “‘People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses’: a colleague in #Gaza told me this morning.
“This deepening crisis is affecting everyone, including those trying to save lives in the war-torn enclave. Unrwa frontline health workers, are surviving on one small meal a day, often just lentils, if at all.
“They are increasingly fainting from hunger while at work. When caretakers cannot find enough to eat, the entire humanitarian system is collapsing.”
“People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”: a colleague in #Gaza told me this morning.
Meanwhile, according to @UNRWA latest findings: one in every five children is malnourished in Gaza City as cases increase every day.
When child malnutrition…
The Israeli military said eight soldiers were wounded on Thursday when a driver deliberately rammed his car into a bus stop in what police called a “terror attack”.
The army said two soldiers were “moderately injured” and six “lightly injured” in the attack at the Beit Lid junction near Kfar Yona in central Israel.
“The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment and their families have been notified,” it said in a statement.
EU says all options on table if Israel does not deliver on improving Gaza aid
Israel has made some efforts towards improving the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population in Gaza, but the situation remains dire, an European Commission spokesperson said on Thursday.
He added that the EU is assessing the situation and that all options remain on the table if Israel does not deliver on an agreement made with the EU earlier this month about improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
This agreement includes the substantial increase of daily trucks for food and non- food items to enter Gaza, the opening of several other crossing points in both the northern and southern areas, and the reopening of the Jordanian and Egyptian aid routes.
Israeli police investigate 'terror attack' after car rammed into bus stop
Israeli police said they were hunting a man who deliberately rammed his car into a bus stop on Thursday, wounding eight people in what they called a “terror attack”.
One witness said the driver cut her off the road near the central town of Kfar Yona, then “turned his wheel to the right, full gas, as fast as he could, and hit as many people as he could”.
Kineret Hanuka, 45, told AFP: “I saw only blood and heard them screaming: ‘It hurts!’ … It was so hard for me to see this.”
An Israeli police officer works at the bus station where a suspected ramming attack took place, near Kfar Yona, Israel 24 July 2025. Photograph: Nir Elias/Reuters
Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) first responders said they received a report at 9:25 am (0625 GMT) that a vehicle crashed into a bus stop near Kfar Yona.
A man and woman in their 20s were taken to hospital and said to be in a “moderate condition, with injuries to the chest and limbs”, the MDA said.
Three others were in a “mild-moderate condition, with injuries to the head and limbs”, it added. Three people were described as having “mild” injuries.
Palestinian health officials said Thursday that two Palestinian teenage boys were killed by Israeli fire on Wednesday night in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel’s military said its forces had fired at Palestinians throwing molotov cocktails toward a highway, killing two near the West Bank town of Al-Khader.
Palestinian health officials named the teens killed as Ahmed Al-Salah, 15, and Mohammed Khaled Alian Issa, 17.
Violence has spiraled in the occupied West Bank since the war that began with Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attack on Israel. Over 955 Palestinians have been killed there by Israeli fire during that time, according to the United Nations, many during raids Israel says are to stamp out militancy.
The United Nations said Thursday that Taliban authorities were committing human rights violations, including torture and arbitrary detention, against Afghans forced to return by Iran and Pakistan.
Large-scale deportation campaigns launched by Iran and Pakistan have forced millions of Afghans to return to Afghanistan, including more than 1.9 million people so far in 2025, the overwhelming majority from Iran.
“People returning to the country who were at particular risk of reprisals and other human rights violations by the de facto (Taliban) authorities were women and girls, individuals affiliated with the former government and its security forces, media workers and civil society,” the UN said in a statement accompanying the release of the report.
“These violations have included torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary arrest and detention, and threats to personal security.”
Israel's minister of strategic affairs arrives in Paris ahead of talks
Israel’s minister of strategic affairs is in Paris on Thursday ahead of nuclear talks between European powers and Iran on Friday in Istanbul, said four sources, including a source close to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Two of the sources said Ron Dermer would discuss those upcoming talks and Iran’s nuclear programme with officials in the French capital.
Senior diplomats from France and Germany will hold the direct face to face talks with Iran since Israel and the United States struck Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.
Israeli forces on Thursday hit the central Gaza towns of Nuseirat, Deir Al-Balah and Bureij.
Health officials at Al-Awda Hospital said three people were killed in an airstrike on a house in Nuseirat, three more died from tank shelling in Deir Al-Balah, and separate airstrikes in Bureij killed a man and a woman and wounded several others.
Nasser hospital said three people were killed by Israeli gunfire while seeking aid in southern Gaza near the so-called Morag axis between Khan Younis and Rafah. The Israeli military said Palestinian militants had fired a projectile overnight from Khan Younis toward an aid distribution site near Morag. It was not immediately clear whether the incidents were linked.
Israel’s military on Thursday said it had identified a projectile launched towards aid points in southern Gaza a day earlier, as Hamas said it had targeted an “enemy command and control site” in the area.
It came as international criticism mounted over the humanitarian situation for Gaza’s population of more than two million, with Israel denying its responsibility for chronic food shortages and instead blaming Hamas.
“Last night, the (Israeli military) identified a projectile launched from the Khan Yunis area in southern Gaza, toward the area in which the aid distribution sites in Rafah are located,” an army statement read.
It added the projectile fell around 250 metres (820 feet) from an aid site adjacent to the so-called Morag Corridor between the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah.
International news agencies Agence France-Presse (AFP), Associated Press (AP) and Reuters as well as the BBC called on Israel on Thursday to allow journalists in and out of Gaza which is subject to a strict blockade.
“We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families,” the media groups said in a joint statement, adding: “We once again urge the Israeli authorities to allow journalists in and out of Gaza.”
Mohammed’s skeletal arms stick out of a romper with a grinning emoji-face and the slogan “smiley boy”, which in a Gaza hospital reads as a cruel joke. He spends much of the day crying from hunger, or gnawing at his own emaciated fingers.
At seven months old, he weighs barely 4kg (9lbs) and this is the second time he has been admitted for treatment. His face is gaunt, his limbs little more than bones covered in baggy skin and his ribs protrude painfully from his chest.
“My biggest fear now is losing my grandson to malnutrition,” said his grandmother Faiza Abdul Rahman, who herself is constantly dizzy from lack of food. The previous day the only thing she ate was a single piece of pitta bread, which cost 15 shekels (£3).
“His siblings also suffer from severe hunger. On some days, they go to bed without a single bite to eat.”
For months Israel kept food shipments to Gaza far below starvation rations. Now the death toll is rising rapidly. Read our full report here:
Top US Envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to head to Italy Thursday to meet top Israeli negotiator Ron Dermer and discuss the ceasefire deal on the table, according to Israeli and US officials.
The deal under discussion is expected to include a 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting truce.
Hamas earlier Thursday submitted a response to the latest ceasefire proposal which an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, billed as “workable.”
A senior Israeli official was quoted by local media as saying the new text of Hamas’s revised response to a proposed ceasefire and hostage release deal was something Israel could work with.
However, Israel’s Channel 12 said a rapid deal was not within reach, with gaps remaining between the two sides, including over where the Israeli military should withdraw to during any truce.
A Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters the latest Hamas position was “flexible, positive and took into consideration the growing suffering in Gaza and the need to stop the starvation”.
The war between Israel and Hamas has been raging for nearly two years since Hamas killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages from southern Israel in the deadliest single attack in Israel’s history.
Israel has since killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, decimated Hamas as a military force, reduced most of the territory to ruins and forced nearly the entire population to flee their homes multiple times.
Opening sumary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Israel is reviewing a revised response from Hamas to a proposed ceasefire and hostage release deal, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Thursday, as Israeli air and ground strikes continued to pound the Gaza Strip.
Hamas confirmed it had handed over a new proposal, but did not disclose its contents. A previous version, submitted late on Tuesday, was rejected by mediators as insufficient and was not even passed to Israel, sources familiar with the situation said.
There have been two major sticking points in talks: details on an Israeli military withdrawal, and on how to distribute aid during a truce.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet includes far-right parties that oppose any agreement that ends without the total destruction of Hamas.
“The second I spot weakness in the prime minister and if I come to think, heaven forbid, that this is about to end with us surrendering instead of with Hamas’s absolute surrender, I won’t remain (in the government) for even a single day,” finance minister Bezalel Smotrich told Army Radio.
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Gaza is suffering man-made mass starvation caused by the Israeli blockade of aid into the territory, the head of the World Health Organization has said, as more than 100 agencies urged Israel to let supplies in. “I don’t know what you would call it other than mass starvation, and it’s man-made, and that’s very clear,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference from Geneva. “This is because of [the] blockade.”
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Ten more Palestinians died overnight to Wednesday from starvation, the Gaza health ministry said, bringing the total number of people who have starved to death to 111. The World Health Organization said on Wednesday 21 children under the age of five were among those who died of malnutrition so far this year.
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A family of seven - freelance journalist Wala al-Jaabari, her husband and their five children - were among more than 100 people killed in 24 hours of Israeli strikes or gunfire, according to health officials on Wednesday. Iman al-Shaer, another relative who lives nearby, said the family hadn’t eaten anything before the bombs came down. “The children slept without food,” he said. The World Health Organization said on Wednesday 21 children under the age of five were among those who died of malnutrition so far this year.
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Brazil is finalising its submission to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel’s actions in Gaza at the International Court of Justice, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. South Africa filed a case in 2023 asking the ICJ to declare that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention. In its statement, the Brazilian government accused Israel of violations of international law “such as the annexation of territories by force,” and it expressed “deep indignation” at violence suffered by the civilian population.
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Dozens of former UK ambassadors and diplomats have piled pressure on Keir Starmer to recognise a Palestinian state amid growing international revulsion at the harrowing scenes in Gaza in a letter signed by more than 30 former UK ambassadors and 20 former senior British diplomats at the United Nations. “The risks of inaction have profound, historic and catastrophic implications,” it said. The state of Israel “cannot be secure from threats in the future if the question of Palestine is not taken forward to a political settlement”.
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The archbishop of York condemned the dehumanisation of people in Gaza as “depraved” and “barbaric”. It was “a stain on the conscience of the international community”, and Israel’s “war of aggression” was a “grave sin”, said Stephen Cottrell, the de facto leader of the Church of England.
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Israel’s president Isaac Herzog visited the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and told soldiers that there were “intensive negotiations” about returning the hostages in Gaza, adding that he hopes that they will soon “hear good news”, a statement from the president’s spokesperson reported.
