More than 100 charity and human rights groups say ’s blockade and ongoing military offensive are pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip toward starvation. Israeli strikes meanwhile killed another 21 people overnight and into Wednesday, according to local health officials.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the groups' criticism and accused them of “echoing Hamas’ propaganda.”
The Trump administration’s Mideast envoy was set to meet with a senior Israeli official about ceasefire talks, a sign that lower-level negotiations that have dragged on for weeks could be approaching a breakthrough.
’s , launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says that more than half of the dead are women and children.
Here is the latest:
European diplomats say EU deal with Israel over Gaza aid is falling short
Israel is far behind on its commitments under the , frustrating many within the 27-nation bloc, three European diplomats said Wednesday. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive material.
Only 132 aid trucks and 80-120,000 liters of fuel have gotten into Gaza in the week since the deal was reached, two of the diplomats said.
Member states are urging the EU to pressure Israel to allow more aid. An internal EU report seen by The Associated Press highlighted concerns that “there is still no tangible increase, with important stocks of relief items stuck and piling up at the borders.”
Details of agreement remain murky, .
— By Sam McNeil in Jerusalem
Palestinian Authority says a teen is killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank
The Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry says a 14-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces near Jenin in the northern West Bank.
Ibrahim Hamran is the second teen to have been killed by Israeli forces in as many days. The ministry said Ibrahim Nasser, 16, was killed near Jenin on Tuesday.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Violence has surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank during the war in Gaza.
White House says Mideast envoy is headed to Europe
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that Witkoff would meet with key leaders from the Middle East to discuss the ceasefire proposal and release of hostages.
“We want this ceasefire to happen as soon as possible and we want these hostages to be released,” Leavitt said.
UN says the agency helping Palestinian refugees known UNRWA will soon run out of money
Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari told the U.N. Security Council that current forecasts show insufficient funds to sustain operations beyond 2025.
UNRWA was established in 1949 to aid Palestinians displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
The agency provides health and education services to around 2.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem, and helps 3 million more in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric urges donors to contribute, emphasizing the agency’s critical role.
UN defends humanitarian agency’s 'professionalism and impartial work’ in Gaza
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric says ’s actions against the Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs will only hinder efforts to held Palestinians facing hunger and displacement.
Earlier, ’s U.N. ambassador accused OCHA of bias and claimed some staff are linked to Hamas. He also demanded a retraction of the agency head's statement allegedly accusing Israel of genocide.
Dujarric clarified that U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher never made such a statement, and said the U.N. would investigate any evidence Israel provides regarding alleged Hamas affiliations among U.N. staff.
Israeli strike in central Gaza kills at least 8 and wounds 57
Awda Hospital, which received the casualties, said the strike hit a densely populated part of the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp.
Greta Thunberg accuses Israel of genocide and starving Palestinians in Gaza
The climate campaigner spoke Wednesday at a small rally in the main square of Albania’s capital, Tirana.
“If watching children at being systematically starved, over two million people being systematically starved by Israel, is not enough to motivate you to get out of the couch, then what is it going to take?” Thunberg said.
She said the international community is complicit due to its silence regarding ’s wartime conduct, and called for continuing worldwide protests “for a free Palestine."
The Israeli military detained Thunberg and 11 other activists last month on board Gaza-bound aid ship that aimed to break ’s blockade.
Muslim authority removes post accusing Israel of genocide Gaza
Egypt’s Al-Azhar, a leading authority in Sunni Islam, has deleted a lengthy online post in which it accused Israel of starving Gaza and committing a ’full-scale genocide.”
It said that it had “courageously” removed the post to avoid jeopardizing ongoing ceasefire negotiations.
Political and religious authorities across the Arab and Muslim world have condemned ’s wartime conduct.
Egypt, a close U.S. ally that made peace with Israel decades ago, has served as a mediator in long-running ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas.
A case has been brought before the International Court of Justice , and rights groups . Israel vehemently rejects the accusation, calling it a “blood libel.”
UN says war in Gaza is ‘catastrophic’ for new mothers and babies
The United Nations agency for reproductive health says new data shows and a rise in maternal deaths in the Gaza Strip.
UNFPA says 17,000 births were recorded in the first half of this year, down 41% from the corresponding period in 2022. It also showed 220 stillbirths, more than 20 times the number recorded three years ago, before the Israel-Hamas war.
It says 33% of babies – around 5,560 – were born prematurely, underweight or required intensive care.
“The scale of suffering for new mothers and their babies in Gaza is beyond comprehension,” said Laila Baker, Regional Director for the Arab States at UNFPA.
The war , with several hospitals having shut down or reduced their operations because of Israeli raids and lack of medical supplies.
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This item has been corrected to show that the figure of 220 refers to stillbirths, not maternal deaths, after UNFPA corrected its statement.
’s parliament backs symbolic motion to annex the West Bank
Knesset lawmakers voted 71-13 in favor of the measure, which calls for “applying Israeli sovereignty to Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley,” the biblical terms for the area.
The motion, advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, is declarative and has no direct legal implications, although it could place the issue of annexation on the agenda of future debates in the parliament.
in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for a future state. Some 3 million Palestinians and over 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank.
Annexation of the West Bank could make it impossible to create a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel, which is seen internationally as the only realistic way to resolve the conflict.
Last year, the Israeli parliament approved a similar symbolic motion declaring opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Israel's ambassador accuses UN humanitarian agency of ‘bias’
Israel has accused the United Nations' humanitarian agency of “bias” and “defamation” in Gaza and announced new actions
’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that hundreds of employees of the Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, are now undergoing security vetting.
He claimed Israel has uncovered “clear evidence of Hamas affiliations within OCHA’s ranks” and said “key employees” will not have their permits renewed, and international staff will have their visas cut to just one month.
Danon accused UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher of abandoning “his sacred responsibility to act without bias” and demanded that he retract his statement “that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.” He said Jonathan Whittall, who heads OCHA in the Palestinian territories, must leave Israel by July 29 because of alleged bias against Israel.
OCHA spokeswoman Eri Kaneko said: “Any reduction of our own staff will stifle our already curtailed efforts to reach civilians across Gaza in urgent need of life-saving humanitarian aid.”
WHO warns Gaza nears starvation as malnutrition spikes
The head of the World Health Organization warned that over 2 million people in Gaza face starvation, citing a “deadly surge” in malnutrition and related diseases.
WHO Director-General said acute malnutrition centers in Gaza are full of patients, but lack adequate supplies. He said that rates of acute malnutrition exceed 10% and that among pregnant and breastfeeding women, more than 20% are malnourished, often severely.
“The hunger crisis is being accelerated by the collapse of aid pipelines,” Tedros said, adding that 95% of households in Gaza face severe water shortages.
Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for Occupied Palestinian Territories, said there were more than 30,000 children under 5 with acute malnutrition in Gaza so far this year, and that there had been 21 deaths. He noted that many of the U.N. health agency’s supplies were destroyed after its main warehouse was destroyed during attacks in Deir al-Balah on Sunday.
Israel says Gaza starvation warnings are ‘propaganda’
’s Foreign Ministry accused the groups of “echoing Hamas’ propaganda.” It said it has allowed around 4,500 aid trucks to enter Gaza since , and that more than 700 are waiting to be picked up and distributed by the United Nations.
That’s an average of around 70 trucks a day, the lowest rate of the war and far below the 500-600 trucks a day the U.N. says are needed, and which entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year.
The U.N. says it has struggled to deliver aid inside Gaza because of Israeli military restrictions, ongoing fighting, and a breakdown of law and order.
In the letter issued Wednesday, 115 human rights and charity groups said they were watching their own colleagues, as well as the Palestinians they serve, “waste away.”
Israeli official to meet US envoy in Rome
An official familiar with ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas said a top adviser to , Ron Dermer, was traveling to Rome to meet U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff on Thursday to discuss the state of the talks.
The official spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive negotiations.
U.S. officials said Witkoff planned to head to Europe this week. The U.S. State Department spokesperson said he was headed to the Middle East in a sign that momentum may be building toward a deal.
— By Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel
Israeli military says Gaza church was struck accidentally
The in Gaza City was struck last week by an Israeli shell, an attack that killed three, wounded 10 and damaged the church’s compound.
The military said an internal inquiry found the church was hit after an “unintentional deviation of munitions.”
The strike drew condemnation from and U.S. President , and prompted statements of regret from Israel.
Holy Family is the only Catholic church in Gaza. Top church leaders from the Holy Land visited the site a day after the incident and said they encountered a Gaza “almost totally destroyed.”
Houthi attacks on Red Sea vessels are war crimes, rights group says
The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen attacked two ships, , on July 6 and 9, killing some of their crew and detaining others, Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
The rebels have been launching missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in the region in what the group’s leadership has described as an effort to end ’s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
HRW, however, said the on the two vessels “violates the laws of war applicable to the armed conflict between the Houthis and Israel.”
“The Houthis have sought to justify unlawful attacks by pointing to Israeli violations against Palestinians,” said Niku Jafarnia, HRW’s Yemen and Bahrain researcher.
Jafarnia called for the rebels to end all attacks on ships that don’t take part in the Israeli-Hamas war and immediately release detained crew members.
Detention of a senior Gaza health official is extended
Dr. Marwan al-Hams, acting director of Gaza’s field hospitals and the Health Ministry’s spokesman, was detained by Israeli soldiers earlier this week in the Palestinian territory.
Alaa al-Sakafi, head of Addameer, a Palestinian rights group, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that lawyers have not been allowed to see al-Hams. His detention in a southern Israel prison was extended until the end of the month, al-Sakafi said.
He said al-Hams suffered from a gunshot wound in his leg, which he sustained during his detention in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Monday.
Israel has not commented on al-Hams’ detention.
Israeli forces ‘deepening’ activity in Gaza City
The Israeli military said in a statement Wednesday that forces were operating in Gaza City, as well as in northern Gaza.
It said without elaborating that in Jabaliya, an area hard-hit in multiple rounds of fighting, an air strike killed “a number of” Hamas militants.
Troops struck roughly 120 targets throughout Gaza over the past day, including militant cells, tunnels and booby-trapped structures, among others, the military said.
Overnight strikes kill at least 21
More than half of those killed were women and children, health authorities said.
One Israeli strike hit a house Tuesday in the northwestern side of Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, according to the Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties.
The dead included six children and two women, according to the Health Ministry's casualty list.
Another strike hit an apartment in the Tal al-Hawa area in northern Gaza, killing at least six people. Among the dead were three children and two women, including one who was pregnant. Eight others were wounded, the ministry said.
A third strike hit a tent in the Naser neighborhood in Gaza City late Tuesday and killed three children, Shifa Hospital said.
The Israeli military said it struck an Islamic Jihad militant in the strike that killed 12, saying the incident was under review because of reports of civilian casualties. It had no immediate comment about the other strikes.
Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the militants operate from populated areas.
Human rights groups and charities demand more Gaza aid
In the letter issued Wednesday, 115 human rights and charity groups warned of a dire situation pushing more people toward starvation. They said they were watching their own colleagues, as well as the Palestinians they serve, “waste away.”
The letter slammed Israel for what it said were restrictions on aid into the war-ravaged territory. It lamented “massacres” at food distribution points, which have seen chaos and violence in recent weeks as desperation has risen.
“The government of ’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death,” the letter said.
The letter called for aid to be scaled up as well as for a ceasefire. `
Israel says that it has allowed the entry of thousands of trucks since May and blames aid groups for not consistently delivering goods.
