Israel’s Gaza City plan sparks global condemnation with warnings of more destruction and suffering – latest updates Widespread calls for takeover plan to be stopped with UK’s Starmer saying escalation will ‘only bring more bloodshed’ and Germany halting arms exports

 Amy Sedghi (now) and Adam Fulton (earlier)

Fri 8 Aug 2025 06.55 EDT

First published on Thu 7 Aug 2025 22.28 EDT

03.48 EDT

UN says Israel's plan for military takeover of Gaza 'must be immediately halted'

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said on Friday that “the Israeli government’s plan for a complete military takeover of the occupied Gaza Strip must be immediately halted”.

In a statement, Türk said:

It runs contrary to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel must bring its occupation to an end as soon as possible, to the realisation of the agreed two-state solution and to the right of Palestinians to self-determination.

Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney, said the Israeli government’s decision to occupy Gaza City will “create even more human suffering”.

In a post on X, he wrote:

The decision of the Israeli government to seize control of Gaza City is completely and utterly unacceptable. It will create even more human suffering for the Palestinian people and further escalate the conflict.

The international community must stop Israel and secure a ceasefire.

China expressed “serious concerns” on Friday over Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City, urging it to “immediately cease its dangerous actions”.

“Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people and is an inseparable part of Palestinian territory,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in a message.

“The correct way to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to secure the release of hostages is an immediate ceasefire,” they added.

“A complete resolution to the Gaza conflict hinges on a ceasefire; only then can a path to de-escalation be paved and regional security ensured,” the spokesperson said.

Beijing said on Friday it was “willing to work together with the international community to help end the fighting in Gaza as soon as possible”.

 READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/aug/08/israel-gaza-city-take-over-netanyahu-plan-approved-live-updates-latest-news 

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Owen Jones in The Guardian: Israel has deliberately starved the people of Gaza. It couldn’t have done it without the west’s help. The current hand-wringing by Keir Starmer and other western politicians is empty bluster. They knew what was happening all along.

"Israel has perpetrated the biggest slaughter of aid workers in history, killing more than 400 by the spring. It waged a relentless war against Gaza’s main humanitarian agency – Unrwa, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency – and banned it from the occupied territories last October. Its military killed police officers charged with escorting aid and preventing looting. It’s not just the blocking of aid from entering. Israel’s onslaught has left nearly all agricultural land unusable, as well as damaging 80% of cropland. Nearly all livestock and most plant life is dead. Gaza’s port and fishing vehicles have been destroyed, and Palestinians defying Israel’s ban on fishing face slaughter.The massacre of starving Palestinians looking for aid has been a consistent theme..."  Owen Jones

 

Wed 30 Jul 2025 03.00 EDT

Palestinians waiting for food aid from a charity in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, 29 July 2025. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

What have we done? As the UN-backed monitor declares that “the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip”, this should have been the question ricocheting between the walls as Keir Starmer met Donald Trump this week. Israel’s deliberate starvation of Gaza is, after all, a crime confessed to, designed and implemented in plain sight. Starmer has said the UK will recognise Palestinian statehood if Israel doesn’t agree to a ceasefire and a two-state solution, but don’t be beguiled: Palestinian national self-determination is an inalienable right, not a bargaining chip, and it’s the most symbolic action he could take rather than, say, imposing sweeping sanctions and ending all arms sales. The hand-wringing of western politicians and media outlets will not feed Gaza’s emaciated children, any more than it will absolve them of guilt.

Israel’s leaders have said, explicitly, repeatedly, from the very beginning, that they are deliberately starving Gaza’s people. “Man-made famine is not something that I’ve seen in my lifetime,” Martin Griffiths, the UN’s former humanitarian chief, tells me. On 9 October 2023, Israel’s then defence minister, Yoav Gallant, announced “a complete siege on [Gaza]: no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel”, justified on the grounds: “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly”. The next day, the Israeli general charged with humanitarian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank – Ghassan Alian – declared that the “citizens of Gaza” were “human beasts” who would suffer “a total blockade on Gaza, no electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”

The following week, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised “we will not allow humanitarian assistance in the form of food and medicines from our territory to the Gaza Strip”. These statements were not reported at all by many western media outlets – or, if they were, it was in passing and with no explanation given about their objectively illegal intent. It’s as though these statements were being uttered in a parallel universe, because if they were accurately covered with due prominence, then our media would have been forced to cover Israel’s onslaught as a criminal enterprise, rather than a war of self-defence.

Israel’s western allies knew exactly what it was up to.... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/30/israel-starvation-gaza-keir-starmer-west

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Israel’s war on Palestinian political life in Jerusalem- by Daoud Kuttab: If Israel truly seeks peace and coexistence, it must begin by recognizing the rights of Palestinians to exist, organize and thrive. That includes respect for international law, the protection of educational and religious institutions, and allowing Palestinians the freedom to engage in normal political and civil life. The international community, in particular Israel’s allies, must also take note: Silence in the face of these violations is complicity. As Israel continues to claim the mantle of democracy, its actions in East Jerusalem tell another story, one of exclusion, repression and systematic erasure.

 "Israeli authorities are redrawing the city not only physically, but socially and spiritually."

Daoud Kuttab

While the world is focused on global economic issues and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Israel’s recent harsh policies in East Jerusalem mark an alarming new chapter in a long-standing campaign to eliminate any form of organized Palestinian political or civic presence in the city.

Under the pretext of security, Israel has persistently targeted and dismantled institutions that serve as pillars of Palestinian society, be they unions, schools, cultural centers or political offices.

In the latest examples of this, Israeli authorities this week presented orders to shut down six UN-run schools by May 8, and ordered the immediate closure of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions.

This pattern is not new. For years, and especially since the signing in 1993 of the Palestinian-Israeli Declaration of Principles, also referred to as the Oslo Accords, Israel has worked to dismantle Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem. They began with closing the historic Orient House, the Chamber of Commerce, the Arab Higher Council for Tourism, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, and the Palestinian Center for Social Research.

Such actions reveal an apartheid reality. Despite claiming East Jerusalem as part of its “unified capital,” Israel continues to act in ways that starkly contradict its self-declared identity as a democratic state. By criminalizing Palestinian civic engagement and political expression, it exposes the discriminatory foundations and strategy of Jewish supremacy in areas under Israeli civilian, as well as military, control.... READ MORE   https://www.arabnews.com/node/2596753

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In The New Yorker listen to his voice as Mosab Abu Toha reads his powerful poem Under the Rubble drawn from his most recent book “Forest of Noise.” #Gaza #Palestine #antiwar

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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/07/under-the-rubble-mosab-abu-toha-poem?_sp=aaeaad0f-d7d1-4da7-8831-0889bd50beab.1727867099098

Published in the print edition of the October 7, 2024, issue, with the headline “Under the Rubble.”

 

Mosab Abu Toha is a poet from Gaza. He is the author of “Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear” and “Forest of Noise.”

The Guardian: ‘Everything beautiful has been destroyed’: Palestinians mourn a city in tatters

The ruins of al-Hassaina Mosque, damaged in Israeli bombardment.

Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

More than 200 buildings of cultural and historical significance have been reduced to rubble in Gaza, including mosques, cemeteries and museums

Kaamil Ahmed

Sun 4 Feb 2024 01.00 EST

Its walls collapsed and its minaret cut short, Gaza’s Omari mosque remains standing but vastly diminished. Around it, the historic old city is also in tatters. The 7th-century mosque, also known as the Great Mosque of Gaza, was Gaza’s most famous and its surroundings a focal point of the Palestinian enclave’s history and culture, but the damage done to its heritage over more than 100 days of Israeli bombardment spreads across the city.

For the few Palestinians who remain, and the far greater number displaced and hoping to return, the culture and history has been reduced to memories.

“The city is a ghost town, people walk around with pale faces and their spirits are tired after having gone through this war. If you walk to the old city of Gaza, you will only remember the memories and feel sickened and saddened by the amount of destruction of cultural and religious sites,” said Bader Alzaharna, who lives in Gaza City despite the intensity of Israel’s ground operation in the area.

“The old city of Gaza, which used to be full of cultural sites, is grey and overcast. Walking in Gaza feels like we are in a movie, in a fictional story, in a fantasy. The scene is apocalyptic.”

Unesco, the UN agency responsible for protecting culture, says it has verified damage to at least 22 sites, including mosques, churches, historical homes, universities, archives and the archeological site of Anthedon Harbour, Gaza’s first known seaport... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/04/everything-beautiful-has-been-destroyed-palestinians-mourn-a-city-in-tatters

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