Hiroshima 1945- Gaza 2025

Mondoweiss

@Mondoweiss

Aerial photos from Gaza this past week reveal the horrific scale of destruction Israel has inflicted on the 25-mile strip. The devastation is reminiscent of Hiroshima. Israel’s war crimes continue to mount by the day. Cartoon by @LatuffCartoons

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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CNN: Netanyahu "prefers the hostages dead" so he can intensify attacks on Gaza, hostage’s father alleges

Yehuda Cohen speaks during a rally for the release of Israeli hostages in December 2024.

Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

From CNN's Catherine Nicholls

The father of a hostage currently held in Gaza has alleged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would prefer that the hostages were dead so that he can carry out intensified attacks on the enclave.

“He prefers the hostages dead because it’s going to make it easier for him,” Yehuda Cohen said in an interview with the BBC on Friday.

“Once you convince everybody that they are all dead… you can say, ‘okay, we can go brute force on the Gaza Strip, bomb everything,’” he said.

Cohen, whose son Nimrod is still being held captive in Gaza, was one of several family members of the hostages to sail toward the enclave on Thursday, calling for the war to end.

Netanyahu “just (doesn’t) care” about the hostages, Cohen said. “He’s using the hostages issue to prolong the war, to prolong his position as a prime minister.”

“Netanyahu is working for personal interest. He’s on criminal trial, and as I say always, this is what happens when you put a person who is under criminal trial as a head of a state,” he said, referencing a long-running corruption trial involving the prime minister... READ MORE https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-gaza-war-netanyahu-08-08-25 

Hamas and its allies still hold 50 hostages in Gaza. The Israeli government believes at least 20 are alive, while 28 have been declared deceased.  https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/07/middleeast/gaza-hostage-families-boat-protest-latam-intl

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Israel's further escalation will result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction and atrocity crimes.

UN Human Rights

@UNHumanRights

#Israel Government’s plan for a complete military takeover of the occupied #Gaza strip must be immediately halted. 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. 

On all evidence to date, this further escalation will result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction and atrocity crimes. 

The war in Gaza must end now. And Israelis and Palestinians must be allowed to live side by side in peace. 

Instead of intensifying this war, the Israeli Government should put all its efforts into saving the lives of Gaza’s civilians by allowing the full, unfettered flow of humanitarian aid. The hostages must be immediately and unconditionally released by Palestinian armed groups. Palestinians arbitrarily detained by Israel must also be immediately and unconditionally released. 

- UN Human Rights Chief

@volker_turk

For more information and media requests, please contact:

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Thameen Al-Kheetan: +41 22 917 4232 / thameen.alkheetan@un.org

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“Diversity can be a source of common strength, a wellspring from which we deepen our awareness of humanity.” Nelson Mandela's words resonate as strongly today as ever.

United Nations Geneva  @UNGeneva 

On this day in 1994,  @NelsonMandela delivered a lecture at the World Conference on Religion and Peace. His words resonate as strongly today as ever.

"It is often forgotten that Gaza was once the richest port in the Eastern Mediterranean, super wealthy from the export of Arabian incense and Indian spices" William Dalrymple... Aphrodite,oil lamps,trade routes,churches, etc.

When Gaza was the richest port in the Eastern Mediterranean, super wealthy from the export of Arabian incense and Indian spices... Oil lamp in the form of a lion 1stC CE, found in the waters off Gaza from the exhibition Trésors sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire at L'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris

Crusader-era doorway from Gaza Photographed 1920 The trade connections of ancient Gaza From the exhibition Trésors sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire at L'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris

Same building, photographed January 2025

Crusader-era oculus from the al-Umari mosque, Gaza Taken 1920

Gaza in 1905, from the terrace of the Latin presbytery, next to the Catholic church of Gaza, recently bombed by the IDF

Gaza in 1922 Seen from Tell Harubah, the heart of ancient Gaza and occupied consistently since the Bronze Age

The Aphrodite of Gaza Hellenistic period (2ndC BCE?) from the exhibition Trésors sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire at Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris.

 

The trade connections of ancient Gaza. It is often forgotten that Gaza was once the richest port in the Eastern Mediterranean, super wealthy from the export of Arabian incense and Indian spices... From the exhibition Trésors sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire at L'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris

Byzantine oil lamps of Gaza, 6thC CE From the exhibition Trésors sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire at L'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris

William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

Scottish historian & art historian;  @EmpirePodUK podcaster & Jaipur Lit Fest co-director. Visiting Fellow at All Souls, Oxford. Writes the occasional book.

Multi-award-winning and bestselling historian William Dalrymple’s latest book was published on 5 September – a revolutionary new history of the diffusion of Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific.  https://williamdalrymple.com/

Only 1.5% of Gaza cropland left for starving Palestinians due to Israel’s war, UN says. Israel has continued to target farmland in once-abundant Gaza Strip ... Gaza was a thriving agricultural hub, where farmers and ordinary Palestinians cultivated a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains for local consumption.

An aerial photograph, taken on 28 July 2025, shows damaged buildings in Gaza. Photograph: Jehad Shelbak/Reuters

Nina Lakhani

Wed 6 Aug 2025 17.00 EDT

Israel’s destruction of Gaza has left starving Palestinians with access to only 1.5% of cropland that is accessible and suitable for cultivation, according to new figures from the UN.

This is down from 4% in April, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), suggesting Israel has continued to target Palestinian farmland since initiating a complete blockade in early March, severely restricting aid from entering the Gaza Strip, where 2 million starved people are trapped.

Before the conflict, Gaza was a thriving agricultural hub, where farmers and ordinary Palestinians cultivated a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains for local consumption.

According to the FAO, agriculture accounted for around 10% of the Gaza Strip’s economy, and more than 560,000 people, or a quarter of the population, were at least partially supported by agriculture and fishing.

Israel has targeted food sources – orchards, greenhouses, farmland and fishers – since the beginning of its siege on Gaza in October 2023.

By 28 July 2025, Israel had damaged 86%, the equivalent of almost 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres), of farmland in the Gaza Strip – up from 81% in April, the FAO said. While just under 9% of cropland is still physically accessible, only 1.5% – the equivalent of 232 hectares – is both accessible and not damaged by the Israeli offensive.

“Gaza is now on the brink of a full-scale famine. People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods,” said FAO director-general Qu Dongyu. “We urgently need safe and sustained humanitarian access and immediate support to restore local food production and livelihoods – this is the only way to prevent further loss of life. The right to food is a basic human right.”

In northern Gaza, Israeli tanks and bombs have destroyed or damaged 94% of what was among the most fertile, productive land in the territory, and Palestinians have no access to the remaining 6% of their cropland. In Rafah, near the Egypt border, 79% is flattened and the rest has been blocked as part of Israel’s so-called military corridor.

Last week, Israeli forces partially demolished a seed bank in Hebron, in the West Bank, destroying tools and equipments used to used to reproduce heirloom seeds.

UN experts, agencies and aid groups have been warning since early 2024 that Israel is orchestrating a campaign of deliberate mass starvation in Gaza by systematically destroying local food production and blocking aid, in violation of international law. Hundreds of Palestinians have now starved to death, and thousands more have been killed trying to access food aid... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/israel-gaza-war-palestinian-cropland-starvation

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Put Your Soul On Your Hand And Walk - Official UK Trailer

PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK is a haunting testament to the resilience of daily life under siege in Gaza. Captured through a filmmaker's video calls with Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona, these calls act as a powerful digital lifeline to the realities of war, resistance and survival.

‘I must document everything’: the film about the Palestinian photographer killed by missiles in Gaza. Fatma Hassouna used poetry and photography to record the death and devastation she saw daily. Was she targeted by the IDF? ... We speak to the director of Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, a film about the journalist

Fatima will not be forgotten #fatmahassona

 The Guardian - Julian Borger

Wed 6 Aug 2025 11.46 EDT

‘I must document everything’: the film about the Palestinian photographer killed by missiles in Gaza. Fatma Hassouna used poetry and photography to record the death and devastation she saw daily. Was she targeted by the IDF?

Israel has sought to pursue its campaign of annihilation against Gaza and its people behind closed doors. More than 170 Palestinian journalists have been killed so far, and no outside reporters or cameras are allowed in.

The effects of this policy of concealment – which the Guardian managed to pierce this week with a shocking aerial photograph that made the front page – are to ensure that the outside world only catches sight of Gaza’s horrors in small fragments, and to stifle empathy for those trapped inside by hiding them from view, obscuring their humanity. But a new documentary film, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, seeks to open a window to the unfathomable suffering inside Gaza.

It focuses on the life of a single young Palestinian woman named Fatma Hassona, known as Fatem to those close to her. She is 24 years old when we meet her, and has such a broad smile and enthusiasm for life that she compels attention from her first appearance, a few minutes into the film.

We see Hassona’s life through the screen of a mobile phone belonging to the director, Sepideh Farsi, and most of the film is made up of the conversations between these two women as they develop an increasingly strong personal bond over the course of a year.

The director knows all about conflict and oppression. Farsi is Iranian-born and was a teenager at the time of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. When she was 16 she was imprisoned by the Islamic Republic regime, and she left the country for good two years later, settling in France. She was on tour with her film The Siren, a feature-length animation about the Iran-Iraq war, when the Gaza conflict erupted in October 2023. As the civilian death toll mounted, she found herself unable just to sit on the sidelines, watching endless debates that did nothing to stop the slaughter.

“The common denominator was that there was never the Palestinian voice there,” Farsi says. “We had different points of views: the American, the European, the Egyptian, the Israeli, but never the Palestinian. It started really bothering me, and at some point I couldn’t live with it any more.”

In spring last year she flew to Cairo with the idea that she could somehow find a way across the Gaza border to film the war firsthand. That quickly proved a naive and futile mission, so she began filming Gazan refugees in Egypt. One of them suggested to Farsi that if she wanted to talk to someone inside, he could put her in touch with his friend Fatma in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City.

We first see Hassona the way Farsi meets her, on her little phone screen... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/aug/06/fatma-hassouna-sepideh-farsi-put-your-soul-on-your-hand-and-walk-documentary-gaza-palestinian-photographer?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

A wasteland of rubble, dust and graves: how Gaza looks from the sky

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UN experts call for immediate dismantling of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation: “The GHF, a non-governmental organisation created by Israel in February 2025, with US support, to allegedly distribute aid in Gaza, is an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law...”

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a landmark document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. 

05 August 2025

GENEVA – UN experts* today expressed grave concern over the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s (GHF) operations, saying Palestinians are paying the ultimate price of the international community’s legal, political and moral failure.

The experts recalled that under international humanitarian law, Israel as the occupying power has binding obligations to the people under its control. As per Geneva Convention IV and the Hague Regulations, civilians in occupied territory must be protected and provided with essential services. Humanitarian relief operations must be protected and facilitated, but must also strictly respect the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.

“The GHF, a non-governmental organisation created by Israel in February 2025, with US support, to allegedly distribute aid in Gaza, is an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law,” the experts said. “The entanglement of Israeli intelligence, US contractors and ambiguous non-governmental entities underlines the urgent need for robust international oversight and action under UN auspices.”

“Under any circumstances, when war crimes are overlooked in exchange for temporary relief, impunity can become normalised. Yet, in this case, we are leaving a State accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in charge of feeding the population affected by the genocide without oversight and with impunity. This overt hypocrisy is disturbing,” the experts said.

Israeli forces and foreign military contractors continue to open indiscriminate fire on people seeking aid at so-called “distribution sites” operated by GHF, since it was set up to take-over functions previously performed by United Nations agencies, most notably UNRWA, the UN’s aid agency for Palestinian refugees. Nearly 1400 people have been killed and more than 4000 injured while seeking food. At least 859 people have been killed around GHF sites since the beginning of GHF’s operations in late May 2025. The sites are especially difficult to access to the most vulnerable conditions, such as women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons. Calling it “humanitarian” adds on to Israel’s humanitarian camouflage and is an insult to the humanitarian enterprise and standards,” the experts said.

This tragic development comes amid the forced displacement of over 90 per cent of the population and a staggering death toll is now more than 60,000 people in Gaza. Only in the last few weeks, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported 180 deaths due to malnutrition, including 93 children.

“Seeing children dying of hunger in their parents’ arms should shake us out of our complacency,” the experts said.

“Blocking or delaying aid is not just inhumane – it is a war crime where it is intended to starve civilians and in the context of a well-documented and globally denounced genocide," the experts said.

“Securing access to food, water, medicine and critical services is not a matter of charity – it is a legal duty, all the more in the illegally occupied Palestinian territory. We must recall that the ICJ has found the Israeli occupation to be unlawful and ordered Israel to withdraw its troops, dismantle the settlements, and stop exploiting Palestinian resources while racially segregating Palestinians,” the experts said. “Israel must comply with the ICJ decision, and Member States are required to support its enforcement."

“Without clear accountability, the very idea of humanitarian relief may ultimately become a casualty of modern hybrid warfare,” they said.

“The credibility and effectiveness of humanitarian assistance must be restored by dismantling the GHF, holding it and its executives accountable, and allowing experienced and humanitarian actors from the UN and civil society alike to take back the reins of managing and distributing lifesaving aid.”

The experts urged Member States to impose a full arms embargo on Israel due to its multiple violations of international law, and suspend trade and investment agreements that may result in harming the Palestinians and hold corporate entities accountable.

*The Experts:

• Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
• Tomoya Obokata, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery
• Siobhán Mullally, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children
• Tlaleng Mofokeng, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
• George Katrougalos, Independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order
• Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders
• Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food
• Carlos Arturo Duarte Torres, Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas;
• Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing;
• Heba Hagrass, Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities
• Elisa Morgera, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change
• Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
• Pichamon Yeophantong (Chairperson), Damilola Olawuyi (Vice-Chairperson), Fernanda Hopenhaym, Lyra Jakulevičienė and Robert McCorquodale, Working Group on business and human rights
• Morris Tidball-Binz, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
• Paula Gaviria Betancur, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons
• Surya Deva, Special Rapporteur on the right to development
• Alexandra Xanthaki, Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights
• Ashwini K.P., Special Rapporteur on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
• Laura Nyirinkindi (Chair), Claudia Flores (Vice-Chair), Dorothy Estrada Tanck, Ivana Krstić, and Haina Lu, Working group on discrimination against women and girls
• Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression
• Nicolas Levrat, Special Rapporteur on minority issues
• Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences
• Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism
• Bina D’Costa (Chair), Catherine Namakula, Isabelle Mamadou, Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent
• Attiya Waris, Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights
• Gabriella Citroni (Chair-Rapporteur), Grażyna Baranowska (Vice-Chair), Aua Baldé,  Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez, Mohammed Al-Obaidi, Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
• Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work... READ MORE  

 

 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/08/un-experts-call-immediate-dismantling-gaza-humanitarian-foundation

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"After three hundred days of war, the UNRWA issued an analysis describing Gaza’s trauma as “chronic and unrelenting”—a collective embodiment of continuous traumatic stress disorder (C.T.S.D.), a condition that stems from living under relentless trauma. Unlike post-traumatic stress disorder, which sets in after a difficult experience, C.T.S.D. is what occurs when there is no end in sight. Gazans have adapted to chronic danger, living in a state of hypervigilance, emotional numbness, and dissociation amid the slow erasure of any imagined future. The effect on children has been especially catastrophic. "

 The Lede

The New Yorker

Treating Gaza’s Collective Trauma

In Gaza, where displaced children play a game called “air strike” and act out death, the lack of mental-health resources has become another emergency.

 

By Mohammed R. Mhawish

 

August 1, 2025

The line outside Dr. Bahzad al-Akhras’s clinic starts to assemble before sunrise, a ripple of bodies in the half-light standing barefoot or in frayed sandals, waiting for a turn at what now passes for care. His clinic is wherever it needs to be: in a corner at a shelter compound, on the move during a walk around the yard, or behind the makeshift screen of a bedsheet pulled between two poles, if the wind allows. Often, Akhras sees patients in a tented space, tucked among hundreds of other such tents in the dense sprawl of Al-Mawasi, in the southern end of the Gaza Strip.

Akhras, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, lost his home to an Israeli strike, in early 2024. He and his family have been displaced multiple times, living in tents where the canvas sweats from too many bodies pressed into too little space. He no longer sits in a white-walled office or wears a badge. But he continues to work, seeing some fifty patients a day, most of them children. One of his regular patients is a young girl, no older than fourteen, who survived a strike that killed her entire family. She woke up in an I.C.U., alone, unable to understand where everyone had gone. Now she sits in front of Akhras in silence, until she asks, again and again, if he can bring them back. He has no answer, only a pencil stub and a coloring book, which he hopes she can use to express and process her emotions... READ MORE  https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/treating-gazas-collective-trauma#intcid=_the-new-yorker-homepage-bkt-a_e781db88-9438-4a28-9a85-6d91dd327556_cygnus-personalized

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