In a report released on Tuesday, the charity said 520 million children in 2024 were exposed to war, marking a record high for the third consecutive year.

Save the Children verified 41,763 grave violations against children last year, a 30 percent increase from 2023.

This means an average of 78 children endured grave violations – such as being killed or maimed, abducted, recruited or sexually abused – each day, the report said.

Growing up in militarised areas also often means dropping out of school, being forced to leave home, and being subjected to physical and mental trauma, it added.

“This disproportionate rise in grave violations reveals that beyond exposure to conflict, there is also a deep erosion of the international norms and protections designed to shield children from harm,” said Inger Ashing, Save the Children’s CEO.

“This report also reveals another troubling reality: The current unilateral focus on combating violence through military, state and private security solutions is failing to adequately protect children from the gravest forms of harm,” Ashing added.

In 2024, there were 61 state-based conflicts, meaning that at least one of the warring parties was a state government.

Less than 2 percent of global security funds went towards peacebuilding and peacekeeping in 2024, mirroring a long-term trend in declining peace spending.

By contrast, military spending hit a record high as it soared by more than 9 percent to total $2.7 trillion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Africa has the highest number and ratio of children living in conflict zones – 218 million – surpassing the Middle East for the first time since 2007.

However, the highest number of grave violations recorded against children took place in occupied Palestinian territory while one in three children killed or maimed in war were Palestinian.

Overall, more than half of the violations against children took place in Palestinian territory, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Somalia.

The family arrived back in northern Gaza last Saturday, a few days after the Gaza ceasefire began, but just a day before Israeli attacks threatened to collapse the deal.

Hiba says she was sorting through her scattered belongings beside her tent when she heard explosions in the distance, and wondered whether the war had returned. That would likely force the family back south, repeating a journey they have taken again and again during the war.

“We honestly don’t understand anything any more,” Hiba told Al Jazeera days later, as she pulled up a chair and sat atop the mound of sand where her family’s tent was pitched.

Family killed
So far, the ceasefire has largely held since the heavy outbreak of violence last Sunday, when Israel killed at least 42 people.

But Hiba and Mohammad have suffered so much over the past two years that their uncertainty over the future is understandable.

The couple had stayed in northern Gaza when the war started. But less than two months into it, that decision cost them dearly.

“I lost my entire family: my father, my mother, all my siblings. My husband, who is also my cousin, lost his entire family too,” she said, tears filling her eyes as Mohammad sat beside her in silence, his own eyes red.

On December 3, 2023, their four-storey family home in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, which also sheltered several relatives displaced from other areas, was bombed.

Hiba, Mohammad, their daughter Iman and Hiba’s younger brother were the only survivors, pulled from beneath the rubble with minor injuries.

The strike killed 60 members of their extended family.

“Almost my entire family was wiped out: my mother, father, my six siblings, their spouses, and their children. My wife’s family, too – her parents, siblings and their children. My uncles and their families were all killed,” Mohammad said.

In total, Mohammad lost 36 relatives, including his parents, six siblings and their children and wives.

Hiba lost her parents, four siblings and two nieces in the same strike.

Trapped with a dead brother
To compound matters, Hiba’s younger brother, who survived the initial attack, was killed a month later in particularly harrowing circumstances.

Israeli tanks advanced near the home of a relative that Hiba and Mohammad had moved into after the first attack.

“We ran – me, my husband, my daughter and my brother – to a nearby house and hid in the basement. At that moment, the tanks were firing at anyone who moved. My brother was shot directly in the back.”

Hiba broke down in tears as she continued.

“We dragged my injured brother to the ground floor so the tanks wouldn’t see us, or we’d all be killed. For four whole days, my brother bled to death in front of me. I couldn’t cry, scream or move. I couldn’t call for help because the tanks surrounded us.”

Her voice trembled as she added, “His body stayed with us, beside us, for four more days while we were trapped.”

“No water, no food, nothing. But fear controlled us so completely that we couldn’t think of anything else. We were just waiting to die at any moment.”

When the tanks finally withdrew, the family left their hiding place and buried her brother’s body nearby.

“After all this, do you think we still want to live?” Hiba asked, her tears flowing freely.

Bulldozed graves
To an outsider, the losses Hiba and Mohammad have suffered are almost incomprehensible. Even with the war declared over, it is not something they can simply move on from.

“I wanted to die,” she said. “My husband and I are like branches cut off from a tree. We live with unbearable pain. I wished a strike had taken us too. Surviving feels like a punishment.”

In September, the couple left Gaza City to go south, as Israeli tanks approached. But they found life there in the displacement camps, away from everything they knew, to be unbearable.

And with the Israeli advance on Gaza City called off as a result of the ceasefire, they decided to return.

But nothing prepared them for what they would find.

“All our family homes were destroyed, even the house we recently moved into, my wife’s family’s home, was gone. Our cars, our wedding hall business, all flattened,” said Mohammad, whose family was known for real estate in Gaza.

The couple’s greatest shock came when they discovered that the graves of their relatives, buried near their home, had been bulldozed and their remains scattered.

“Imagine spending the whole night collecting the remains of our loved ones, those we buried with our own hands,” Hiba said, pointing to a levelled patch of sand.

“Here lie my family and some of my husband’s. I keep warning people who pass by not to step over them.”

Her tears welled again. “This reopened a wound that never healed. My heart was torn apart during the war. I have no nerves left, no life. I pulled my parents out from under the rubble. My mother was without a head. My little nephew’s body was in pieces.”

“My husband still hasn’t been able to recover the rest of his family’s bodies. Their remains are still under that rubble,” she said, pointing toward a nearby collapsed building where their last tent now stands.

What comes next?
“We’re just bodies without souls now,” Mohammad said quietly. “If I stay alive, I’ll leave Gaza the moment the crossings open. There’s no life here.”

“No water, no electricity, no services, just destruction everywhere. Ruin beyond what the mind can imagine. How are we supposed to live?”

“Even this so-called ceasefire they talk about, it’s fragile and meaningless. Israel violates it every moment,” Mohammad said.

Hiba nodded in agreement. She said her only hope now is for a better future for her daughter, her last surviving family.

“My daughter hasn’t had schooling for three years. She’s lived through horrors, pulled from under the rubble, displaced again and again, watched her uncle die in front of her. How will her mind recover? What future does she have here?”

“She’s seen enough. I just want her to live a better life.”

When asked if they feared the war might return, Mohammad gave a bitter laugh.

“This time I won’t move. If it comes back, I’ll really die here. There’s no life or future left anyway. The war never really ended, and even if it did, I’d rather die with my family.”

Hiba and Mohammad often sit together, mourning their fate, unable to comprehend why all this happened.

“I keep asking my husband if we had started this war ourselves, would we deserve such punishment?” she said. “What did we ever do to deserve all this?”

Olga Cherevko, a spokeswoman for the UN's humanitarian office, said she had seen a constant stream of Palestinians heading south during a recent visit to the city, but that hundreds of thousands remained.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that overwhelmed hospitals were on the brink of collapse because it was being prevented from delivering lifesaving supplies.
The UN and its humanitarian partners have recorded at least 200,000 people crossing from northern to southern Gaza since mid-August, when Israel announced its intention to conquer Gaza City. Around 55,000 have made the journey since Sunday.

Cherevko, who works for the UN humanitarian office in the central city of Deir al-Balah, told the BBC she travelled to Gaza City two days ago – a 29km (18 mile) round-trip that took 14 hours.

"The things there, and the scenes on the way to Gaza City, are nothing short of cataclysmic," she recalled.

"A constant stream of people [are] crossing from the north to the south, many on foot. Inside Gaza City, it's very crowded still because there are hundreds of thousands of civilians still remaining there."

She said she also witnessed multiple Israeli strikes "very close" to the UN convoy while in Gaza City, adding: "It was really just a constant hit after hit while we were there."

On Thursday morning, witnesses told Reuters news agency they had seen Israeli tanks in the northern Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood and the southern neighbourhood of Tal al-Hawa, which have come under heavy bombardment in recent days.

They also reported that Israeli forces had blown up remotely driven vehicles laden with explosives in both areas, destroying many houses.

Local hospitals said at least 14 people had been killed by Israeli fire across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including nine in Gaza City.

The Israeli military said in a statement that its troops were "expanding" their operations in the city, without giving any details about their movements.

At the start of the ground assault on Tuesday, the military's chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, told troops to "intensify the blows against Hamas and to decisively defeat the Gaza City brigade, in order to carry out the most moral and important duty – the return of all the hostages home and the dismantling of Hamas's military and governing capabilities".

Cherevko warned that many people were unable to comply with the Israeli military's order to evacuate to its designated "humanitarian area" in the south.

"The expense of moving your belongings, if you are lucky enough to find a vehicle that will move them, is exorbitant. It's not affordable for many people. And that's why many are doing this on foot, with barely a mattress in their hands and maybe a plastic bag."

And once they arrived there were no guarantees of shelter or safety, she added.

"I spoke to a lot of people who have recently arrived in Deir al-Balah and [the southern city of] Khan Younis. Many of them are sitting on the side of the street, with nothing. They don't have any shelter. They don't know where to go.

"Yesterday, I met a family who had been walking around for four days, trying to find space to sleep and they didn't manage," she said.

The WHO's chief, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the Israeli offensive was "forcing traumatised families into an ever-shrinking area unfit for human dignity".

"The injured and people with disabilities cannot move to safety, which puts their lives in grave danger," he wrote on X.

"Hospitals, already overwhelmed, are on the brink of collapse as escalating violence blocks access and prevents [the] WHO from delivering lifesaving supplies."

The UN says there are currently about 1,790 in-patient hospital beds for the 2.1 million population of Gaza, resulting in occupancy rates of 180 to 300% across the 17 hospitals that remain partially functional across the territory.

Ten of those hospitals are in Gaza City and one is elsewhere in northern Gaza.

On Tuesday, al-Rantisi children's hospital in Gaza City – the only specialised paediatric hospital left in the territory – was hit by three Israeli strikes, causing damage to rooftop water tanks, electrical and communication systems and some medical equipment, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.

Forty patients fled for safety following the attack, while 40 others, including four children in the intensive care and eight newborn babies, remain inside.

The Israeli military has not yet commented.

The UN Population Fund meanwhile warned that women were being forced to give birth in the streets, without hospitals, doctors or clean water.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 65,141 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health ministry.

The ministry says another 435 people have so far died during the war as a result of malnutrition and starvation, including four over the past 24 hours.

The Israeli military said its forces were "dismantling terror infrastructure and eliminating terrorists" in Gaza City.

It has said its objectives are to free the hostages still held by Hamas and defeat up to 3,000 fighters in what it has described as the group's "main stronghold".

However, the offensive on Gaza's biggest urban area, where one million people were living and a famine was confirmed last month, has drawn widespread international condemnation.

More than 100 aid organisations working in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have accused Israel of dangerously “weaponising aid” in its application of new rules for registering groups involved in delivering humanitarian assistance.

The letter represents the latest broadside from the international aid community against Israel after the EU, Britain and Japan on Tuesday called for urgent action to stop “famine” spreading in the Gaza Strip.

The letter was published as Gaza’s health authority reported continuing deaths from malnutrition in the besieged Palestinian territory, and amid threats by Israel to take full military control of the coastal strip with reports in Hebrew media suggesting the country may be planning to mobilise up to 100,000 reservists for the new offensive.
The letter, signed by organisations including Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières and Care, was written in response to registration rules announced by Israel in March that require organisations to hand over lists of their donors and Palestinian staff for vetting.

The groups contend that doing so could endanger their staff and give Israel broad grounds to block aid if groups are deemed to be “delegitimising” the country or supporting boycotts or divestment.

The registration measures were “designed to control independent organisations, silence advocacy and censor humanitarian reporting”, they said.

The letter added: “This obstruction has left millions of dollars’ worth of food, medicine, water and shelter items stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt.”
On Tuesday, Israel’s ministry for diaspora and combating antisemitism said it had revoked the work permits of 10 NGOs that had applied for authorisations.

Under the new rules, which are vague and broad-reaching, a team led by the diaspora ministry can refuse registration to aid groups if they or their members published calls to boycott Israel in the past seven years; if there is “reasonable basis to assume” that they oppose Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state; or if they “actively advance delegitimisation activities against the state of Israel”.

The aid groups’ letter said the rules violated European data privacy regulations, noting that in some cases aid groups had been given only seven days to comply.

“Instead of clearing the growing backlog of goods, Israeli authorities have rejected requests from dozens of NGOs to bring in lifesaving goods, citing that these organisations are ‘not authorised to deliver aid’,” the letter added, saying that 60 requests from 29 organisations were denied in July citing this justification.

Cogat, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, denied the letter’s claims, adding without evidence that aid groups were being used as cover by Hamas to “exploit the aid to strengthen its military capabilities and consolidate its control”, despite the fact that Israel already claims to control 75% of Gaza.
The aid groups stressed on Thursday that most of them had not been able to deliver “a single truck” of life-saving assistance since Israel implemented a blockade in March.

The vast majority of aid is not reaching civilians in Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have been killed, most of the population has been displaced and famine is taking hold. UN agencies and a small number of aid groups have resumed delivering assistance, but say the number of trucks allowed in remains far from sufficient.

The letter was published as Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, backed plans for a major settlement development outside Jerusalem, which he said would represent the “final nail in the coffin” of Palestinian ambitions for their own state.

The E1 settlement plan for more than 3,000 housing units – which critics, including much of the international community, say would split the West Bank from occupied East Jerusalem – is highly likely to be approved by a planning body next week. But it still remains uncertain whether the plan, which has been frozen for more than five years, will advance, given the likely international fallout.

While his support for the plan was announced by Smotrich at a press conference on Thursday, it remains uncertain how much backing it has from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as does the attitude of Donald Trump’s White House.

Smotrich’s comments come after many countries said they would recognise a Palestinian state in September.

“This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise,” said Smotrich, whose extremist party has experienced a collapse in support.

Gaza City has come under intense air attack, the territory's Hamas-run civil defence agency has said, as Israeli forces prepare to occupy the city.
Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman, said the residential areas of Zeitoun and Sabra had for three days been hit by bombs and drone strikes that "cause massive destruction to civilian homes", with residents unable to recover the dead and injured.
Meanwhile the UK, EU, Australia, Canada and Japan issued a statement saying "famine is unfolding in front of our eyes" and urged action to "reverse starvation".
They demanded "immediate, permanent and concrete steps" to facilitate the entry of aid to Gaza. Israel denies there is starvation in Gaza.

It has accused UN agencies of not picking up aid at the borders and delivering it.
The joint statement also demanded an end to the use of lethal force near aid distribution sites and lorry convoys, where the UN says more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed, mostly by the Israeli military.
Separately, the World Health Organisation on Tuesday appealed to Israel to let it stock medical supplies to deal with a "catastrophic" health situation before it seizes control of Gaza City.
"We all hear about 'more humanitarian supplies are allowed in' – well it's not happening yet, or it's happening at a way too low a pace," said Rik Peeperkorn, the agency's representative in the Palestinian territories.
"We want to as quickly stock up hospitals," he added. "We currently cannot do that. We need to be able to get all essential medicines and medical supplies in."
Israel's war cabinet voted on Monday to occupy Gaza City, a move condemned at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council later that day. On Tuesday the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was "at the beginning of a new state of combat".
The Israeli government has not provided an exact timetable on when its forces would enter the area. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel's forces had been instructed to dismantle the "two remaining Hamas strongholds" in Gaza City and a central area around al-Mawasi.
He also outlined a three-step plan to increase aid in Gaza, including designating safe corridors for aid distribution, as well as more air drops by Israeli forces and other partners.
On the ground, however, residents of Gaza City said they had come under unrelenting attack from the air. Majed al-Hosary, a resident in Zeitoun in Gaza City, told AFP that the attacks had been "extremely intense for two days".
"With every strike, the ground shakes. There are martyrs under the rubble that no one can reach because the shelling hasn't stopped," he said.
"It sounded like the war was restarting," Amr Salah, 25, told Reuters. "Tanks fired shells at houses, and several houses were hit, and the planes carried out what we call fire rings, whereby several missiles landed on some roads in eastern Gaza."
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said that 100 dead had been brought to hospitals across Gaza over the past 24 hours, including 31 people who were killed at aid sites. Five more people had also died of malnutrition, it added.
Israel has faced mounting criticism over the 22-month-long war with Hamas, with UN-backed experts warning of widespread famine unfolding in the besieged territory.
On Tuesday members of an international group of former leaders known as "The Elders" for the first time called the war in Gaza an "unfolding genocide" and blamed Israel for causing famine among its population.
Following a visit to the Gaza border, Helen Clark and Mary Robinson, a former prime minister of New Zealand and a former president of Ireland, said in a joint statement: "What we saw and heard underlines our personal conviction that there is not only an unfolding, human-caused famine in Gaza. There is an unfolding genocide."

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel is in discussions with South Sudan about the possibility of resettling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the war-torn East African country, part of a wider effort by Israel to facilitate mass emigration from the territory left in ruins by its 22-month offensive against Hamas.

Six people familiar with the matter confirmed the talks to The Associated Press. It’s unclear how far the talks have advanced, but if implemented, the plans would amount to transferring people from one war-ravaged land at risk of famine to another, and raise human rights concerns.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants to realize U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision of relocating much of Gaza’s population through what Netanyahu refers to as “voluntary migration.” Israel has floated similar resettlement proposals with other African nations.

Palestinians, rights groups, and much of the international community have rejected the proposals as a blueprint for forcible expulsion in violation of international law.

For South Sudan, such a deal could help it build closer ties to Israel, now the almost unchallenged military power in the Middle East. It is also a potential inroad to Trump, who broached the idea of resettling Gaza’s population in February but appears to have backed away in recent months.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment and South Sudan’s foreign minister did not respond to questions about the talks. A U.S. State Department spokesperson said it doesn’t comment on private diplomatic conversations.

Egypt opposes proposals to resettle Palestinians out of Gaza
Joe Szlavik, the founder of a U.S. lobbying firm working with South Sudan, said he was briefed by South Sudanese officials on the talks. He said an Israeli delegation plans to visit the country to look into the possibility of setting up camps for Palestinians there. No known date has been set for the visit. Israel did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the visit.

Szlavik said Israel would likely pay for makeshift camps.

Edmund Yakani, who heads a South Sudanese civil society group, said he had also spoken to South Sudanese officials about the talks. Four additional officials with knowledge of the discussions confirmed talks were taking place on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Two of the officials, both from Egypt, told AP they’ve known for months about Israel’s efforts to find a country to accept Palestinians, including its contact with South Sudan. They said they’ve been lobbying South Sudan against taking the Palestinians.

Egypt is deeply opposed to plans to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza, with which it shares a border, fearing an influx of refugees into its own territory.

The AP previously reported on similar talks initiated by Israel and the U.S. with Sudan and Somalia, countries that are also grappling with war and hunger, and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland. The status of those discussions is not known.

‘Cash-strapped South Sudan needs any ally’
Szlavik, who’s been hired by South Sudan to improve its relations with the United States, said the U.S. is aware of the discussions with Israel but is not directly involved.

South Sudan wants the Trump administration to lift a travel ban on the country and remove sanctions from some South Sudanese elites, said Szlavik. It has already accepted eight individuals swept up in the administration’s mass deportations, in what may have been an effort to curry favor.

The Trump administration has pressured a number of countries to help facilitate deportations.

“Cash-strapped South Sudan needs any ally, financial gain and diplomatic security it can get,” said Peter Martell, a journalist and author of a book about the country, “First Raise a Flag.”

Israel’s Mossad spy agency provided aid to the South Sudanese during their decades-long civil war against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum ahead of independence in 2011, according to the book.

The State Department, asked if there was any quid pro quo with South Sudan, said decisions on the issuing of visas are made “in a way that prioritizes upholding the highest standards for U.S. national security, public safety, and the enforcement of our immigration laws.”

From one hunger-stricken conflict zone to another
Many Palestinians might want to leave Gaza, at least temporarily, to escape the war and a hunger crisis bordering on famine. But they have roundly rejected any permanent resettlement from what they see as an integral part of their national homeland.

They fear that Israel will never allow them to return, and that a mass departure would allow it to annex Gaza and reestablish Jewish settlements there, as called for by far-right ministers in the Israeli government.

Still, even those Palestinians who want to leave are unlikely to take their chances in South Sudan, among the world’s most unstable and conflict-ridden countries.

South Sudan has struggled to recover from a civil war that broke out after independence, and which killed nearly 400,000 people and plunged pockets of the country into famine. The oil-rich country is plagued by corruption and relies on international aid to help feed its 11 million people – a challenge that has only grown since the Trump administration made sweeping cuts to foreign assistance.

A peace deal reached seven years ago has been fragile and incomplete, and the threat of war returned when the main opposition leader was placed under house arrest this year.

Palestinians in particular could find themselves unwelcome. The long war for independence from Sudan pitted the mostly Christian and animist south against the predominantly Arab and Muslim north.

Yakani, of the civil society group, said South Sudanese would need to know who is coming and how long they plan to stay, or there could be hostilities due to the “historical issues with Muslims and Arabs.”

“South Sudan should not become a dumping ground for people,” he said. “And it should not accept to take people as negotiating chips to improve relations.”

TEL AVIV — Over nearly two years of war in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s news broadcasts focused almost exclusively on Israeli victims of the conflict: hostages, both alive and dead, or still held in captivity; soldiers killed in battle, then buried at home.

The civilian suffering in Gaza, in which nearly 2 million people have been displaced and critical infrastructure destroyed, was rarely, if ever, mentioned. As missiles fell on Israeli cities and most of society hardened following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, there was an unwritten rule, journalists and media experts said, that kept Palestinian civilians mostly out of sight in domestic coverage of the war.

But last month, amid reports of mass starvation in the enclave and growing international outrage, news of the worsening crisis began to break through. The flood of images and condemnations, even from Israel's allies, gave Israeli journalists "a way into the story," said one prominent investigative reporter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue. "You see how much they've been waiting for it," she said.
Mainstream Israeli news outlets began showing footage of civilians in Gaza for the first time, including men on foot hauling sacks of food from aid distribution sites and children screaming as they crowded around the few remaining soup kitchens – results, the reports said, of Israel's months-long blockade of the Strip.

The moment was brief: Newscasts this week have returned to more familiar areas of coverage after Hamas released videos of an emaciated hostage, horrifying Israelis and triggering mass street protests. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also proposed a full reoccupation of the Palestinian territory, causing tensions between his government and military officials who oppose the plan.

Israel has barred outside journalists from entering Gaza, except for brief, controlled embeds with the military. Palestinian journalists, however, have produced a steady stream of coverage from enclave, filing for global news wires and other international outlets. They have "continued reporting despite killings, injuries, and arbitrary detention at the hands of Israeli forces," according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which says 178 reporters have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war.

But many Israelis, who are still grappling with the visual archive of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants live-streamed thousands of hours of body-camera footage as they rampaged through southern Israel, remain skeptical of media reports coming out of Gaza. Some also distrust international media, accusing some outlets of downplaying coverage of the hostages.

As a result, few Israelis "make the effort to leave their feed, their bubble, whatever social media platform, and get to whatever other place to see what is happening" in Gaza, said Oren Persico, a reporter for the Seventh Eye, an investigative magazine focused on Israeli media and freedom of speech. "The algorithm knows already what you want to see."

According to Asa Shapiro, head of the advertising and marketing department at Tel Aviv University, the act of acknowledging, let alone sympathizing with, Gazans posed a dilemma both for journalists and viewers, who remain gripped by the fate of Israel's hostages. Fifty hostages are still in captivity, 20 of whom are presumed to be alive.

Witkoff and US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, visited aid distribution sites run by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed GHF on Friday. Condemnation of Israel is growing over famine in Gaza and reports that more than 1,000 desperately hungry Palestinians have been killed since May at the GHF sites.
The diplomats “spent over five hours inside Gaza”, Witkoff said in a post on X, accompanied by a photo of himself wearing a protective vest and meeting staff at a distribution site. He added that the purpose of the trip was to “help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza”.

Friday’s visit was “to learn the truth” about the GHF’s distribution activities, Hucakbee said on X. During the trip, they were briefed by the Israeli military and spoke to “folks on the ground”, he added.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday that Witkoff would visit “distribution sites and secure a plan to deliver more food and meet with local Gazans to hear firsthand about this dire situation on the ground”.
“The special envoy and the ambassador will brief the president immediately after their visit to approve a final plan for food and aid distribution into the region,” Leavitt said.

The visit comes a day after more than 50 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the territory and health officials reported the deaths of two more children from starvation, adding to the Gaza Health Ministry’s confirmed death toll of 154 people who have died from “famine and malnutrition” – including 89 children – in recent weeks.

On Friday, 37 more people were killed across the Strip, including 12 aid seekers, hospital sources said. More than 80 people were also injured, including dozens who were waiting for food supplies near the Morag Corridor south of Khan Younis, according to an Al Jazeera Arabic report.

Witkoff met with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after his arrival in the country on Thursday, the Israeli leader’s office said.

Earlier this week, Trump contradicted Netanyahu’s insistence that reports of hunger in Gaza were untrue, with the US leader saying the enclave was experiencing “real starvation”.

The United Nations and independent experts had warned for months that starvation was taking hold in Gaza due to the Israeli military blockade on humanitarian relief, and this week, they said “famine is now unfolding.”

‘War crime’
In a report on Friday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war a “war crime”.

“Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at HRW.

“US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths,” she added.

The rights group called on states to press Israel to immediately stop its use of lethal force against Palestinian civilians and lift its restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza. It also urged the US and Israel to suspend the GHF distribution system.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Friday, Martin Griffiths, the former under-secretary-general of the UN humanitarian affairs office, said GHF’s aid distribution system has turned into a “catastrophe”.

“They are, in fact, under instructions by [the Israeli military]. All of this is a crime. All of this is a deep betrayal of humanitarian values,” said the director of Mediation Group International.

“I think it’s a catastrophe more than a disappointment,” Griffiths added. “I think it’s a great sin. I think it’s a great crime.”

The UN’s rights office in the Palestinian territory said at least 1,373 people had been killed seeking aid in Gaza since May 27 – 105 of them in the last two days of July.

‘Act quickly’ to prevent mass starvation
Angered by Israel’s denial of aid and ongoing attacks on Gaza’s population, the United Kingdom, Canada and Portugal this week became the latest Western governments to announce plans to recognise a Palestinian state.

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron said France will recognise Palestine at the UN General Assembly in September, following Spain, Norway and Ireland’s lead.

Some 142 countries out of the 193 members of the UN currently recognise or plan to recognise a Palestinian state.

Following a meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Thursday, Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said “the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is beyond imagination.

“Here, the Israeli government must act quickly, safely and effectively to provide humanitarian and medical aid to prevent mass starvation from becoming a reality,” he said.

On Friday, Wadephul said Germany would provide another $5.7m in aid for the civilian population in Gaza, giving the money to the UN’s World Food Programme.

Germany’s Bundeswehr armed forces started dropping aid supplies over Gaza, starting with two Luftwaffe flights carrying almost 14 tonnes of supplies, according to the German Federal Ministry of Defence. France also started to airdrop 40 tonnes of humanitarian aid.

“Faced with the absolute urgency, we have just conducted a food airdrop operation in Gaza,” President Emmanuel Macron said on social media platform X on Friday. “Airdrops are not enough. Israel must open full humanitarian access to address the risk of famine,” he added.

Once a vibrant centre of Palestinian life, much of Gaza has been pulverised by Israeli bombardments, with more than 60,000 Palestinians killed and almost 150,000 wounded since October 2023, after the Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed an estimated 1,139 people.

The new measures have brought an uptick in the number of aid trucks entering Gaza. But almost none of it reaches U.N. warehouses for distribution.

Instead, nearly all the trucks are stripped of their cargo by crowds that overwhelm them on the roads as they drive from the borders. The crowds are a mix of Palestinians desperate for food and gangs armed with knives, axes or pistols who loot the goods to then hoard or sell.

Many have also been killed trying to grab the aid. Witnesses say Israeli troops often open fire on crowds around the aid trucks, and hospitals have reported hundreds killed or wounded. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots to control crowds or at people who approach its forces. The alternative food distribution system run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has also been marred by violence.
International airdrops of aid have resumed. But aid groups say airdrops deliver only a fraction of what trucks can supply. Also, many parcels have landed in now-inaccessible areas that Palestinians have been told to evacuate, while others have plunged into the Mediterranean Sea, forcing people to swim out to retrieve drenched bags of flour.
Here’s a look at why the aid isn’t being distributed:

A lack of trust
The U.N. says that longstanding restrictions on the entry of aid have created an unpredictable environment, and that while a pause in fighting might allow more aid in, Palestinians are not confident aid will reach them.

“This has resulted in many of our convoys offloaded directly by starving, desperate people as they continue to face deep levels of hunger and are struggling to feed their families,” said Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.

“The only way to reach a level of confidence is by having a sustained flow of aid over a period of time,” she said.
Israel blocked food entirely from entering Gaza for 2 ½ months starting in March. Since it eased the blockade in late May, it allowed in a trickle of aid trucks for the U.N., about 70 a day on average, according to official Israeli figures. That is far below the 500-600 trucks a day that U.N. agencies say are needed — the amount that entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year.

Much of the aid is stacked up just inside the border in Gaza because U.N. trucks could not pick it up. The U.N says that was because of Israeli military restrictions on its movements and because of the lawlessness in Gaza.

Israel has argued that it is allowing sufficient quantities of goods into Gaza and tried to shift the blame to the U.N. “More consistent collection and distribution by U.N. agencies and international organizations = more aid reaching those who need it most in Gaza,” the Israeli military agency in charge of aid coordination, COGAT, said in a statement this week.
With the new measures this week, COGAT, says 220-270 truckloads a day were allowed into Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday, and that the U.N. was able to pick up more trucks, reducing some of the backlog at the border.

Aid missions still face ‘constraints’
Cherevko said there have been “minor improvements” in approvals by the Israeli military for its movements and some “reduced waiting times” for trucks along the road.

But she said the aid missions are “still facing constraints.” Delays of military approval still mean trucks remain idle for long periods, and the military still restricts the routes that the trucks can take onto a single road, which makes it easy for people to know where the trucks are going, U.N officials say.

Antoine Renard, who directs the World Food Program’s operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, said Wednesday that it took nearly 12 hours to bring in 52 trucks on a 10-kilometer (6 mile) route.
“While we’re doing everything that we can to actually respond to the current wave of starvation in Gaza, the conditions that we have are not sufficient to actually make sure that we can break that wave,” he said.

Aid workers say the changes Israel has made in recent days are largely cosmetic. “These are theatrics, token gestures dressed up as progress,” said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead for Israel and the Palestinian territories.
“Of course, a handful of trucks, a few hours of tactical pauses and raining energy bars from the sky is not going to fix irreversible harm done to an entire generation of children that have been starved and malnourished for months now,” she said.
Breakdown of law and order
As desperation mounts, Palestinians are risking their lives to get food, and violence is increasing, say aid workers.

Muhammad Shehada, a political analyst from Gaza who is a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said aid retrieval has turned into the survival of the fittest. “It’s a Darwin dystopia, the strongest survive,” he said.

A truck driver said Wednesday that he has driven food supplies four times from the Zikim crossing on Gaza’s northern border. Every time, he said, crowds a kilometer long (0.6 miles) surrounded his truck and took everything on it after he passed the checkpoint at the edge of the Israeli military-controlled border zones.

He said some were desperate people, while others were armed. He said that on Tuesday, for the first time, some in the crowd threatened him with knives or small arms. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for his safety.

Ali al-Derbashi, another truck driver, said that during one trip in July armed men shot the tires, stole everything, including the diesel and batteries and beat him. “If people weren’t starving, they wouldn’t resort to this,” he said.

Israel has said it has offered the U.N. armed escorts. The U.N. has refused, saying it can’t be seen to be working with a party to the conflict – and pointing to the reported shootings when Israeli troops are present.
Uncertainty and humiliation
Israel hasn’t given a timeline for how long the measures it implemented this week will continue, heightening uncertainty and urgency among Palestinians to seize the aid before it ends.

Palestinians say the way it’s being distributed, including being dropped from the sky, is inhumane.

“This approach is inappropriate for Palestinians, we are humiliated,” said Rida, a displaced woman.

Momen Abu Etayya said he almost drowned because his son begged him to get aid that fell into the sea during an aid drop.

“I threw myself in the ocean to death just to bring him something,” he said. “I was only able to bring him three biscuit packets”.

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Associated Press reporters Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed to this report.

The deaths at aid sites come as international aid agencieswarn of dire hunger in the territory. A global initiative monitoring hunger said this week that a "worst-case scenario of famine" is unfolding in Gaza.

Hospital officials told ABC News that 14 Palestinians were killed near an aid center in Muraj. At another aid center in Netzarim, at least 13 people were killed, local hospitals told ABC News.

MORE: At least 37 killed, 270 injured while seeking aid in northern Gaza: Hospital
Deaths from a single major incident on Wednesday near an aid distribution site near Zikim rose to 58, the health ministry said, increasing the toll from the 37 it published on Wednesday. Another 579 were injured, the health ministry added. Later, the health ministry upped the overall death toll from all aid sites over the past day to 91.

On Thursday, the IDF released a statement on the shooting in Zikim, saying dozens of Gazans were gathered around aid trucks, in close proximity to its troops. According to the statement, IDF troops fired warning shots in the area in response to the threat posed to them. The IDF said it is not aware of any casualties as a result.

Israeli officials have long accused Hamas of seizing humanitarian goods and selling them to fund militant activity. Hamas denies those claims.

Israel on Sunday said it was beginning daily 10-hour "tactical pauses" in several densely populated areas to facilitate the movement of aid into the territory.

Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have recorded two new deaths in the past 24 hours due to malnutrition, according to the health ministry, bringing the total number to 159 people, including 90 children.