After being relentlessly decimated by bombs and starved of medical aid during Israel’s genocidal war, Gaza’s healthcare system remains on the brink of collapse despite nearly two months of a ceasefire.

Doctors in the war-ravaged, besieged enclave say they are struggling to save lives because Israel is not allowing the most essential medical supplies in. Sweets, mobile phones and even electric bicycles are permitted to enter, but antibiotics, IV solutions and surgical materials are banned.

“We are facing a situation in which 54 percent of essential medicines are unavailable, and 40 percent of the drugs for surgeries and emergency care – the very medications we rely on to treat the wounded – are missing,” Dr Munir al-Bursh, the director general of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, told Al Jazeera.

The ministry describes the shortages as unprecedented, stating that Israel is allowing just five trucks carrying medical supplies into Gaza a week. Three trucks deliver supplies to international organisations such as the UN and its partners, and just two to government-run hospitals.

That number is a tiny fraction of the aid Israel is obligated to supply Gaza under the ceasefire agreement – affecting other areas of Palestinian lives.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza continues unabated, with some 600 violations of the ceasefire in the two months.

“At least 600 trucks should be entering the Gaza Strip every single day, but what is entering is very little,” said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Gaza City.

“Cooking gas is only at 16 percent of what is needed; there is a shortage of shelters, tents, tarps and everything Palestinians need to shelter from the rain. We see Palestinians collecting wood, cartons and anything they can light up a fire with.”

People living with chronic illnesses are bearing the burden of such restrictions.

Naif Musbah, 68, who lives in the Nuseirat refugee camp, has colon cancer – and the supplies he needs to be treated are not available.

“I need colostomy bases and bags so I can attach them to the stomach and the device in order to be able to pass stools. They are not available, nor are the bases, and we end up soiling ourselves. The situation is extremely difficult. There’s also no gauze, cold packs, adhesive tape, gloves or disinfectant solution – nothing,” Musbah told Al Jazeera.

With no way to manage his condition, the sick Palestinian man says he feels as if the war has robbed him of his dignity.

Meanwhile, doctors have been improvising with what little they have left, while the families of patients search for simple items to make the lives of their loved ones easier – items, they say, that should not be this hard to find.

During Israel’s genocidal war – which has spanned more than two years – nearly all of Gaza’s hospitals and healthcare facilities were attacked, with at least 125 health facilities damaged, including 34 hospitals.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 1,700 healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses and paramedics, have also been killed in Israeli attacks.

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”.

___

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.

Netanyahu says Israel, US considering ‘alternative options’ to talks with Hamas

Despite insistence from Hamas that it is ready to work towards a deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel and the US are weighing ways to secure the release of captives in Gaza that do not depend on a negotiated agreement with the Palestinian group.

“Hamas is the obstacle to a hostage release deal,” he claimed. “Together with our US allies, we are now considering alternative options to bring our hostages home, end Hamas’s terror rule, and secure lasting peace for Israel and our region.”

‘We won’t give up,’ journalist in Gaza says

Al Jazeera has spoken with Noor al-Shana, an independent journalist in central Gaza’s Nuseirat, about the deepening crisis of malnutrition and starvation.

The crisis, she said, now affects everyone – and every aspect of life – in Gaza. “I have been facing a lot of struggles to find food,” even one meal per day, said al-Shana, who has four relatives who were killed at GHF-run aid sites while seeking food.

“It’s not easy to continue in this war,” she said. “But we won’t give up for people in Gaza, for our right to live in dignity, to live like people around the world.”

Palestinian factions reject Witkoff statement, call Hamas response ‘positive’

A coalition of Palestinian armed groups and political-military factions that are fighting against Israel in Gaza and the occupied West Bank says the Hamas response to Israel during the ceasefire talks came after multilateral consultations with the aim of reaching a deal.

“We condemn the statement made by Steve Witkoff, the American partner of the occupation, who held the negotiating resistance delegation responsible for the failure to reach an agreement, despite the great flexibility and high level of responsibility demonstrated” in Qatar, the Palestinian Resistance Factions said in a statement.

It stated its commitment to a deal “that will end the suffering and halt the bloodshed and massacres perpetrated by the enemy against our oppressed Palestinian people”.

Trump accuses Hamas of blocking ceasefire efforts

US President Donald Trump has said Hamas is not interested in a ceasefire and captive release deal, a day after his envoy said US negotiators are pulling out of talks in Qatar.

Speaking at the White House, Trump also said he believes Hamas fighters are going “to be hunted down”.

Hamas responded to the US’s comments yesterday with surprise, saying it had submitted a positive and constructive response to the latest proposal it was offered.

Gaza’s government demands ‘immediate end to famine’ imposed by Israel

Gaza’s Government Media Office has demanded an immediate end to the famine, the opening of all crossings, and the entry of baby formula as part of 500 aid trucks and 50 fuel trucks daily to stave off the “disaster” in Gaza.

“We demand the formation of an international commission to investigate the systematic starvation crime,” it said in a statement, also calling for the arrest of Israeli “war criminals”, including soldiers vacationing in or travelling to countries around the world.

“We hold the Israeli occupation, the US administration, and countries involved in genocide, such as Britain, Germany, and France, as well as the international community, fully responsible for this historic crime.”

The office confirmed the death toll from famine and malnutrition in Gaza has risen to 122, including 83 children.

Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) rejected the notion that there was famine in Gaza, but said the humanitarian aid situation “continues to be difficult and challenging”.

Armed wing of Hamas reports attack on Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza

The armed wing of Hamas, Qassam Brigades, says its fighters have targeted a Nimr armoured personnel carrier with Israeli soldiers in the southern Gaza Strip.

In a joint statement released on Tuesday, the NGOs said Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” open fire on civilians attempting to access food.

“Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” the statement said. “Orphaned children and caregivers are among the dead, with children harmed in over half of the attacks on civilians at these sites.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Gaza City, Palestinian civil society leader Amjad Shawa said the aid mechanism is not providing sufficient supplies for hungry families, and also pressures people to move towards southern Gaza.

“They are delivering tiny portions of food – a few energy bars, some oil, rice, and flour – barely enough to last two or three days,” he said. “This isn’t a proper meal. It risks deepening malnutrition in Gaza.”

Shawa argued that positioning the GHF distribution points mainly in southern and eastern Gaza reflects a deliberate strategy to drive people out of the north, aligning with wider Israeli military objectives. “It’s a calculated effort to push Palestinians further south,” he said.

Meanwhile, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said on Monday that there had been no contact from Israel for weeks. “We are determined to seek a ceasefire that will save our people, and we are working with mediators to open the crossings,” he said.

Food and aid were blocked from entering the Palestinian territory for more than two months, but a trickle of supplies has been allowed in over the last few weeks.

The UN said it cannot distribute much of the aid, due to the risk of looters and restrictions on movement.

"This is the worst feast that the Palestinian people have experienced because of the unjust war against the Palestinian people," said Kamel Emran after attending prayers in the southern city of Khan Younis.