Israel Is Pursuing Its Final Solution for Gaza

September 1, 2025

Israel Is Pursuing Its Final Solution for Gaza

By G. W. Castro

Forced Displacement of Gaza Strip Residents – January 2025 (by Jaber Jehad Badwan – Wikimedia Commons)

“The Israeli soldiers never stop. They continue killing, starving and humiliating us. They want to erase us and keep us silent. They want our voices buried along with our dead. They want things that happen in Gaza during the blackout to remain only in Gaza.”1

No end to the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza is in sight. There is a widening contradiction between Israel’s failed military objectives and its political imperative to continue the genocide indefinitely—to find a final solution for Gaza.2 Thus far, the political goal of ethnically cleansing Gaza in its entirety has won out over the Israeli military’s exhaustion and strategic calculus.

The Zionist state, in coordination with the US, has continued to attack not just Gaza but the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and initiated a 12-day war with Iran. The genocide in Gaza must thus be understood within the overall context of the imperialist strategy of de-development and counterinsurgency in the Arab-Iranian region, including the decades-long US campaigns to destabilize Syria and Iran, decapitate Hezbollah, and destroy Yemen’s Ansar Allah.3

This short essay cannot address all these aspects. A future article will attempt to pick up where this one leaves off, starting with the campaign of forced displacement underway in the West Bank. For now, we hope that a review of some of the facts will be enough to make these two points: Israel is bent on continuing the genocide and it is incumbent on every human being to do what they can to stop it. We must not look away.

Siege and starvation

Since 2007 Israel has subjected the Gaza Strip to a barbaric siege in which the population’s caloric intake and access to water, medicine, and other essentials were precisely limited to an absolute minimum.4 This siege has now been tightened to starvation levels.

“Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth,” according to UN experts.5 “The worst-case scenario of Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,” per an IPC alert on July 29, 2025, which noted that no aid whatsoever was allowed into the Strip between March 2 and May 19, while since May 19 only a “trickle” has been allowed in.6 The same day, UN agencies said that “more than one in three people (39 per cent)” is going days at a time without eating.7 “Nearly one in five children under five in Gaza City is now acutely malnourished,” though “these figures are likely an underestimation,” warned the WHO.8

An emergency physician who volunteered in Gaza said on July 28:

“[A] lot of the children have already passed the point of no return where their physiology has eroded to the point where even refeeding could potentially cause death itself. The gut lining has started to auto-digest and it will no longer have adequate absorptive capacity for water or for nutrition. Death is unfortunately imminent for probably thousands of children.”9

On August 22, the IPC officially declared that the Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City, is experiencing famine.10 This is a technical assessment, based on limited data and semi-arbitrary thresholds; it merely corroborates what Palestinians in Gaza have already been warning for months.11 The Gaza Government Media Office affirmed the IPC’s finding, but stated that “the reality in the Gaza Strip is more dangerous and catastrophic,” and re-issued its call to hold Israel accountable over its use of starvation as a weapon of war: “condoning this documented crime will only mean giving the Israeli occupation authorities the green light to repeat it.”12

Among the most depraved of US/Israel’s methods of murder is the system of “aid” death traps managed by the US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).13 Palestinians are instructed to gather at so-called “aid distribution sites” to receive meager amounts of foodstuffs, whereupon Israeli soldiers and American mercenaries open fire point-blank into the crowd.14 In one set of videos, American contractors are heard cheering as they fire bullets, stun grenades and pepper spray into a crowd of starving civilians.15 In another such massacre, “tanks opened heavy fire directly at [the crowds]. Some bullets passed through multiple people at once due to the density of the crowd and proximity of the tanks.”16 Meanwhile, soldiers watched and sniped people in the head: “Whoever stood up fell back dead.”17

People in Gaza have only two ways to access aid: either “going directly to one of four GHF distribution points,” or “intercept aid convoys en route to these distribution points.”18 Israel also continues to slaughter Palestinians gathering around these convoys. On July 20, as a UN convoy approached, “the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire.”19 Between May 27 (when the GHF began operating) and July 31, at least 1,373 Palestinians were killed while seeking food.20

Targeting and strangling of life-sustaining infrastructure

In April of this year, the UN estimated that 92 percent of residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.21 This barely scratches the surface of Israel’s extermination campaign, which has systematically taken aim at all infrastructure needed to sustain life.

Israel has massacred hundreds of Palestinians waiting in line at water distribution sites, which it bombed. These sites are mainly supplied via water trucks, which Israel has also bombed. Water desalination plants have either been bombed or had their power cut.22 Seventy-five percent of Gaza City’s water wells have been destroyed.23 As UN experts said on July 29, “Israel is using thirst as a weapon to kill Palestinians.”24

Israel has cut off Gaza’s electricity supply and is depriving it of fuel, crippling the operation of hospitals, bakeries, desalination plants, water pumps and sewage treatment plants—many of which Israel has already bombed.25

Israel continues to target medical professionals, bombing not just hospitals and clinics, but their residences and the tents where they and their families take refuge.26 The last fully-functioning hospital in Gaza, Al-Ahli, was bombed on April 13.

The blockade of fuel and medical and nutritional supplies, such as insulin, gauze, water purification tablets and baby formula, is having predictably murderous effects on Gazan birth outcomes.27 Birth rates are down 41 percent from 2022. From January to June 2025, 33 percent of babies were born prematurely, underweight, or requiring admission to neonatal intensive care.28 Doctors at Al-Shifa hospital said that crippling fuel shortages have led them to put several premature babies in single incubators.29 Dr. Kahlil Daqran said on July 31 that while supplies of baby formula run out, many mothers are often too malnourished to breastfeed their infants: “our children are being fed either water or ground hard legumes.”30

Terror, maiming and the dismembering of society

Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world.31 Ten children per day lose one or both of their legs. Roughly thirty-five thousand people are at risk of permanent or temporary hearing loss due to the explosions.32

There can be no doubt that the mass mutilation of Palestinians is deliberate. A surgeon working in Gaza reported that Israeli snipers were deliberately targeting “certain body parts on different days, such as the head, legs or genitals” near the GHF “aid” sites.33 These depravities echo the days of the Great March of Return in 2018, when Israeli snipers made a game out of who could strike the most knees of Palestinian protestors.34

In late June, a group of children were abducted by Israeli soldiers at a GHF “aid” site. They were detained, tortured, and interrogated for weeks, until their release on July 24.35 In his testimony one of the boys, who lost hearing in one ear due to the beatings, said that ten other children were still missing. Since then, more reports have emerged of Palestinians disappearing at these sites.36

On July 21, Israel bombed a kindergarten in Gaza City, a few days after bombing a school shelter in al-Bureij refugee camp.37 Israel has struck more than 500 schools in the Strip; 97 percent of schools are partially or completely damaged.38 The last standing university was destroyed more than a year ago.39

More journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 2023 than in WWI, WWII and the Vietnam War combined.40 As of July 25, 2025, Israel had murdered 232 journalists in Gaza.41 One of the remaining journalists, Anas Al-Sharif, struggled to hold back tears during a live broadcast on July 20, as he described the starvation conditions while people collapsed from hunger in Al-Shifa hospital’s courtyard.42 In response, the IDF mocked and threatened Al-Sharif, accusing him of shedding “crocodile tears” as part of a “staged performance.”43 Al-Sharif repeatedly warned that his life was in danger. A UN expert denounced Israel’s threats.44

On August 11, Israel murdered Al-Sharif and five other journalists.45 Seven people in total were martyred in Israel’s airstrike of the Al Jazeera journalist tent outside Al-Shifa hospital. Hours before his death, Al-Sharif wrote on social media: “And if this madness does not stop, there will be nothing left of Gaza but ruins, and the voice and sounds of its people will be lost, and history will record you as silent witnesses to a genocide that no one did anything to stop.”46 In his heart-wrenching will and final message, Al-Sharif wrote: “I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.”47

In the days since Al-Sharif was killed, Israel has murdered eight more journalists, bringing the total death count to 246 journalists as of August 25.48 It is clear to anyone half-paying attention—excluding, of course, the majority of the Western media outlets, which have met the live-streamed slaughter of their Palestinian colleagues with silence or with manufacturing of US/Israeli genocidal propaganda—that Israel is pursuing a calculated assassination campaign against Gaza’s journalists in order, as Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor put it, to “enforce a total media blackout” across Gaza.49 Before he was murdered by Israel on March 24, 2025, journalist Hossam Shabat wrote: “Language is important. Language makes genocide justifiable. A reason why we are still being bombed after 243 days is because of The New York Times and most Western media. … The New York Times has the blood of 15,000 Palestinian children on their hands.”50

Aid as spectacle, engineered “starvation and chaos”

Wadie Abu Al-Saud, a journalist in Gaza, was quoted on social media: “Airdropped aid is not relief but an insult wrapped in a parachute. Those who toss food from above practice arrogance, not solidarity, washing their hands of our blood with a false humanitarian spectacle. We reject this offensive scene, and we reject being treated like rats in a testing ground.”51

The scant amount of aid that has been airdropped into Gaza since the end of July—some of it moldy, the drops often injuring or crushing people to death—is a media stunt.52 Some 22,000 aid trucks have been waiting at the Gaza land crossings for months, barred entry by Israel.53 The handful of trucks that have recently been allowed to enter—less than 90 per day on average—is far below the 600 needed to stop the Israeli-enforced famine.54 Anything short of the full lifting of the aid blockade at the land crossings should be understood as public relations management of the starvation policy, not its cessation.

When trucks do come in, the aid is often looted by Israeli-backed gangs as part of Israel’s painstaking efforts to “engineer chaos” and dissolve the bonds of Palestinian society.55 “Even if a few trucks enter in very limited quantities, the occupation deliberately leaves these trucks vulnerable to looting by its affiliates, prevents their safe arrival to those entitled to them, and even kills anyone who attempts to secure these trucks,” said the Gaza Government Media Office.56 Euro-Med’s Maha Hussaini reported on August 13 that an Israeli airstrike targeted a group of security personnel who were trying to secure aid, killing 12 people.57 On August 26, the Government Media Office affirmed: “During the past five days (from Thursday to Monday), only 467 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip, out of an expected 3,000 trucks, and were looted and robbed in the shadow of deliberate security chaos, manufactured by the Israeli occupation as part of the policy of ‘engineering starvation and chaos’ aimed at striking the steadfastness of our Palestinian people.”

Summation

Zionism may be on its last legs, but it will keep killing as long as it persists.58 The US-led holocaust machine will allow Palestine no rest because, as Corinna Mullin writes, Palestine is the “hornet’s nest” of US imperialism—the locus of a world system that requires mass death to support the accumulation of wealth for a few.59

Sanctions on Israel are beyond overdue. Though some states have spoken in favor of such measures, few—Petro’s Colombia being a relevant counterexample, as well as 12 countries recently convened by the Hague Group in Bogotá—have yet followed this with concrete action.60 As Joseph Massad, Ali Abunimah and Julia Kassem have argued, the symbolic “recognition” of a Palestinian state by some Western leaders since the start of the genocide is a distraction—a PR stunt to “pose as champions of Palestinian statehood” under the fake guise of a peace process while doing nothing to stop the genocide (Abunimah), and indeed while bolstering Israel’s status as a racist ethnostate.61 Yemen remains the only country on Earth to have upheld, through a military blockade, its duty under international law to prevent acts of genocide by all means within its power.62

For those of us not in Palestine, every student or labor victory—witness the actions of dock workers in Morocco, France, Italy, and Greece; the Mask Off Maersk campaign; the student wins in Dublin, San Francisco and Massachusetts; the international flotilla movement and allies on the ground in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, and Libya—is another blow to the crumbling Zionist project.63 Now is not the time for paralysis or despair.

—

G. W. C. is a Physics student and organizer in Berkeley, California. Thank you to D. W., C. W., A. A., E. B. and A. I. for the helpful edits and feedback on this piece.

Notes

  1. Razan Abu Salem, “Butchered amid a blackout,” The Electronic Intifada, July 24, 2025, https://electronicintifada.net/content/butchered-amid-blackout/50831.
  2. Yahya Dbouk, “Netanyahu vs. Army: Israeli Leadership Crisis Explained,” Al-Akhbar English, August 6, 2025, https://en.al-akhbar.com/news/netanyahu-vs–army–israeli-leadership-divided-over-gaza-war; Abdaljawad Omar, “The War Without End in Gaza,” Mondoweiss, August 8, 2025, https://mondoweiss.net/2025/08/the-war-without-end-in-gaza; “Israel: Former MP invokes Hitler in call to expel Gaza’s ‘Islamo-Nazi’ population,” Middle East Eye, June 16, 2024, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-former-knesset-member-moshe-feiglin-invokes-hitler-while-calling-gaza-resettlement.
  3. Max Ajl, “Palestine’s Great Flood: Part I,” Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy 13, no. 1 (2024): 62-88, https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760241228157; Max Ajl, “Palestine’s Great Flood: Part II,” Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy 13, no. 2 (2024): 187-217, https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760241253788; Ali Kadri, Arab Development Denied: Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment (Anthem Frontiers of Global Political Economy and Development , 2015).
  4. “‘Red Lines’ presentation: New details about the old policy, while the current policy remains shrouded in secrecy,” Gisha, October 17, 2012, https://gisha.org/en/red-lines-presentation-new-details-about-the-old-policy-while-the-current-policy-remains-shrouded-in-secrecy; “New Details of Israel’s Gaza Food Consumption ‘Red Lines’ Presentation,” Jadaliyya, Oct 23, 2012, https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/27266. See also “The Gaza Diet,” infographic, Visualizing Palestine, accessed August 30, 2025, https://visualizingpalestine.org/visual/the-gaza-diet.
  5. United Nations (UN), “Gaza is the ‘hungriest place on earth’, as Israel continues stranglehold on aid,” UN News, May 30, 2025, https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/05/1163861.
  6. “IPC Alert: Worst-case scenario of Famine unfolding in the Gaza Strip,” Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), July 29, 2025, https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/countries-in-focus-archive/issue-133/en.
  7. “UN agencies warn key food and nutrition indicators exceed famine thresholds in Gaza,” UN Children’s Fund and World Food Programme, July 29, 2025, https://www.wfp.org/news/un-agencies-warn-key-food-and-nutrition-indicators-exceed-famine-thresholds-gaza.
  8. “Malnutrition rates reach alarming levels in Gaza, WHO warns,” World Health Organization, July 27, 2025, https://www.who.int/news/item/27-07-2025-malnutrition-rates-reach-alarming-levels-in-gaza–who-warns.
  9. Akbar Shahid Ahmed, “Past ‘The Point Of No Return’: Doctor Gives On-The-Ground Insight Into Starvation In Gaza” HuffPost, July 28, 2025, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gaza-starvation-doctor-israel-palestinians_n_6886aff0e4b04be5e46823d6.
  10. Conditions in the North Gaza Governorate are estimated to be similar or worse, but limited data and access to the area prevented the classification; Rafah Governorate “was not analyzed given indications that it is largely depopulated;” and between mid-August and the end of September, famine is projected to expand to the Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis Governorates. The diagnosis of “Famine”—or IPC Phase 5, the highest on the IPC Acute Food Insecurity scale—“with reasonable evidence” means that at least two of three thresholds have been clearly reached, and analysts assess from the broader evidence that the third threshold has likely been met: one in five households are absolutely without food access, 30 per cent of children are suffering severe acute malnutrition, and non-trauma death rates are two per ten thousand per day or higher. Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Global Famine Review Committee, “Gaza Strip,” August 22, 2025, https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/countries-in-focus-archive/issue-134/en. On the wholesale destruction of Rafah, see Sanad Verification Agency and Federica Marsi, “Israel increased Rafah demolition to prepare for Gaza forced transfer plan,” Al Jazeera, July 13, 2025, https://aje.io/0v2pf4; Meron Rapoport and Oren Ziv, “‘Render it unusable’: Israel’s mission of total urban destruction,” +972 Magazine, May 15, 2025, https://www.972mag.com/israel-gaza-total-urban-destruction; Tareq S. Hajjaj, “Rafah no longer exists. This is part of Israel’s plan to permanently occupy Gaza.,” Mondoweiss, April 24, 2025, https://mondoweiss.net/2025/04/rafah-no-longer-exists-this-is-part-of-israels-plan-to-permanently-occupy-gaza.
  11. Alex de Waal, “How to Measure Famine,” London Review of Books 47, no. 2 (2025), https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n02/alex-de-waal/how-to-measure-famine.
  12. Government Media Office, Gaza Strip – Palestine (@mediagovps), “Press Release No. (940) issued by the Government Media Office,” Telegram, August 22, 2025, https://t.me/mediagovps/3827 and https://t.me/mediagovps/3828.
  13. “This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing.” Médecins Sans Frontières, August 7, 2025, https://www.msf.org/not-aid-orchestrated-killing; Tareq S. Hajjaj, “Palestinians call U.S.-run aid sites in Gaza ‘death traps.’ They still go because there’s no alternative.” Mondoweiss, June 13, 2025, https://mondoweiss.net/2025/06/palestinians-call-u-s-run-aid-sites-in-gaza-death-traps-they-still-go-because-theres-no-alternative/; “UN experts call for immediate dismantling of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, August 5, 2025, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/08/un-experts-call-immediate-dismantling-gaza-humanitarian-foundation.
  14. “Starving civilians in northern Gaza lured to aid sites and executed, revealing brutal pattern of Israel’s genocide,” Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, July 20, 2025, https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6795; Nir Hasson, Yaniv Kubovich and Bar Peleg, “‘It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid,” Haaretz, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-27/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-soldiers-ordered-to-shoot-deliberately-at-unarmed-gazans-waiting-for-humanitarian-aid/00000197-ad8e-de01-a39f-ffbe33780000; Anthony Aguilar, interview, Democracy Now!, July 29, 2025, hosted by Amy Goodman, https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/29/anthony_aguilar_ghf_war_crimes.
  15. Julia Frankel and Sam Mednick, “US contractors say their colleagues are firing live ammo as Palestinians seek food in Gaza,” The Associated Press, July 2, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/palestinians-israel-gaza-contractors-aid-distribution-fe27f3ea83e06a09d66424eed7a5d56f.
  16. “Euro-Med calls for prosecution of Trump and immediate shutdown of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation over massacres at aid points,” Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, July 12, 2025, https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6784.
  17. Tareq S. Hajjaj, “Gazan aid-seekers ‘sniped in the head’ at GHF distribution center, witnesses say,” Mondoweiss, July 12, 2025, https://mondoweiss.net/2025/07/gazan-aid-seekers-sniped-in-the-head-at-ghf-distribution-center-witnesses-say.
  18. Khaled Al-Qershali, “Deadly aid points and desperate hunger define daily life,” The Electronic Intifada, August 4, 2025, https://electronicintifada.net/content/deadly-aid-points-and-desperate-hunger-define-daily-life/50847.
  19. “Gaza Convoy Incident Statement,” World Food Programme, July 20, 2025, https://www.wfp.org/news/gaza-convoy-incident-statement; “Humanitarian Situation Update #307 | Gaza Strip,” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, July 23, 2025, https://www.ochaopt.org/content/humanitarian-situation-update-307-gaza-strip.
  20. “Killings of Palestinians seeking food in Gaza continue as starvation deepens,” UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, July 31, 2025, https://reliefweb.int/node/4168342.
  21. United Nations, “Gaza: Destruction of vital lifting gear halts search for thousands buried under rubble,” UN News, April 22, 2025, https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/04/1162491.
  22. Melanie Lidman and Samy Magdy, “Israel cuts off electricity supply to Gaza, affecting a desalination plant producing drinking water,” The Associated Press, March 10, 2025, https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2025/israel-cuts-off-electricity-supply-to-gaza-affecting-a-desalination-plant-producing-drinking-water.
  23. Ahmed Dremly, “‘Total paralysis’: Gaza municipalities overwhelmed by Israeli destruction and blockade,” Middle East Eye, 5 May 2025, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/total-paralysis-gaza-municipalities-overwhelmed-israeli-destruction-and-blockade.
  24. Tareq S. Hajjaj, “Israel isn’t just killing Palestinians seeking food aid. It’s killing people waiting in line for water, too.” Mondoweiss, July 15, 2025, https://mondoweiss.net/2025/07/israel-isnt-just-killing-palestinians-seeking-food-aid-its-killing-people-waiting-in-line-for-water-too; “Gaza residents share fears of thirst after Israel destroys water resources,” video, posted April 10, 2025, by Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera NewsFeed, https://aje.io/lvqnpj; “‘Thirst as a weapon’: UN experts condemn Israel’s deliberate dehydration and starvation of the Palestinian people,” UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, July 29, 2025, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/07/thirst-weapon-un-experts-condemn-israels-deliberate-dehydration-and.
  25. Asem Alnabih, “A life without fuel,” The Electronic Intifada, July 16, 2025, https://electronicintifada.net/content/life-without-fuel/50804; Chantal Da Silva, “Gaza babies’ lives at risk as Israel blocks fuel used in hospitals,” NBC News, July 11, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/world/gaza/gaza-israel-babies-fuel-hospital-at-risk-blockade-rcna218201; “Joint statement by OCHA, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNOPS, UNRWA, WFP and WHO on fuel shortage in Gaza,” United Nations Children’s Fund, July 12, 2025, https://reliefweb.int/node/4164732; “Fact Sheet: Gaza’s Deepening Water Crisis Amid the Ongoing Genocide,” Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, April 16, 2025, https://mezan.org/en/post/46688; “Water crisis takes toll on Gaza’s children,” United Nations Children’s Fund, August 6, 2024, https://www.unicef.org/stories/water-crisis-takes-toll-gazas-children; “PWA: Gaza is dying of thirst amid systematic Israeli attacks on water infrastructure,” Palestinian News & Information Agency (WAFA), https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/157203; Ibtisam Mahdi, “Bombing plants, severing pipelines: Israel pushes Gaza water crisis to the brink,” +972 Magazine, April 23, 2025, https://www.972mag.com/gaza-water-crisis-on-the-brink; “Water Authority: 85% of water and sewage facilities in Gaza damaged due to Israeli aggression,” WAFA, October 3, 2024, https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/149910.
  26. “Killing of medical professionals in Gaza,” UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, July 16, 2025, https://reliefweb.int/node/4165542; Rushdi Abualouf, “Israeli air strike destroys part of last fully functional hospital in Gaza City,” BBC, April 13, 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr7l123zy5o; “Video: Israel bombs Gaza clinic as blood banks run dry,” video, posted August 6, 2025, by Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera NewsFeed, https://aje.io/tc42lh; “Humanitarian Situation Update #304 | Gaza Strip,” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, July 9, 2025, https://www.ochaopt.org/content/humanitarian-situation-update-304-gaza-strip; “‘Drone followed Gaza colleague home and wiped out his family’, says British doctor,” Sky News, August 2, 2025, https://news.sky.com/story/drone-followed-gaza-colleague-home-and-wiped-out-his-family-says-british-doctor-13405332.
  27. De Vogli et al., “Break the selective silence on the genocide in Gaza,” The Lancet 406, no. 10504 (2025), 688 – 689, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01541-7; Nour Abuaisha and Mohammad Sio, “Fuel shortage forces 6 Gaza health facilities to shut down,” Anadolu Agency, July 22, 2025, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/fuel-shortage-forces-6-gaza-health-facilities-to-shut-down/3638968; “Israel’s Extreme Restrictions on Medical Supplies Entering Gaza Have Caused Death and Anguish: New Study,” Physicians for Human Rights, July 9, 2025, https://phr.org/news/israels-extreme-restrictions-on-medical-supplies-entering-gaza-have-caused-death-and-anguish-new-study; Eman Alhaj Ali, “Gaza’s parents fight to keep their babies alive amid Israel’s cruel blockade of baby formula and medical aid,” The New Arab, July 1, 2025, https://www.newarab.com/features/gazas-babies-starve-israeli-blockade-cuts-baby-formula.
  28. “UNFPA warns of catastrophic birth outcomes in Gaza amid starvation, psychological trauma and collapsing healthcare,” United Nations Population Fund, July 23, 2025, https://palestine.unfpa.org/en/news/unfpa-warns-catastrophic-birth-outcomes-gaza-amid-starvation-psychological-trauma-and.
  29. Ali Sawafta, Mahmoud Issa and Hussam El Masri, “Gaza doctors cram babies into incubators as fuel shortage threatens hospitals,” Reuters, July 10, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/fuel-shortage-threatens-turn-gazas-biggest-hospital-into-graveyard-doctors-say-2025-07-09/
  30. “Palestinian newborns starving in Gaza as infant formula runs out,” Al Jazeera, July 31, 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/31/palestinian-newborns-starving-in-gaza-as-infant-formula-runs-out
  31. Sarah Ferguson and Tong Su, “UNICEF Delivers Wheelchairs for Gaza’s Children,” UNICEF USA, January 22, 2025, https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/unicef-delivers-wheelchairs-gazas-children.
  32. “Protection Analysis Update: Risks and barriers faced by persons with disabilities and older persons,” Global Protection Cluster, July 15, 2025, https://reliefweb.int/node/4165267.
  33. Lilia Sebouai, “‘Unprecedented’ malnutrition surges in Gaza,” The Telegraph, July 17, 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/malnutrition-surge-gaza-snipers-target-heads-legs-genitals.
  34. Hilo Glazer, “‘42 Knees in One Day’: Israeli Snipers Open Up About Shooting Gaza Protesters,” Haaretz, March 6, 2020, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shooting-gaza-protesters/0000017f-f2da-d497-a1ff-f2dab2520000.
  35. Nora Barrows-Friedman, “Israel abducted starving children at Gaza ‘aid’ sites, then tortured them,” The Electronic Intifada, August 1, 2025, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israel-abducted-starving-children-gaza-aid-sites-then-tortured-them; “Israeli Forces’ Arrest and Torture of Starved Children Seeking Food is a Heinous Act Demanding Accountability,” Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, July 27, 2025, https://pchrgaza.org/?p=36922.
  36. “Palestinians seeking aid abducted as Israel uses starvation as a tool of genocide,” Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, August 5, 2025, http://mezan.org/en/post/46748; Emma Farge, “Hundreds of UN staff pressure rights chief to call Gaza a genocide, letter shows,” Reuters, August 28, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hundreds-un-staff-pressure-rights-chief-call-gaza-genocide-letter-shows-2025-08-28/.
  37. Nora Barrows-Friedman, “Israel shoots at heads of children seeking aid,” The Electronic Intifada, July 25, 2025, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israel-shoots-heads-children-seeking-aid.
  38. “Gaza: Israeli School Strikes Magnify Civilian Peril,” Human Rights Watch, August 7, 2025, https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/08/07/gaza-israeli-school-strikes-magnify-civilian-peril.
  39. “UN experts deeply concerned over ‘scholasticide’ in Gaza,” UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, April 18, 2024, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/04/un-experts-deeply-concerned-over-scholasticide-gaza.
  40. Nick Turse, “News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World,” Watson Insititute for International & Public Affairs, Brown University, April 1, 2025, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2025/Turse_Costs%20of%20War_The%20Reporting%20Graveyard%204-2-25.pdf.
  41. “Israel kills 232 journalists in Gaza since start of its genocide,” Middle East Monitor, July 25, 2025, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250725-death-toll-of-journalists-in-gaza-rises-to-232-as-israeli-attacks-persist/
  42. Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0), “‘Keep going, Anas, you are our voice’…,” Twitter, July 20, 2025, https://x.com/AnasAlSharif0/status/1946895044142567913; Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0), “I couldn’t hold back my emotions…,” Twitter, July 20, 2025, https://x.com/AnasAlSharif0/status/1946889718274064411.
  43. Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0), “Important – Please share and tag all press freedom and human rights organizations…,” Twitter, July 23, 2025, https://x.com/AnasAlSharif0/status/1948118003934982362.
  44. “Gaza: UN expert denounces serious threats by Israeli army against Al Jazeera correspondent,” UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, July 31, 2025, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/07/gaza-un-expert-denounces-serious-threats-israeli-army-against-al-jazeera.
  45. “Anas al-Sharif among four Al Jazeera journalists killed by Israel in Gaza,” Al Jazeera, August 10, 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/10/al-jazeera-journalist-anas-al-sharif-killed-in-israeli-attack-in-gaza-city; Nora Barrows-Friedman, “Israel hunts, then kills, Anas Al-Sharif in Gaza City,” The Electronic Intifada, August 15, 2025, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israel-hunts-then-kills-anas-al-sharif-gaza-city.
  46. Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0), “To Whom It May Concern, The occupation is now openly threatening a full-scale invasion of Gaza…,” Twitter, August 10, 2025, https://x.com/AnasAlSharif0/status/1954632394608164917. Note that Twitter/X mis-translates this as “If this madness does not end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.” The author and editors found that the quotation included in the main text is more faithful to the original Arabic.
  47. Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0), “This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice…,” Twitter, August 10, 2025, https://x.com/AnasAlSharif0/status/1954670507128914219. NB: Anas Al-Sharif drafted the post in April 2025.
  48. Government Media Office, Gaza Strip – Palestine (@mediagovps), “Press Release No. (948) issued by the Government Media Office,” Telegram, August 25, 2025, https://t.me/mediagovps/3845; “‘Israel’ kills reporter Hassan Douhan in Gaza, death toll rises to 246,” Al Mayadeen English, August 25, 2025, https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/-israel–kills-reporter-hassan-douhan-in-gaza–death-toll-ri; Nora Barrows-Friedman, “Israel targets journalists, rescuers in double-tap strike on Gaza hospital,” The Electronic Intifada, August 30, 2025, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israel-targets-journalists-rescuers-double-tap-strike-gaza-hospital.
  49. “Killing of five journalists in Gaza, a horrific crime to obscure truth and pave way for major massacre,” Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, August 11, 2025, https://euromedmonitor.org/a/6817; David Cronin, “Gaza’s journalists get massacred, Western press mollycoddles Israel,” The Electronic Intifada, August 29, 2025, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/gazas-journalists-get-massacred-western-press-mollycoddles-israel; Palestinian Youth Movement and Writers Against the War On Gaza, “Statement from PYM & WAWOG on the Murder of Anas al-Sharif,” August 12, 2025, https://writersagainstthewarongaza.com/statements/media-killed-anas-al-sharif.
  50. Hossam Shabat (@HossamShabat), “Language is important. Language makes genocide justifiable…,” Twitter, June 6, 2024, https://x.com/HossamShabat/status/1798745361936204117;  “Israel kills Al Jazeera and Palestine Today journalists in separate attacks in Gaza,” Middle East Eye, March 24, 2025, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/al-jazeera-correspondent-killed-after-israeli-forces-shoot-car.
  51. This quote was posted on Hossam Shabat’s (@HossamShabat) Twitter/X account on July 27, 2025, https://x.com/HossamShabat/status/1949391353860796518. The account has been managed by Shabat’s team after he was murdered by Israel.
  52. “Why Israel’s airdrops on Gaza are just an illusion of aid,” Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, August 12, 2025, https://euromedmonitor.org/a/6820; “Gaza family forced to sift moldy flour filled with worms to survive,” video, posted Jul 4, 2025, by Roya News English, YouTube, https://youtu.be/g58IHSzv0sA?si=wRXIpszsRTEsvRh3; Edna Mohamed et al., “Updates: Israeli blockade on fuel endangering 100 premature babies in Gaza,” Al Jazeera, August 6, 2025, https://aje.io/727mvj?update=3875555; Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0), “Another tragedy in Gaza: An airdrop box, struck a starving child on the head, killing him instantly.,” Twitter, August 9, 2025, https://x.com/AnasAlSharif0/status/1954152369911906681; Drop Site News (@DropSiteNews), “Nurse Killed by Airdrop in Central Gaza Just Days After Warning of the Danger,” Twitter, August 4, 2025, https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1952357472636703025; Ahmed Aziz, “Gaza genocide: Airdropped aid package kills Palestinian man,” Middle East Eye, August 19, 2025, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/entire-body-broken-airdropped-aid-kills-elderly-palestinian-so-called-safe-zone; Government Media Office, Gaza Strip – Palestine (@mediagovps), “Press Release No. (925) Issued by the Government Media Office: The number of victims of erroneous airdrops of aid has risen to 23 martyrs and 124 wounded since the beginning of the genocide…,” Telegram, August 9, 2025, https://t.me/mediagovps/3793.
  53. Government Media Office, Gaza Strip – Palestine (@mediagovps), “Press Release No. (917) Issued by the Government Media Office,” Telegram, August 3, 2025, https://t.me/mediagovps/3781; Nora Barrows-Friedman, “Airdrops kill starving people with rotten food,” The Electronic Intifada, August 8, 2025, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/airdrops-kill-starving-people-rotten-food.
  54. Government Media Office, Gaza Strip – Palestine (@mediagovps), “Press Release No. (949) Issued by the Government Media Office,” Telegram, August 26, 2025, https://t.me/mediagovps/3847; Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) “Last night, the Israeli army began airdropping international aid over #Gaza after nearly 5 months of a suffocating blockade…,” Twitter, July 27, 2025, https://x.com/EuroMedHR/status/1949457585209512017.
  55. Eman Basher and Izzedin Shahin, “Starvation as a Weapon: Gaza’s Slow Death Under Siege,” Institute for Palestine Studies (blog), August 5, 2025, https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1657671; Tareq S. Hajjaj, “Israel claims it’s allowing aid into Gaza, but its ‘engineering of chaos’ ensures the aid doesn’t reach starving Palestinians,” Mondoweiss, August 7, 2025, https://mondoweiss.net/2025/08/israel-claims-its-allowing-aid-into-gaza-but-its-engineering-of-chaos-ensures-the-aid-doesnt-reach-starving-palestinians; Asa Winstanley, “Why Israel is arming ISIS-linked gangs in Gaza,” The Electronic Intifada Podcast, June 19, 2025, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/why-israel-arming-isis-linked-gangs-gaza;

    Eric Tlozek and Chérine Yazbeck, “Israel said Hamas was looting aid — then it armed the gangs who were actually stealing it,” ABC News, July 13, 2025, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-14/gaza-aid-looting-gangs-yasser-abu-shabab-israel-netanyahu-hamas/105501926.

  56. Government Media Office, Gaza Strip – Palestine (@mediagovps), “Press Release No. (935) Issued by the Government Media Office,” Telegram, August 17, 2025, https://t.me/mediagovps/3787.
  57. Maha Hussaini (@MahaGaza), “Breaking (Initial): An Israeli airstrike has just targeted a group of security personnel in northern #Gaza who were trying to secure aid, killing around seven people…,” Twitter, August 13, 2025, https://x.com/MahaGaza/status/1955565176574406883.
  58. Ilan Pappé, interview by Jakob Reimann, etos.media, last modified July 8, 2025, https://etosmedia.de/politik/history-will-not-forgive-ilan-pappe-on-gaza-the-end-of-zionism-and-the-wests-complicity; Shir Hever, interview, The Electronic Intifada, July 12, 2025, hosted by Nora Barrows-Friedman and Ali Abunimah, https://youtu.be/O1QtqzR3dqE?si=kkHyWSKipezt07UW.
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  61. Joseph Massad, “Instead of recognising ‘Palestine’, countries should withdraw recognition of Israel,” Middle East Eye, 30 May 2024, https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/instead-recognising-palestine-countries-should-withdraw-recognition-israel; Ali Abunimah, “Breaking news and analysis on day 664 of the Gaza genocide | The Electronic Intifada,” video, posted July 31, 2025, by The Electronic Intifada, YouTube, 01:03:02, https://www.youtube.com/live/qfaC1UJ7Mww?si=u6SQWXDc2LhDOqz9&t=3782; Julia Kassem, “European gestures towards a Palestinian state ultimately serve ‘Israel’,” Al Mayadeen English, August 8, 2025, https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/european-gestures-towards-a-palestinian-state-ultimately-ser.
  62. Craig Mokhiber, “Yemen is acting responsibly to stop genocide and the U.S. is bombing them for it,” Mondoweiss, April 1, 2025, https://mondoweiss.net/2025/04/yemen-is-acting-responsibly-to-stop-genocide-and-the-u-s-is-bombing-them-for-it; “Yemen reimposes Red Sea blockade on Israeli shipping as Gaza truce deal falters,” The Cradle, March 12, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles-id/29351; “Gaza/Palestine: States have a Duty to Prevent Genocide,” International Commission of Jurists, 2023, accessed August 15, 2025, https://www.icj.org/resource/gaza-occupied-palestinian-territory-states-have-a-duty-to-prevent-genocide.
  63. Basma El Atti, “Morocco’s powerful port workers union seeks to block Maersk’s ‘military shipment’ to Israel,” The New Arab, April 15, 2025, https://www.newarab.com/news/morocco-port-workers-block-maersks-arms-shipment-israel; “French dock workers in Marseille block shipment of military material bound for Israel,” France 24, June 5, 2025, https://f24.my/BE2T; Collettivo Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali, “Primo grande risultato della lotta dei portuali francesi in coordinamento con i nostri…,” Facebook, June 5, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/CalpGe/posts/pfbid0EvMcyrc7cTRKHThuwYE3LGmGJAoJSno12JTffqpfcvMZZWYKBG2UkBEWD42dNvQTl; “Athens dockworkers block ammunition shipment bound for Israel,” Peoples Dispatch, October 18, 2024, https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/10/18/athens-dockworkers-block-ammunition-shipment-bound-for-israel; “Pro-Palestine activists declare victory after shipping giant Maersk divests from Israeli settlements,” Peoples Dispatch, June 23, 2025, https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/06/23/pro-palestine-activists-declare-victory-after-shipping-giant-maersk-divests-from-israeli-settlements; Kay Williams, Emily Sheehan and Aoibhinn Clancy, “Trinity College vote to fully divest from Israeli institutions,” Trinity News, June 4, 2025, https://trinitynews.ie/2025/06/trinity-college-vote-to-fully-divest-from-israeli-institutions; Matthew Green, “USF Divests From Defense Companies Tied to Israel After Pressure From Students,” KQED, May 2, 2025, https://www.kqed.org/news/12038385/usf-divests-from-defense-companies-tied-to-israel-after-pressure-from-students; Coalition Against Apartheid (@m1t_caa), “The MIT Coalition for Palestine and BDS Boston are pleased to announce…,” Instagram, April 24, 2025, https://www.instagram.com/p/DI18D_GuE_H/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link; “‘Largest civilian flotilla in history’ to set sail for Gaza,” The Cradle, August 5, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles/largest-civilian-flotilla-in-history-to-set-sail-for-gaza; “Thousands join Tunisian-led aid convoy to Gaza after Madleen seizure,” The Cradle, June 9, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles-id/31273.