#gaza

#gaza

Driving the news: On Friday, President Trump said the U.S. is "in deep negotiations with Hamas" on a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. He stressed the U.S. message to Hamas is: "If you immediately release the hostages, good things are going to happen, but if you don't - it is going to be tough and nasty for you." Trump comments came as the Israeli military began flattening high-rise buildings in Gaza City that it claims are used by Hamas for military purposes. It marked the first major phase in Israel's new offensive to occupy Gaza City, which the government says is aimed at rooting out Hamas. The operation - backed by Trump - is expected to escalate in the coming days.

"It is horrifying what Israel is doing, what the State of Israel is doing, that's why I am here, we got to try to stop it. They have no strategy, no goal what should come after, and there are all the casualties, hundreds of soldiers that got killed, and every other day another soldier is killed, and I am not even talking about the hostages,"

As medical students in Gaza, we are taught how to save lives with nothing and how to make impossible decisions. It was my childhood dream to study medicine. I wanted to be a doctor to help people. I never imagined that I would study medicine not in a university, but in a hospital; not from textbooks, but from raw experience.

On Friday, the Israeli military ordered people in Mushtaha Tower, a 12-storey building located on the western side of Gaza City and surrounded by hundreds of makeshift tents, to evacuate, and later struck the building, claiming it was Hamas infrastructure and was used to plan and carry out operations against Israeli forces. list of 3 itemsend of list Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera's Hind Khoudary said the building was one of the biggest high-rises in the heart of Gaza City.

It contains 48 poems, each representing a kilogram of bodyweight, with the book literally thinning as the pages turn. The final poem declares: I die without a voice. / He skins me, flesh from bones. / Cuts me into forty-eight pieces. Distributes the parts in blue plastic bags / & throws them to the four corners. Unlike the Muses who buried Orpheus's dismembered limbs, the poem ends with the paramedic guessing which of these bags / contain my flesh.

Entire families are being killed together in their tents and shelters as the Israeli forces are targeting densely populated areas in Gaza. My brother was killed, struck inside his room. They killed him with his wife and children; they erased them all. No one is left, Sabreen al-Mabhuh, a displaced Palestinian, told Al Jazeera. Israeli grenades have also ignited tents at schools sheltering displaced families in Sheikh Radwan, Reuters reported.

The tribunal is being jointly chaired by the former Labour leader and is the kind of political initiative that will be a thorn in Keir Starmer's side as his party seeks to retain the backing of leftwing and Muslim voters at the next election. The tribunal, which will be livestreamed from London, has been framed to look at what has happened in Gaza over the past two years, Britain's legal responsibilities, any evidence of British covert support for Israel, and whether the government's actions match any legal obligations to prevent a genocide.

When it comes to hunger, Gaza is currently at the top of the pyramid: the UN has confirmed that half a million people are on the brink of death from starvation, something that has only happened three times in the last two decades and never for reasons strictly linked to political decisions. Beyond the horror provoked by witnessing the famine caused by the Israeli blockade of food supplies, 295 million people worldwide are threatened by hunger.

At least 21,000 children have been disabled in Gaza since Israel's genocidal war on the besieged enclave broke out nearly two years ago, a United Nations committee has said. The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) reported on Wednesday that about 40,500 children have suffered new war-related injuries during the war, leaving more than half of them disabled.

Israel launched strikes across the Gaza Strip on Monday, killing at least 31 people as it presses ahead with a major offensive in the territory's largest city, according to health officials. Leading genocide scholars, meanwhile, joined other rights groups in accusing Israel of genocide, allegations it vehemently rejects. Airstrikes and artillery shelling have echoed through Gaza City since Israel declared it a combat zone last week. On the city's outskirts and in the Jabaliya refugee camp, residents have observed explosive-laden robots demolishing buildings.

In Gaza, there is no escape from the reality of war, said Al Jazeera's Ibrahim al-Khalili, reporting from Gaza City, where exploding buildings and chaos reign and desperate people attempt to escape gunfire at food distribution sites. Added to these horrors is the ever-present sound of Israeli drones, he said, pausing to listen to the sound of a drone flying above.

Last Friday, the Feast of the Queenship of Mary, I woke at 5:30 a.m. At 6:15 a.m. I got out of bed. For about 20 minutes, I prayed. I knelt on a wooden prayer bench I made with a Jesuit brother named Bill Foster at Red Cloud Indian school 15 years ago. I prayed four traditional prayers: "God, I offer myself..." and "Take Lord, receive..." and "God, grant me..." The final prayer intoned the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Mariam Abu Dagga, a Palestinian journalist whose photos for the Associated Press and other news outlets captured destruction and misery in Gaza, died in an Israeli strike on Gaza's Nasser Hospital on Monday, along with at least 20 other people, including four other journalists, witnesses at the scene and the Gaza Health Ministry said.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday that president Donald Trump would chair a meeting on Gaza at the White House on Wednesday and added that Washington expected Israel's war in the Palestinian territory to be settled by the end of the year. The US state department separately said secretary of state Marco Rubio will meet Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar in Washington on Wednesday, which is expected to take place at 3.15pm ET (7.15pm UK time).

Four journalists, including Al Jazeera photographer Mohammad Salama, are among 19 people killed in an Israeli attack on Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza, according to the enclave's Ministry of Health. The ministry said on Monday that the victims were killed on the fourth floor of the hospital in a double-tap strike one missile hitting first, then another moments later as rescue crews arrived.

Gaza's Health Ministry said at least eight people were killed in an Israeli strike on the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. Journalists were reported to be among those killed, including those who had worked for Al Jazeera broadcaster and Reuters news agency. Al Jazeera later reported, citing the Gaza government's media office, that 14 people were killed in the strike in Khan Younis, including four journalists.