Updates: Gaza starves under Israeli blockade, US says ceasefire in question

British public opinion about what is unfolding in Gaza is ahead of political opinion at the moment, according to Chris Wilkins, a former director of strategy for former British Prime Minister Theresa May.

He said a report by the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee that deals with ways of contributing to ending the crisis in Gaza reflects that.

“What the report highlights, amongst many other things, is how powerless British politics is in this situation. It says that Israel isn’t listening, and that is true,” he told Al Jazeera from Surrey.

Watch below for more of his analysis:

The live page is now closed.

United States special envoy Steve Witkoff has said he is cutting short talks aimed at reaching a truce in Israel’s war on Gaza. Read more here.

If you want to read more about how rights advocates say Trump and Congress must ‘listen’ to Americans and oppose Israeli atrocities, click here.

“They bombed our classrooms, our wards, even our patients – but I refuse to stop treating the injured”, writes Lina Ghassan Abu Zayed. Read here.

You can find all our coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict here.

This live page will be closing soon. Here are today’s top developments:

• The number of people killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since this morning has climbed to 62, including at least 19 Palestinians who were attempting to collect desperately needed aid.
• The Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, reports 20 people killed and at least 140 injured over the past 24 hours.
• French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged that France will formally recognise the State of Palestine in September during the UN General Assembly.
• UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said he will speak with French, German and Italian leaders on Friday to “discuss what we can do urgently to stop the killing and get people the food they desperately need” in Gaza.
• US envoy Steve Witkoff has announced that Trump-era negotiators are being withdrawn from Qatar, blaming Hamas for the breakdown in ceasefire talks. Hamas has not yet responded.
• International criticism of Israel’s blockade of Gaza continues to intensify, as malnourished Palestinians search for food for themselves and their starving children.

The shortages of all of life’s essentials in Gaza have hit the arts community as hard as the rest of its society.

Now, artists are destroying their work in order to fuel fires.

Watch below for more:

Spain has strongly condemned a vote by Israel’s parliament in favour of annexing the West Bank, warning that it “disregards the fundamental principles and provisions of international law”.

In a sharply worded statement, Spain’s Foreign Ministry said the motion, while nonbinding, “undermines the basis for the implementation of a two-State solution” and ignores longstanding commitments made since the Madrid Conference and Oslo Process.

Madrid also renewed its “condemnation of the expansion of settlements” and called for “the release of hostages, the cessation of hostilities and mass entry of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip”.

Reaffirming its diplomatic position, Spain declared its “firm support for the two-State solution as the only way to achieve peace”.

Earlier, we reported that Israel’s parliament had approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank, with Knesset lawmakers voting 71-13 in favour of the motion.

US ambassador to Turkiye, Tom Barrack, has just confirmed a meeting took place between Israeli and Syrian officials in Paris.

“Our goal was dialogue and de-escalation, and we accomplished precisely that,” Barrack said in a post on X after the talks. “All parties reiterated their commitment to continuing these efforts.”

While Barrack declined to name participants, Israeli media reported that Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer was expected to meet with him, alongside Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani.

The US State Department announced it is now considering “alternative options” for Gaza after Special Representative Steve Witkoff left negotiations in Qatar, accusing Hamas of not “acting in good faith”.

Hear the remarks below:

The decision to leave Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar gives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “cover to continue starving, bombing and ethnically cleansing everyone in Gaza”, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says.

“Steve Witkoff knows that Netanyahu and his cabinet of openly racist, genocidal fascists do not want to permanently stop the genocide in Gaza, even if carrying on means leaving more hostages to die in Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign or to starve to death alongside the Palestinian people,” CAIR Deputy Executive Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement.

“Yet whenever push comes to shove in recent negotiations, Mr Witkoff has parroted the Israeli government’s line and given Netanyahu cover to continue the genocide.”

As we’ve been reporting, Witkoff announced earlier that US negotiators were heading home from the Qatari capital, Doha, after Hamas presented its response to the latest ceasefire proposal. The US special envoy blamed the Palestinian group for the failure to reach a deal.

But CAIR’s Mitchell said Washington – which provides Israel with at least $3.8bn in military aid annually – should be exerting pressure on Israel to end its war on Gaza.

“Until the Israeli government’s enablers in the United States, Europe and the Arab world use their military, economic, diplomatic and financial influence to force a ceasefire on the Netanyahu government, no one should expect its genocide to stop,” he said.

The United Nations has issued a stark warning over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza while urging immediate and large-scale access to aid.

“The hunger crisis in Gaza has never been so dire,” the UN said in a post on X. “Deadly malnutrition among children is reaching catastrophic levels. Humanitarian aid at scale is urgently needed. Safe, unrestricted access into Gaza must be granted to save lives.”

The warning comes amid mounting international concern over the deteriorating conditions in the besieged enclave, where ongoing Israeli bombardment and restrictions on aid access have left families struggling to find food and medicine.

UNICEF executive director, Catherine Russell, said the situation facing children in Gaza was intolerable.

“Horrific images of starving children in Gaza demand action,” she said. “UNICEF is getting three truckloads of baby milk into Gaza as we speak. But it’s far too little for thousands of children at risk of starving to death.”

The military did not provide any additional details on the interception.

Israeli settlers are becoming more brazen and heavily armed, attacking Palestinians with impunity as the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority stand by.

Saeed Al Umoor’s story exemplifies this desperate situation. See more in our report here:

More Israeli leaders have reacted angrily to French President Macron’s announcement on Palestinian statehood:

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “We strongly condemn President Macron’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state next to Tel Aviv in the wake of the October 7 massacre.”
• Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar: “The French President’s pretension to create by mere words an illusionary arrangement in our land is ridiculous and not serious.”

Macron has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza, repeatedly drawing the ire in recent months of Israeli leaders such as Netanyahu.

Edouard Beigbeder, the Middle East regional director at UNICEF, says 80 percent of the more than 100 Palestinians who have died of starvation in the Gaza Strip have been children.

“These deaths are unconscionable – and could have been prevented. The UN-led humanitarian response must be allowed to function fully through unfettered aid access to children in need,” Beigbeder said in a statement.

Five thousand children were admitted for treatment of malnutrition in the first two weeks of July across Gaza, he said, while in Gaza City specifically, acute malnutrition among children has risen four times from levels in February.

“UNICEF and partners remain in the Gaza Strip screening and treating children for malnutrition, but to be able to reverse the catastrophic situation we face, a sustained and predictable flow of humanitarian and commercial supplies is urgently needed,” Beigbeder said.

“Fuel must enter in sufficient quantities that allow life-saving services to function. Children must be protected – not killed, and not left to starve.”

The Palestinian group has welcomed France’s intention to recognise a Palestinian state as “a positive step in the right direction toward achieving justice for our oppressed Palestinian people”.

“We in Hamas consider this important French position a political development that reflects the growing international conviction in the justness of the Palestinian cause and the failure of the occupation to distort the facts or obstruct the will of free peoples,” Hamas said in a statement shared on Telegram.

“We call on all countries of the world, especially European countries and those that have not yet recognised the State of Palestine, to follow France’s example and fully recognise our people’s national rights.”

Those include the right of return of Palestinian refugees, the right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, Hamas said.

An investigation by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has found that some of its US-based employees ignored the company’s risk controls to work on projects linked to the GHF and the displacement of Palestinians.

In a response published Thursday to a British parliamentary committee inquiry, BCG admitted that some staff helped set up GHF between late 2024 and early 2025.

GHF, backed by the US and Israel, has been accused of putting Palestinians at risk by directing them to aid distribution points where Israeli forces have reportedly shot hundreds of Palestinians.

BCG also worked with the Tony Blair Institute on post-war Gaza planning. According to the Financial Times, BCG modelled the costs of relocating Palestinians, while the Tony Blair Institute helped develop the controversial plan.

BCG has decided not to release the full investigation.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has slammed Macron’s announcement that France will recognise a Palestinian state, calling it “a disgrace and a surrender to terrorism”.

“Instead of standing with Israel in this time of trial, the French president is acting to weaken it,” Katz wrote on X.

“We will not allow the establishment of a Palestinian entity that would harm our security, endanger our existence, and undermine our historical right to the Land of Israel.”

As we reported earlier, French President Macron announced that France will recognise the State of Palestine at the UN General Assembly in September.

Forensic Architecture, a research group in the UK, says its analysis shows the Israeli military is carving up the Tulkarem, Jenin and Nur Shams refugee camps “to establish new military routes, displace Palestinians, and dismantle historic centres of resistance”.

“By demolishing homes and repeatedly uprooting Palestinians, Israel is not only forcing them from place to place—itself a form of physical and psychological warfare—but attempting to erase the fact that these locations were ever refugee camps at all and weaken Palestinian demand for return,” the group said on X.

“Each wave of displacement seeks to dissolve the Palestinian refugee identity and undermine the population’s political, historical and legal claims.”

While starving Gaza and its 80% refugee population, Israel is expanding its war on Palestinian refugees—and on their very ‘refugee-ness’—in the West Bank.

Our updated analysis shows that the Israeli military is continuing to carve up the refugee camps of Tulkarm, Jenin and Nur… pic.twitter.com/mCxjfHszoL

— Forensic Architecture (@ForensicArchi) July 24, 2025