Guterres says Gaza 'catalogue of horrors' amid Israeli strikes

An unknown virus is spreading at al-Shifa Hospital, Al Jazeera Arabic reported, citing the director of the medical complex, Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, who said the hospital lacks the proper equipment to determine its origin.

The head of the U.N. food agency said Thursday that it was “very evident” during her visit to Gaza this week that there isn't enough food in the Palestinian territory and that she spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the urgent need for more aid.

The world’s leading authority on food crises said last week the Gaza Strip’s largest city is gripped by famine, and that it was likely to spread across the territory without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid.

Cindy McCain, the World Food Program's executive director, told The Associated Press that starvation was underway in Gaza.

“I personally met mothers and children who were starving in Gaza," she said. "It is real and it is happening now,”

Netanyahu, she said, was “obviously very concerned that people aren’t getting enough food.” In the past, he has denied that there is famine in Gaza and said the claims about starvation are a propaganda campaign launched by Hamas.

“We agreed that we must immediately redouble our efforts to get more humanitarian aid in. Access and security for our convoys is critical,” McCain said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel was engaged in talks aimed at the demilitarisation of southern Syria, implicitly acknowledging for the first time contacts with the new Syrian regime.

Following deadly sectarian violence in Syria last month, Netanyahu met with a Druze leader in Israel, reassuring him that his government was negotiating to safeguard the religious community in Syria.

"We are focusing on three things: Protecting the Druze community in the Sweida governorate, but not only there; creating a demilitarised zone stretching from the Golan Heights (passing) south of Damascus down to and including Sweida; and establishing a humanitarian corridor to allow the delivery of aid," the premier said.

"These discussions are taking place right now, at this very moment," he added, according to a video shared by his office.

Last week, Syria's official news agency SANA reported that Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani had met an Israeli delegation led by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer in Paris on August 19.

Lebanon's army said an officer and a soldier were killed on Thursday after an Israeli drone that had crashed in the country's south near the Israeli border exploded.

"While army personnel were inspecting an Israeli enemy drone after it fell in the Naqura area, it exploded, leading to the death of an officer and a soldier and wounding two other personnel," the army said in a statement.

Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday called on the government to begin annexing parts of the Gaza Strip if Palestinian militant group Hamas stands by its refusal to lay down its weapons.

The far-right minister, who has vocally opposed striking a deal with Hamas to end the nearly two-year war, presented his plan to "win in Gaza by the end of the year" at a press conference in Jerusalem.

Under Smotrich's proposal, Hamas would be given an ultimatum to surrender, disarm and release the hostages still held in Gaza since the group's October 2023 attack that triggered the war.

If Hamas refuses, Smotrich said Israel should annex a section of the territory each week for four weeks, bringing most of the Gaza Strip under full Israeli control.

According to Smotrich, Palestinians would first be told to move south in Gaza, followed by Israel imposing a siege on the territory's north and centre to defeat any remaining Hamas militants there, and ending with annexation.

"This can be achieved in three to four months," he said.

His remarks come as Israeli forces press a major offensive aimed at seizing control of Gaza City -- the territory's largest -- despite mounting concern for the fate of Palestinian civilians there.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed a United Nations Security Council decision on Thursday to extend the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

"I welcome the Security Council's decision to extend the UNIFIL mandate until December 31, 2026," Salam said, thanking France and "all friendly states in this council". The decision provides for the blue helmets to withdraw from Lebanon by the end of 2027.

The United Nations Security Council on Thursday unanimously extended a long-running peacekeeping mission in Lebanon until the end of 2026, when the operation will then begin a year-long "orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal."

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), established in 1978, patrols Lebanon's southern border with Israel.

Gaza's Ministry of Health has said that in the last 24 hours, Israeli attacks have killed 71 people and wounded a further 339 others. 

It raised the total death toll in the enclave to 62.966 killed and a further 159,266 wounded.

The move by European powers to reimpose United Nations sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program is an "important step," Israel's UN envoy said Thursday.

"The countries of the world are... joining the fight against the axis of evil," Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement. "This is an important step on the way to stopping the Iranian nuclear program and increasing pressure on the regime in Tehran."

The Israeli military said it struck on Thursday a "military target" belonging to Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the area of the capital Sanaa.

Israeli forces "precisely struck a Houthi terrorist regime military target in the area of Sanaa in Yemen", a military statement said, accusing the rebels who have launched numerous missiles and drone at Israel and attacked ships of "undermining regional stability and disrupting global freedom of navigation".

Israel's Channel 12 reporter Amit Segal said, quoting an Israeli source, that senior Houthi political figures were targeted in an attack on Yemen on Thursday.

Israel's expanded military operation in Gaza City will have "devastating consequences," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday.

He also said UN-led humanitarian efforts in the Palestinian enclave were being blocked, delayed and denied and people dying from hunger was the "result of deliberate decisions that defy basic humanity."

"Starvation of the civilian population must never be used as a method of warfare. Civilians must be protected. Humanitarian access must be unimpeded," he told reporters. "No more excuses. No more obstacles. No more lies."

An Israeli attack targeted the Yemeni capital Sanaa, Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported on Thursday

The US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said on Thursday it had found no evidence of "enforced disappearances" at its aid sites, after UN rights experts voiced alarm at such reports.

The seven independent experts said in a joint statement they had received reports that a number of individuals, including one child, had been "forcibly disappeared" after going to aid distribution sites in Rafah, southern Gaza.

When asked by AFP about the experts' statement, GHF said: "We operate in a war zone where serious allegations exist against all parties operating outside our sites. But inside GHF facilities, there is no evidence of enforced disappearances."

 Israeli forces killed at least 16 Palestinians across Gaza on Thursday and wounded dozens in the south of the enclave, local health officials said, as residents reported intensified military bombardment in the suburbs of Gaza City.

In Gaza City, residents said families were fleeing their homes, with most heading towards the coast, as Israel forces bombarded the eastern suburbs of Shejaia, Zeitoun, and Sabra.

Thursday's deaths took to 71 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said.

According to Reuters, citing quotes by a  spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross,  31 "weapon-wounded" patients, most with gunshot wounds, were admitted to the Red Cross Field Hospital in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. Four of them were declared dead on arrival.

"Patients said they were injured while trying to reach food distribution sites," the spokesperson said, adding that since the food distribution sites began operations on May 27, the hospital had treated over 5,000 "weapon-wounded patients".

A U.S. diplomat apologized Thursday for using the word “animalistic” while calling for a gaggle of reporters to quiet down during a press conference in Lebanon earlier this week.

Tom Barrack, who is the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and envoy to Syria and has also been on a temporary assignment in Lebanon, said he didn’t intend to use the word “in a derogatory manner” but that his comments had been “inappropriate.”

Barrack visited Beirut along with a delegation of U.S. officials on Tuesday to discuss efforts by the Lebanese government to disarm the Hezbollah group and implementation of the ceasefire agreement that ended the latest war between Israel and the Hezbollah in November.

At the start of a press conference at the presidential palace, journalists shouted at Barrack to move to the podium after he started speaking from another spot in the room.

After taking the podium Barrack told the crowd of journalists to “act civilized, act kind, act tolerant.” He threatened to end the conference early otherwise.

“The moment that this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we’re gone,” said Barrack.

The comment sparked an outcry, with the Lebanese press syndicate calling for an apology and calling for a boycott of Barrack’s visits if none was issued.

The Presidential Palace also issued a statement expressing regret for the comments made by “one of our guests” and thanking journalists for their “hard work.”

In an interview with Mario Nawfal, a media personality on the X platform, an excerpt of which was published Thursday, Barrack said, “Animalistic was a word that I didn’t use in a derogatory manner, I was just saying ‘can we calm down, can we find some tolerance and kindness, let’s be civilized.’ But it was inappropriate to do when the media was just doing their job.”

He added, “I should have been more generous with my time and more tolerant myself.”

Sweden and the Netherlands have urged the EU to adopt sanctions on Israel and Hamas over the war in Gaza, including suspending the EU-Israel trade deal, according to a document seen by AFP on Thursday.

In a letter to European Union foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, the Swedish and Dutch foreign ministers called for targeted sanctions on Israeli government ministers and Jewish settlers on Israeli-occupied Palestinian land, and new sanctions on the political leadership of Hamas.

They also demanded the suspension of the commercial section of an association accord between the EU and Israel that allows for free trade in several sectors, notably industry and agriculture.

The topic is to be discussed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Copenhagen on Saturday.

The letter, dated 27 August, "recalls the need to speedily ... introduce targeted sanctions against extremist Israeli ministers who promote illegal settlement activities, and actively work against a negotiated two-state solution, and the need for additional sanctions against violent settlers".

Hundreds of UN staff at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Volker Turk have asked him to explicitly describe the Gaza war as an unfolding genocide, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

The letter sent on Wednesday said the staff consider that the legal criteria for genocide in the nearly two-year Israeli war on Gaza have been met, citing the scale, scope and nature of violations documented there.

"OHCHR has a strong legal and moral responsibility to denounce acts of genocide," said the letter signed by the Staff Committee on behalf of over 500 employees. "Failing to denounce an unfolding genocide undermines the credibility of the UN and the human rights system itself," it added.

It cited the international body's perceived moral failure for not doing more to stop the 1994 Rwanda genocide that killed more than 1 million people.

UN rights experts voiced alarm Thursday at reports of "enforced disappearances" of starving Palestinians seeking food at distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, urging Israel to end the "heinous crime".

The seven independent experts said in a joint statement they had received reports that a number of individuals, including one child, had been "forcibly disappeared" after visiting aid distribution sites in Rafah.

Israel's military was reportedly "directly involved in the enforced disappearances of people seeking aid", they added.

 More food aid is reaching Gaza but it still remains far from enough to prevent widespread starvation, the head of the World Food Programme (WFP) told Reuters on Thursday.

"We're getting a little bit more food in. We're moving in the right direction ... but it's not nearly enough to do what we need to do to make sure that people are not malnourished and not starving," WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain told Reuters in an interview via video link from Jerusalem.

McCain said the WFP is now able to deliver about 100 aid trucks per day into Gaza, but this figure still falls far short of the 600 trucks that were entering daily during the ceasefire.

McCain, who visited Deir al Balah and Khan Younis this week - including a clinic supporting children and pregnant and lactating women - highlighted ongoing difficulties in delivering aid to vulnerable populations deep inside Gaza.

"What we saw was utter devastation. It's basically flattened, and we saw people who are very seriously hungry and malnourished," McCain said.

"It proved my point that we need to be able to get deep into it (Gaza) so we can make sure that they can consistently have what they need," she said.

UK Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has said he will not attend a banquet for President Donald Trump due to be hosted by King Charles next month, in protest at the US's continued support for Israel's brutal war on Gaza.

Davey accused the US president and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of "clos[ing] their eyes and wish[ing] this away" in response to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The Liberal Democrat leader, who has criticised Trump in the past, announced his boycott in an opinion piece for UK newspaper The Guardian.

The Lib Dem leader explained that he and his wife Emily had "spent all summer thinking about this” and had also "prayed about it"- saying that it was "the one way" to demonstrate his condemnation of Trump and Starmer’s failure to urgently intervene in the nearly two-year Israeli war on Gaza, which has killed over 62,000 people and utterly devastated the territory.

"I fear we could have a situation where Donald Trump comes to our country, is honoured with a lavish dinner at one of our finest palaces, yet no one reminds him that he has the power to stop the horrifying starvation and death in Gaza and get the hostages released," Davey wrote.

Israel's military said it intercepted a drone launched from Yemen on Thursday, after sirens sounded in communities near the Gaza Strip.

"Following the hostile aircraft infiltration sirens that sounded a short while ago in the communities near the Gaza Strip, a UAV launched from Yemen was successfully intercepted by the (Israeli air force)," a military statement said

Four Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health, which said that two of those were children.

The total number of Palestinians who have starved to death in Gaza has risen to 317, including 121 children.

UNRWA has said that Palestinian members of staff have been displaced dozens of times, with one staffer being displaced 19 times, adding that "ongoing bombardments and displacements are forcing entire families to abandon their homes, once again, amid fear and destruction."

"People are hungry and exhausted. This must stop."

19 times.

That is the number of displacements the UNRWA colleague who took this photograph has had to endure since the war in #Gaza began.

Ongoing bombardments and displacement orders are forcing entire families to abandon their homes, once again, amid fear and destruction.… pic.twitter.com/G9wGxCt7ry

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 28, 2025

Israel's defence minister said Thursday its forces were operating in "all combat zones", after Syrian state media reported a raid by Israeli ground troops on a site it had already bombed outside Damascus.

"Our forces are operating in all combat zones day and night for the security of Israel," Israel Katz said on X, without elaborating. Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military declined to comment.

Israeli forces have shot a Palestinian man in Wadi al-Hummus, northeast of Bethlehem, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.