π️Lonny's War Update- October 657, 2023 - July 24, 2025 π️
Dermer slated to meet with Witkoff in Rome tomorrow to discuss ceasefire talks
Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is traveling to Rome to meet with US special envoy Steve Witkoff tomorrow to discuss the ongoing ceasefire negotiations, according to an official familiar with the talks.
US officials said Witkoff planned to head to Europe this week. The US State Department spokesperson said yesterday that he was headed to the Middle East, although a source later told The Times of Israel that Witkoff only plans to visit Qatar if progress is made in negotiations.
Hamas’s latest response to terms of truce deemed ‘unacceptable’ by mediators – source
Hamas submitted to Egyptian and Qatari negotiators last night in Doha a response to Israel’s proposed redeployment of IDF troops during the 60-day truce under discussion that the mediators deemed “unacceptable,” a source familiar with the matter tells The Times of Israel.
Hamas is divided about whether to take a more hardline approach or to make the compromises necessary to secure a deal, says the source, who adds that the terror group opted to adopt the former approach in order to maintain consensus.
The Egyptian and Qatari mediators told Hamas that they would not present the terror group’s response to US special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff and demanded that it submit a softened proposal today, the source says, adding that the mediators’ frustration with Hamas continues to mount
'Come back with a different answer': Ceasefire mediators furious over Hamas' 'disappointing' response
Israel has not received an official response but has been briefed; Contrary to earlier optimism, ministers are informed that the terror group's response includes new demands; Qatar, Egypt tell Hamas to amend its response so that negotiations can move forward
Hamas rejected the proposed framework for a ceasefire and hostage release deal, government ministers were informed on Wednesday, after the terror group submitted its answer, which was described as a "disappointing" response to both mediators and the United States.According to a political source, Qatar and Egypt said that Hamas' response "simply does not satisfy" even the mediators themselves. Cairo and Doha rejected the terrorist organization's response - which has not officially been conveyed to Israel - and told Hamas to: "Come back to us with a different answer, we are waiting."According to the source, "Qatar and Egypt are demanding improvements from Hamas so that negotiations can continue. If their updated answer improves significantly, we can move forward."The government ministers were told that "Hamas continues to impose impossible conditions." Meanwhile, Israel's negotiating team will remain in Doha for now to continue negotiations after the mediators informed Hamas that their response was unacceptable and that they awaited a modified answer.Earlier, officials expressed optimism that a breakthrough was imminent and amid expectations that U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff would travel to Qatar to join the talks in their final stage.The news comes amid Witkoff's arrival to the region; he had been expected to meet in Europe with Minister Ron Dermer and a Qatari representative in an attempt to finalize details on the way to a new agreement. Israel assessed that the issue was solvable, and defined Witkoff's arrival as "the most important indication of progress in the negotiations."Israel had made considerable concessions on the position of troops during the ceasefire after the withdrawal from parts of the Strip. On Wednesday morning, a Palestinian source involved in the negotiations told Ynet that "Israel needs to respond to a compromise to the ceasefire agreement - not just Hamas. The mediators worked to promote a compromise agreement. If Israel agrees - Hamas will also agree. Hamas is already hinting that it agrees."The Morag Corridor in Gaza (Photo: IDF)
The main point of contention remained the lines of troop deployment that Israel would observe, with the gap narrowing to several hundred meters. Israel is reportedly willing to pull back approximately 1,000 to 1,200 meters from the Philadelphi route, while Hamas demands 800 meters. Hamas is also expected to press for the release of additional long-term prisoners, with the difference in demands believed to be around 100 to 150 detainees.PM’s office confirms Israel reviewing Hamas’s latest response to ceasefire proposal
The Prime Minister’s Office confirms that Israel has received Hamas’s latest response to the proposed ceasefire and hostage release deal, and is reviewing it in full.
Hamas’s initial response, delivered hours before this one, was quickly rejected by Arab mediators, who refused to even share it with the US and Israel and demanded that the terror group present something more reasonable.
Updated Hamas proposal is ‘workable,’ Israeli source saysThe updated Hamas response to a Gaza ceasefire proposal is “workable,” an Israeli source tells The Times of Israel.
Hamas’s initial response, delivered hours before this one, had been quickly rejected by Arab mediators, who refused to even share it with the US and Israel and demanded that the terror group present something more reasonable.
Palestinian-American mediator praises Hamas’ ‘real and positive’ response to ceasefire proposal
Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian-American businessman and a campaign surrogate for US President Donald Trump during the previous election, takes to social media to praise Hamas’s response to the latest ceasefire and hostage release proposal, after criticizing the group the day before for its conduct in talks.
“Hamas this morning gave its response to the Israeli proposal on the subject of redeployment and a prisoner exchange,” he writes on Facebook.
“Hamas’s response has been real and positive. Now Israel must enter into serious and swift negotiations to reach a ceasefire. Everyone is waiting for relief. The people of Gaza have suffered enough killing, destruction, and starvation.”
'Fighting endangers their lives': Hostage families in Washington urge to close hostage deal
Former hostages and representatives deliver an urgent plea in the U.S., demanding immediate action from American and Israeli leaders to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal before it’s too late
Amid ongoing talks for a ceasefire in Gaza in Qatar and fears of a missed opportunity for a comprehensive hostage release deal, hostage families’ representatives delivered an impassioned plea to international media in Washington on Wednesday, urging U.S. and Israeli leaders to act decisively before it’s too late.Former hostage Keith Siegel recounted his captivity in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, where fighting is now intensifying. “I was held with other hostages,” he said. “I stand here today to say, without hesitation: the fighting endangers their lives every second. Every moment without a deal increases the danger. I was there and I know what they’re going through.”Hostage families’ representatives in Washington (Photo: Liri Agami, Itamar Eichner Orna and Ronen Neutra, parents of hostage Omer Neutra, recalled standing on the same Washington lawn a year ago, on the brink of a deal that collapsed, escalating the war. “Today marks 656 days of this endless war,” they said. “Fifty hostages remain in Gaza. Another deal seems within reach but the longer the war drags on, the less likely we’ll recover even the remains of the fallen. We can’t accept a future where our children are abandoned in Gaza. We need a deal—for the living and the dead, for a chance to say goodbye.” Anat Angrest, mother of hostage Matan Angrest, highlighted the urgency, noting that a year ago, Alon Gat warned that his sister Carmel’s life was at risk without a deal. “Carmel and five others were murdered weeks later,” she said. “Today, I say the same: my son’s life is in danger without a deal. It’s life or death. The hostages have no time. My son has no time. A year later, we’re still here, begging for our loved ones’ return. This nightmare must end now.”Liran Berman (center) (Photo: Liri Agami
Lishay Miran-Lavi, wife of hostage Omri Miran, appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration: “The U.S. has shown it can move mountains when it decides to. Please, do it again.“Use every ounce of influence, every minute. Omri has no time. None of them do. This isn’t political—it’s human. It’s a four-year-old girl wanting her father’s goodnight kiss. It’s 50 people. We don’t need more time—we need courage and leadership.”Liran Berman, brother of hostages Gali and Ziv Berman, emphasized the stakes. “My brothers remain a symbol of resilience and hope in one of Israel’s darkest chapters,” he said. “Kidnapped from their home during Hamas’s brutal attack, which killed thousands and devastated families, their fate hangs in the balance.“Nearly a year ago, six hostages were executed due to military pressure. Their deaths are a painful reminder of the urgency for a comprehensive deal. In January, at President Trump’s inauguration, we heard his promise to stand with us until the last hostage returns. Now is the time to fulfill that pledge—before it’s too late.”
π️Day 657 that 50 of our hostages are still in Hamas captivityπ️
**There is nothing more important than getting them home! NOTHING!**
“I’ve never met them,But I miss them. I’ve never met them,but I think of them every second. I’ve never met them,but they are my family. BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!”
We’re waiting for you, all of you.
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
There is no victory until all of the hostages are home!ΧΧΧ Χ Χ¦ΧΧΧ Χ’Χ Χ©ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧΧ€ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧͺ
Red Alerts - Missile, Rocket, Drone (UAV - unmanned aerial vehicles), and Terror Attacks and Death Announcements
*12:20am - Missile fired by Yemen’s Houthis fails to reach Israel
A ballistic missile launched at Israel by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen a short while ago fell short outside the country’s borders, according to military officials.
The IDF identified the launch but no sirens sounded in Israel because the missile did not pose a threat.
*10:45am - car ramming terror attack - Kfar Yona - Eight injured in suspected ramming attack in central Israel; manhunt underway
Two victims in moderate condition, others lightly hurt; driver flees scene near Kfar Yona, abandons vehicle nearby; eyewitnesses say he accelerated toward bus stop.
Eight people were injured in a suspected car-ramming attack near Netanya in central Israel on Thursday, with police launching a manhunt for the driver who fled the scene and then abandoned the vehicle.
Two of the victims, a man and a woman aged 20 and 18 respectively, suffered moderate injuries. Three others were in light-to-moderate condition, and three were lightly injured, the Magen David Adom emergency service said.
The incident happened on Route 57 near the entrance to Kfar Yona.
The perpetrator remained at large after deserting his car in the Beit Lid area in the northeastern West Bank, where it was found by police.
How Israel made itself responsible for Gaza, and for all the death and destruction there
A war that began with the imperative to destroy Hamas’s military machine and get back the hostages has metastasized into an Israeli military takeover of most of Gaza, overseen by a government dependent on the support of would-be permanent occupiers
Several news agencies published photographson Tuesday showing the dead body of a Gaza boy, named as Abdul Jawad al-Ghalban, 14. The French agency, Agence France Presse, whose photos showed his family mourning him and a medic cleaning his emaciated body in the morgue at Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, stated as fact that he had died of starvation. Munir Al-Barash, the director of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, said he was one of 20 Gazans to have died of starvation in the previous 48 hours — an “unprecedented” total, he stressed, given that 88 people had died of hunger since the start of the war 21 months ago.
In a briefing for Israeli reporters on Tuesday evening, an Israeli official insisted that there was no shortage of aid being made available by Israel to feed Gazans, and also that Israel had “not identified starvation at this current point in time.” The 950 trucks’ worth of aid supplies currently waiting on the Gaza side of the border crossings was itself sufficient to supply the Strip’s food needs for two and a half weeks, the official said. Nonetheless, the official also acknowledged, this aid was not actually being collected and distributed, action was required “to stabilize the humanitarian situation,” and it could be that there were difficulties with regard to accessibility to food in some parts of Gaza.
Cutting through the verbiage, the bottom line would appear to be that Israel, via its Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), is making more than adequate aid available to Gazans, that the UN and other agencies are proving unable to deliver enough of it, that all the ostensibly well-intentioned actors are blaming each other for the failure, that Hamas and other armed Gazans threaten aid agencies and commandeer a substantial proportion of aid, and that while death tolls are likely inflated and manipulated, some Gazans are indeed dying for lack of food.
The Israel Defense Forces today says it controls some 75 percent of the Gaza Strip — meaning that, by its own declaration, Israel is responsible for most of Gaza, even as it continues its 21-month-plus effort to destroy the much-reduced but still deadly Hamas in the wake of the terror group’s monstrous October 7, 2023, slaughter in southern Israel. Moreover, for some 11 weeks this spring, Israel halted aid supplies to Gaza in an effort to force Hamas to agree to release hostages on Israeli terms. It then supported and apparently partly funds a new aid distribution mechanism, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which daily highlights the millions of meals it says it distributes via hubs in southern and central Gaza, but where, almost daily, numerous Gazans are killed trying to obtain the precious packages.
In all, according to unverifiable UN figures, more than 1,000 Gazans have been killed trying to get hold of aid, at GHF and other sites, in the two months since the GHF began working. The IDF acknowledges that troops have opened fire in many instances, claims that the death tolls are falsely inflated without offering numbers of its own, and insists it is “learning the lessons” of its failures.
Moreover, too, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz are enthusiastic advocates of US President Donald Trump’s impractical and immoral February idea of relocating all Gazans to unknown foreign destinations. And Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a minister in the Defense Ministry and leader of a party without which Netanyahu’s coalition would fall apart, on Tuesday reiterated his insistence that Gaza will be annexed by Israel and will become “an inseparable part” of the state.
All of which adds up to Israel, by its own deeds and words, representing itself to its allies and critics alike as the address for all things Gazan — notably as regards the well-being or otherwise of Gaza’s civilian populace.
Aid awaits collection on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing with the Gaza Strip, in a handout photo issued on July 21, 2025. (COGAT)Tactically, the IDF has refused to itself go into the aid distribution business — having reportedly rejected the idea several times when it was raised by Netanyahu and other ministers in the course of the war. But it has found itself responsible for securing access to GHF sites and for overseeing other aid distribution mechanisms. Yet it is not trained or equipped to do so. Reservists being called into Gaza and deployed near aid distribution hubs are given no substantial training about how to handle the routine situation in which tens of thousands of Gazans converge on an aid facility, with potential Hamas gunmen in their ranks, arriving at uncoordinated times of the day, straying from intended access routes, and coming into close proximity with the IDF’s positions. Nor are they equipped with remotely adequate nonlethal crowd control means.
Israel simply cannot have its soldiers, believing themselves in genuine danger and lacking nonlethal means of protection, killing numerous Gaza civilians almost daily. It undermines the war effort. It is immoral and indefensible. Yet that is what is continuing to happen.
Palestinians wait to receive a hot meal at a charity kitchen in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 22, 2025. (Photo by AFP)Strategically, the Israeli government chose not to extend the January hostage-ceasefire deal beyond March, because it was not prepared to commit to ending the war. Smotrich and his fellow far-right would-be Gaza-occupying cabinet minister Itamar Ben Gvir made clear then, as now, that they will tolerate no such conclusion. And Netanyahu has argued that the international community would not allow Israel to restart its campaign against Hamas if, or rather when, Hamas breaches any ostensibly permanent ceasefire.
By extension, Israel has proved unwilling and/or unable to foster any kind of alternative to Hamas for the governance of Gaza — not via local clans, not via the Palestinian Authority, and not via any kind of regional or US-directed mechanism.
Thus the development that would most trouble Hamas — the prospect of another entity or entities displacing it in ruling a postwar Gaza — has not been advanced.
Israel’s March-May freeze on aid did not force Hamas’s hand, since the terror group had commandeered considerable supplies ahead of time. And the subsequent Israeli effort to enable aid distribution but try to keep it out of Hamas’s hands has not worked either: Hamas can take supplies almost at will, Gaza’s noncombatants are suffering what that Israeli official warily described on Tuesday as an unstable humanitarian situation, large numbers are being killed in chaotic circumstances as they seek basic supplies, some at least are evidently dying of malnutrition. And Israel, as a function of Hamas’s cynicism and its own strategic and tactical decisions and failures, has made itself the responsible address when footage of gunfire close to Gaza aid hubs and photographs of the likes of the emaciated Abdul Jawad al-Ghalban flash around the world.
A war that began because of the absolute imperative to destroy Hamas’s military machine and get back the hostages has metastasized into an Israeli military takeover of most of Gaza, overseen by a government dependent on the support of would-be permanent occupiers of Gaza, with some 45 soldiers killed since the last ceasefire collapsed, and hundreds of Gazans dying in search of food.
Gazans watch as Hamas gunmen flank Israeli hostages (L-R) Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy on a stage before handing them over to a Red Cross team in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, on February 8, 2025 (Bashar Taleb / AFP)The Gaza terror state built by Hamas in its ongoing declared goal of destroying Israel is largely in ruins, largely uninhabitable, and the Gazans that Hamas most deliberately placed in harm’s way are indeed suffering terrible harm — but with Israel, not Hamas, now having chosen to make itself responsible. Israel is rapidly alienating most of its closest allies while, internally fragmented, the vast majorityof the public is desperate to end the war in exchange for the release of all the hostages.
As Gazans go hungry, IDF posts video and images it says shows Hamas terrorists enjoying food in tunnel
IDF Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee publishes footage and images of what he says are Hamas terrorists in Gaza tunnels enjoying fresh produce and a meal, while those above ground experience hunger and food scarcity.
In the video, terrorists are seen holding up to the camera mangoes, grapes, and bananas while in the tunnel, appearing to celebrate.
Another image shows terrorists sitting down for a meal, and another shows two holding up a fruit platter.
It is unclear exactly when the footage and photos were taken. Video
Gaza and the South
Responding to GHF collaboration offer, UN says it won’t work with groups that place Gazans at risk
Palestinians carry humanitarian aid packages near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution center operated by the US-backed organization in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, June 26, 2025. (AP/Abdel Kareem Hana)Asked about offers from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to collaborate with the United Nations in order to distribute aid in Gaza, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says the UN welcomes cooperation with any organization that abides by humanitarian principles.
“One of them being that — don’t set up an operation that will increase the risk of people to be shot at or trampled while trying to get food,” he says, in a shot at GHF, which has been operating a small number of distribution sites in remote, militarized areas of Gaza that forced Palestinians to walk long distances, while crossing IDF lines in order to pick up aid.
For its part, GHF says it has been able to distribute over two million meals per day.
But GHF’s boxes are largely filled with dry food products that still need to be prepared elsewhere in a war-ravaged Strip with scarce clean water, cooking fuel or equipment.
Dujarric says at a press briefing that the UN has distributed 158,000 cooked meals at 64 community kitchens since Sunday, noting however, that the figure is declining due to the lack of food in the Strip.
“We have a system that works. All we’re asked is to be allowed to use that system. I don’t think we need to add another layer of for-profit organizations,” he adds.
IDF says Hamas fired rocket at aid distribution site in southern Gaza overnight
Hamas launched a rocket at one of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid distribution sites in the southern Gaza Strip last night, the military says.
According to the IDF, the rocket was launched from Khan Younis toward the area of the GHF sites in Rafah. The projectile impacted some 250 meters from one of the aid sites, close to the army’s Morag Corridor, it says.
The aid site opened for Palestinians to collect food packages today despite the attack.
The IDF says the rocket attack “adds to the attempts by the terror organizations, who operate cruelly and systematically, to sabotage the aid distribution sites program… while attempting to disrupt the distribution of humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip.”
Israel says 70 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza yesterday
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) says that 70 humanitarian aid trucks, primarily containing food, were transferred to the Gaza Strip yesterday.
Some of the trucks were transferred to southern Gaza via the Kerem Shalom Crossing and others to the northern part of the Strip through the Zikim Crossing.
The aid was delivered following thorough security inspections, COGAT says.
COGAT tells The Times of Israel that contrary to criticism from the UN and other aid organizations, there has been no pause in delivering aid to the Strip in recent days, and that deliveries have continued, “albeit at reduced effectiveness.”
Humanitarian organizations have voiced growing concerns in recent days about food shortages within Gaza, citing their inability to collect aid trucks from the border.
COGAT says that it has already coordinated the collection of more than 150 trucks on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings, but that over 800 trucks are still awaiting pickup at the crossings. link COGAT announced this almost with pride as though this is solving the humanitarian issue and starvation that is taking lives daily. 70 trucks is a joke when there are 2 million refugees needing food and water.
With over 800 trucks awaiting pickup at the border, the question is, why aren't those trucks entering Gaza?UN report finds childhood malnutrition in Gaza worsened in July
Data published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicates a worsening in cases of child malnutrition in Gaza in July.
According to the report published today, of the 56,000 children under the age of five screened in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, and Khan Younis during the first two weeks of July, 5,000 were found to be suffering from severe malnutrition.
This represents nearly 9% of those examined, compared to 6% a month prior, and 2.4% in February during the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The report also states that UN-affiliated organizations have documented 20 cases of children dying from severe malnutrition since the beginning of 2025, 13 of them in July alone.
The UN does not specify the methodology of the surveys or which specific organizations are collecting the data in Gaza.
The sample size may vary from one survey to another.
Amid shortages of much else, Gazans are now running out of places to bury their dead
Gazans say there are few cemetery plots available in the Strip, with many established sites behind IDF lines, forcing people to inter loved ones in hospital yards or mass graves
At the beginning of July, the Hamas-run religious affairs ministry in Gaza issued a rare statement declaring that burial space in the Strip has been exhausted.
According to the statement, the shortage had been caused by “the destruction of cemeteries during the war” as well as evacuation orders which have forced more and more Gazans away from urban areas, leaving them without access to traditional burial spaces near their homes.
And then there is the sheer number needing burial, with over 58,000 dead in the last 21 months of war, if unverified Hamas-provided tolls are to be believed.
A Palestinian visits Sheikh Radwan cemetery in Gaza City on the first day of Eid al-Adha, Friday, June 6, 2025. (AP/Jehad Alshrafi)“The old cemeteries in the Gaza Strip are full. There’s no room to bury any more bodies,” a Gaza resident who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons told The Times of Israel in a WhatsApp chat. “This started in the first months of the war and has gotten worse as the death toll has risen. Here in Gaza, there’s no safe place to live and no space to bury the dead.”
The reported shortage is just the latest humanitarian crisis to beleaguer the Strip, which has been beset by war, displacement, and hunger since Gaza’s Hamas rulers embarked on a campaign of destruction inside Israel on October 7, 2023, bringing death and carnage to the Strip.
While the grave shortage has received less international attention than dwindling supplies of fuel and food, it nevertheless has had a profound impact on daily life in the Strip, reflecting the worsening conditions for Gazans trying to meet their daily needs with dignity. Exacerbating the situation is the Islamic prohibition on cremation, making burial the only viable option for the vast majority of Gazans.
Unlike other critical needs, the issue of burial space has yet to be addressed by humanitarian groups such as the Red Cross or organizations operating under the UN in the strip.
The site of the Ansar Mosque and the adjacent cemetery in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip after they were hit by an Israeli strike, June 3, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)“Gaza is extremely crowded, and now large parts of it are off-limits,” the Gaza resident said. “Where are we supposed to bury the dead?”
The dead are piling up
The death toll in Gaza has been a matter of dispute since the earliest days of the war, which Israel launched after Hamas massacred some 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 251, the majority of them civilians. Israel launched a massive air campaign that same day, followed by a ground invasion of Gaza several weeks later.
As of July 20, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, 58,895 people have been killed directly by Israeli military action since the war began, not including deaths from hunger or disease or natural death. Hamas does not break down the toll by how many are fighters and how many are civilians, but it has released detailed lists of names, ages, birthdates, and Palestinian ID numbers of the dead, showing that many are women and children.
Palestinians mourn the death of people killed in an Israeli airstrike outside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 18, 2025. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
There has been no outside verification of the toll, though in previous military operations in Gaza, the final death toll reported by Hamas tended to be relatively close to Israeli estimates.
Those earlier operations, however, were far shorter and took place when Gaza’s health infrastructure was functioning more effectively.
Throughout the war, several studies have pointed to inconsistencies, duplicates, and irregularities in the published casualty lists, casting doubt on the reported death toll.
However, other analyses have suggested the opposite — that the official count might underrepresent the actual number of dead, given the chaos of war, the collapse of recordkeeping systems, and the likelihood that many bodies remain buried under rubble and are registered as missing rather than dead.In the last year, Israel has not formally addressed the overall number of Palestinian fatalities, and its last estimate for the number of combatants killed in the Strip was in January, when it said it believed approximately 20,000 Hamas and allied fighters were among the dead, along with 1,600 killed inside Israel on October 7.Members of the Palestine Red Crescent and other emergency services carry bodies of fellow rescuers killed a week earlier by Israeli forces, during a funeral procession at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 31, 2025. (Eyad BABA / AFP)But even if the exact numbers remain disputed, there seems little doubt that many in the Strip are dead, with Gazans increasingly saying they are running out of places to put them.
No place for the living as well
A major factor contributing to the shortage of burial space is Israel’s military control over large swaths of Gaza, where civilians have been forced out by sweeping evacuation orders.
On July 16, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that 86 percent of Gaza’s territory was under Israeli military control or designated as an evacuation zone since March 18, when fighting resumed following a two-month ceasefire.
In early July, the Ynet news site reported that military leaders had informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet that it expected to complete its occupation of approximately 75% of the Strip within weeks.IDF troops of the Kfir Brigade seen operating in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis in a handout photo published July 15, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)The orders have left Gazans without access to their homes or their graveyards.
“A lot of cemeteries are located in areas under Israeli control and are now considered ‘red zones’ — no-go areas for civilians,” the Gaza resident said.
Many of Gaza’s cemeteries are located on the eastern side of the Strip, where there is more open land, a resident of Gaza City told the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency in a video report.
AdvertisementDisplaced Palestinians from the eastern part of Khan Younis set up a temporary camp in the grounds of a cemetery in the western part of the city, in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 26, 2024. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)
But due to its proximity to the Israeli border, much of the eastern side of the Strip has also remained under Israeli control for most of the war, with only a brief reprieve during the ceasefire in January 2025. That forced Gazans to use other cemeteries, which quickly filled beyond capacity.
Since the early months of the war, videos have circulated online showing mass graves dug in open areas outside official cemeteries. As Israel expands its control and restricts movement, even this option is becoming harder to access.
Most Gazan civilians have been told to evacuate to the al-Mawasi area in the southwestern part of the Strip, which has been transformed into a vast tent city. The area, the former location of an Israeli settlement bloc, has no existing cemetery, and no space there has been designated as a burial ground.
A tunnel under a cemetery
Some media outlets in Gaza attribute the burial crisis in part to the destruction of cemeteries by the IDF.
The IDF spokesperson told the Times of Israel that the army only directs strikes at military targets.
“Since October 7, 2023, terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, led by the Hamas terrorist organization, have been systematically operating from within civilian environments, in serious violation of the laws of warfare, and exploiting civilian sites and infrastructure for terrorist activity, including schools, hospitals, and cemeteries,” the spokesperson said. “Therefore, the IDF is compelled to operate in these areas while taking measures, as much as possible, to minimize collateral damage to civilians and sensitive sites.”
During the war, the military published evidence indicating that Hamas used cemeteries in the Gaza Strip for terrorist purposes, resulting in some military operations taking place in graveyards.
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For example, in January 2024, the IDF revealed a Hamas tunnel route beneath a cemetery in Bani Suheila, in the Khan Younis area. According to the IDF, this tunnel was part of an extensive underground maze dug by the Hamas terrorist organization. It stretched approximately one kilometer, included several compartments, and reached a depth of about 20 meters (65 feet).
One grave, multiple bodies
On June 30, the morgue at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis declared it had no remaining space in its on-site cemetery — an improvised graveyard believed to have been established during the war. Over the past year, videos have shown burials occurring in hospital courtyards due to ongoing hostilities that made it too dangerous to take bodies elsewhere.
A doctor at Nasser Hospital, who requested anonymity, confirmed in a phone call with The Times of Israel that a burial space crisis exists. However, he emphasized that the hospital bears no responsibility for the bodies.
“Hospitals are not responsible for the dead. The families take their relatives and bury them themselves,” he said.
Increasingly, though, many families are not taking the bodies at all.
In recent weeks, videos have proliferated online showing corpses piling up in hospital morgues — a pattern also seen in earlier stages of the war.This aerial view shows a war-devastated neighborhood in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on April 2, 2025. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)
One solution now being adopted, according to reports in Gaza, is the practice of “double burial” — placing multiple victims in a single grave, or reopening old ones.
A Gaza City resident, interviewed by the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, said he buried his three children in a single grave due to the shortage.
“The cemeteries we can still reach are full,” said the Gaza resident who spoke to The Times of Israel. “Sometimes we have no choice but to open old graves or bury several people in the same one.”
Crowded out
Even before the war, Gaza faced a shortage of burial space. In 2002, a cemetery caretaker told local media he had to turn families away because there was no room left.
Home to a pre-war population of around 2 million living on 365 square kilometers (141 square miles), Gaza is often described as among the densest places on earth, with roughly 5,600 people per square kilometer.
But the problem goes beyond simple land scarcity. Gaza’s density, or even that of Gaza City, is far lower than many other places around the world, including the Philippines, Nepal, France, Belgium, and even Israel. Rather, what makes Gaza feel so crowded is poor urban planning.Palestinians visit graves at Sheikh Radwan cemetery in Gaza City on the first day of Eid al-Adha, Friday, June 6, 2025. (AP/Jehad Alshrafi)
Even before the war, economic hardships made it challenging to build high-rise housing. The Hamas government invested little in building to address the density, and chronic shortages of water, electricity, and employment stifled the conditions needed for redevelopment. Critics of Hamas say the terror group poured concrete into its vast underground tunnel network rather than using it to build new residential towers.
Politics also played a role. Gaza is home to 10 refugee camps which have remained little changed since they were created to house Palestinians displaced during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948.
Home to their descendants, the now-teeming camps are still viewed as “temporary” by a Palestinian society eager to see those living there return to their ancestors’ former homes inside present-day Israel.
Rather than redevelop the camps in a sustainable way for their growing populations, which many would view as an admission of settling in, the camps have dealt with crowding in an ad hoc way, spreading living space haphazardly over every bit of open land, and leaving no room for the inevitable end. link'More than a hunk of metal': IDF soldiers in Gaza uncover tractor stolen from Kfar Aza on October 7
Givati Brigade troops recover a tractor stolen by terrorists during Hamas's massacre and returned it to its owners at Kibbutz Kfar Aza; 'Symbolic for farmers who have worked this land for years'
Amid intense fighting in Gaza’s Beit Hanoun, the IDF’s Givati Brigade reservists made an unexpected find during a mission to expose terrorist infrastructure in northern Gaza: a tractor stolen from Israel by terrorists on October 7, 2023.After confirming over the weekend that the tractor belonged to the Kfar Aza and Mefalsim cooperative farm, the soldiers resolved to bring it back. On Wednesday they returned the tractor to its owners in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.The recovered tractor back in Israel(Photo: Herzl Yosef)Givati Brigade troops with the tractor(Photo: Herzl Yosef)Tomer, one of the soldiers, told Ynet the team knew immediately the tractor had to return home. The next day, with their battalion commander, they towed it using a D9 bulldozer in a heavily guarded convoy back to Israel.“This isn’t just another mission; it’s a ray of hope,” he said. “We’ve been here over 650 days until the mission is complete. Finding a hostage would be the brightest moment.” The soldiers left Gaza specifically to deliver the tractor to the fields of Kfar Aza, where Reuven Nir, the farm’s manager, and kibbutz members Zohar Shafak and David Bing awaited.Though the tractor requires repairs, its return carries deep significance. “It’s just a tractor, but this moment is emotional,” Reuven said, addressing the soldiers. “We farm to the last meter (3.3 feet) of the border, relying on you.”Zohar Shafak called the soldiers working tirelessly in Gaza heroes. “This is more than a hunk of metal; it’s symbolic for farmers who have worked this land for years. It’s about love for the land and recovery.“We hope you’ll bring back our hostages—Gali and Zivi from Kfar Aza, Omri Miran from Nahal Oz, everyone.” Despite the ongoing hardship, he noted the shared emotion between soldiers and farmers offers a glimmer of hope.Northern Israel, Lebanon and SyriaTurkish officials say Syria asked Ankara to help boost defense capabilities after Sweida violence
ANKARA, Turkey — Syria’s interim government has requested Turkey’s support to strengthen its defense capabilities, Turkish officials say, following sectarian violence over the past two weeks that increased tensions in Syria and drew intervention by Israel.
The Turkish Defense Ministry officials, who speak on condition of anonymity according to procedures, say that Syria has also sought assistance to combat “terrorist organizations,” including the Islamic State group.
Turkey — which has long expressed readiness to assist Syria — was working toward providing training, advisory services, and technical support to help strengthen Syria’s defense capacity, the officials add.
Syrian officials cannot be immediately reached for comment.
Tensions escalated in southern Syria last week, with violent clashes erupting between Bedouin Arab tribes and Druze militias in Sweida province. The conflict triggered Israeli airstrikes on convoys of government forces in Sweida and on Syria’s Defense Ministry headquarters in central Damascus, which Israel justified as efforts to protect Druze communities.
Turkey, which strongly supports Syria’s interim government led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa, has been seeking a defense agreement with Syria that could reportedly include establishing Turkish military bases on Syrian territory.
Ankara also backs an agreement reached between the interim Syrian administration and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, to integrate into Syria’s national army. Implementation of the deal has stalled, with a major sticking point being whether the SDF would remain as a cohesive unit in the new army or be dissolved completely.
UN: Aid is amassing at Gaza crossings because Israel not allowing drivers to pick it up
Responding to Israeli accusations that the United Nations is failing to pick up humanitarian aid that has been amassing on the Gazan side of the border, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says that Israeli authorities haven’t been giving the necessary approvals for UN staff to even reach that assistance, let alone be able to pick it up and distribute it.
“The Kerem Shalom Crossing is not a McDonald’s drive-through where we just pull up and pick up what we’ve ordered,” Dujarric says during a briefing.
“To collect supplies that have reached any of the Israeli crossings around Gaza — all of which are fenced off and heavily guarded — drivers need multiple access approvals as well as a pause in the bombing and for the iron gates [at the crossing] to slide open,” adds the UN spokesperson. “We have to be allowed to come in with our own trucks. The goods have to switch from one truck to another. It’s a very lengthy procedure.”
“There are tremendous bureaucratic impediments. There are tremendous security impediments, and frankly, there’s a lack of willingness to allow us to do our work,” he adds.
Even in cases where the UN is able to reach the aid and distribute it, “all too often, civilians approaching our trucks are shot at or trampled while trying to get food,” he notes. “We must get reliable assurances that troops would not engage or be present along the routes of our convoys.”
The UN has recognized that an increasing number of its convoys have been looted by desperate Gazans, but it argues that only surging aid into and throughout the Strip will adequately address the problem.
Responding to Dujarric’s comments, COGAT — the Israeli military body responsible for facilitating the entry of aid into Gaza tells The Times of Israel that it has made efforts to “improve the collection and distribution of aid from crossings, including increasing the number of access points and operating hours, formulating joint plans with the UN, and more.”
“Despite these efforts, a significant portion of the trucks remain uncollected,” COGAT says, insisting that it will continue working to faciliate the entry of aid into the Strip in accordance with international law.
Suspected Bat Yam bus bomber arrested 5 months after botched attack
Border Police officers pose with Abed al-Karim Snober, a Palestinian terrorist accused of carrying out a botched bus bombing attack in February, following his arrest on July 22, 2025. (Israel Police)A Palestinian terrorist suspected of being behind a botched bus bombing attack in central Israel in February was detained earlier today by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Nablus, the IDF, Shin Bet and police announce.In the attack on February 20, three empty buses exploded in quick succession in parking lots in the Tel Aviv suburbs of Bat Yam and Holon, and two more unexploded devices were discovered on additional buses in Holon. No casualties were caused.Abed al-Karim Snober, who is accused of carrying out the attack, was detained following a months-long manhunt, the IDF and Shin Bet say.According to the military, an explosion yesterday in Nablus that was likely caused by the terrorist handling additional explosive devices in his possession, led forces to the apartment where he was hiding. The IDF says Snober was wounded and fled the site.Overnight, IDF troops, Border Police officers and Shin Bet agents led a 19-hour pursuit after the terrorist, at the end of which he was detained.The military says that during scans at the building where the explosion occurred a day earlier, forces found additional primed explosive devices and destroyed them.- IDF: Two terrorists eliminated after throwing firebombs in Gush EtzionSoldiers from Unit 636 eliminated two terrorists during an ambush after they threw firebombs toward a road near al-Khader in Gush Etzion, according to an IDF spokesperson. Link just a few minutes from my home. I live close to the border of the West Bank
NIS 918 million allocated to West Bank roads in ‘de facto sovereignty’ move
The Knesset Finance Committee has approved nearly a billion shekels in additional funding for roads and transportation infrastructure in the West Bank in what Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich describes as a lesson in “how to do de facto sovereignty” over the contested territory.
In total, some NIS 918 million ($275 million) will be spent on upgrading existing roads, paving new roads, building bypass roads for motorists in the West Bank to avoid Palestinian towns, and for other road infrastructure upgrades.
“This is how you do facto sovereignty. This is how you bring in a million residents [to the West Bank]. This is how you take the idea of a Palestinian terrorist state off the table,” says Smotrich enthusiastically in announcing the new funding.
The ultranationalist minister said that the “massive investment” was part of a strategic plan for “strengthening settlement, physically and politically connecting the region to the State of Israel, and making sovereignty a fait accompli on the ground.”
Transportation Minister Miri Regev concurs with Smotrich, saying the new funds are the “direct continuation of clear policies: sovereignty in practice, through action,” and says that during her tenure as minister, “billions” have been invested in transportation infrastructure in the West Bank.
The term “applying sovereignty” is used by the Israeli right for the annexation of the West Bank. Smotrich has been openly advocating for and advancing policies for the de facto annexation of the West Bank over the last two and a half years, with a series of administrative measures bringing the territory under civilian, not military, governance, as has been the case since 1967, and massively expanding the settlement enterprise. link This is how this corrupt government has been de facto annexing the West Bank, but complete separation and huge amounts of funding for the expansion of settlements and funding and legalizing illegal settlements throughout the West Bank. The new and changing infrastructure is geared to settlers only and not allowing Palestinian vehicles on those roads, just as a racist apartheid state does, separate and not equal. Many of the new roads and bypass routes are built on appropriated Palestinian land and/or cuts through Palestinian lands which will prevent the Palestinians from accessing their own land or access only with permission and coodination with the army. And all of this brings with it more violence and terrorism by the extremist settler terrorists against the Palestinians.
Three Palestinians from East Jerusalem arrested on suspicion of joining ISIS, plotting to attack security forces
Three Palestinians from East Jerusalem were arrested recently on suspicion of plotting a terror attack against security forces at a checkpoint in the area, police say.
The three suspects had allegedly planned to target the Sheikh Saed checkpoint in the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood with a car bomb.
According to police, all three suspects had joined ISIS and were in contact with the terror group’s operatives in the West Bank and Syria. They had planned to travel to Syria to be trained in bombmaking. The suspects also consumed large amounts of online ISIS content, including propaganda and execution videos from warzones abroad, police say.
Operating off Shin Bet intelligence, the police arrested one of the suspects, a resident of Sur Baher in his 20s, several weeks ago. In the days following the initial arrest, police detained two additional suspects, also in their 20s, for questioning.
Officers searched the home of the initial suspect a few days later and discovered he had been in possession of a pistol, as well as ammunition concealed inside one of his socks.
One of the suspects had purchased a firearm with the stated intent of “killing Jews,” police say.
The three explored several methods of carrying out their thwarted terror attack. They had considered shooting at checkpoint security forces and also weighed using a drone, but eventually settled on detonating a car bomb at the checkpoint, believing it would cause greater damage and more deaths, police say.
The suspects’ remand has been extended several times by the court since their initial arrest. Law enforcement says that it expects prosecutors to file charges against all three, after a prosecutor’s statement was filed against two of the detainees earlier.
Palestinian woman said injured in settler attack on village in South Hebron Hills
Palestinian media reports that settlers attacked a Palestinian woman this morning in the West Bank village of Shaab al-Butum in the South Hebron Hills.
Footage shared on social media shows damage inside a home, and smashed solar panels outside.
A local Palestinian resident tells The Times of Israel that the woman was taken to a hospital for medical treatment following the attack. video
Friendly fire, explosions, and fatigue behind spike in IDF casualties in Gaza
Since the collapse of the last ceasefire deal, 44 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza—many due to guerrilla tactics, friendly fire and operational mishaps tied to fatigue, outdated equipment and the complex urban battlefield conditions
Since the end of the last ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, 44 IDF soldiers have died, 37 of them since Israel launched the latest ground offensive in Gaza, over two months ago.The troops were faced with Hamas terrorists who regrouped, booby trapped many areas using powerful explosives and adopted guerrilla warfare against the soldiers using anti-tank and sniper fire. Many of the fallen were killed without actually encountering the terrorists.IDF soldier killed in Gaza brought to rest (Photo: IDF Kolomoisky)
IDF casualties were also victims of operational mishaps caused at least in part by fatigue after a long war, outdated vehicles, some operated by civilian contractors and without the necessary protective shields, to replace the military equipment that was damaged by the war and the total destruction of structures that provide Hamas with shelter to hide and stage their attacks.Destruction in Gaza (Photo: Leo Correa / AP)
In the early days of the offensive, a soldier was killed in a friendly fire incident when he entered a building to access a tunnel shaft.In June, the IDF lost 20 soldiers in a number of fatal incidents, most of which were not battles with Hamas terrorists.In July, a soldier was killed when heavy machinery fell onto another machine he was operating, digging to destroy an underground tunnel. In a separate incident this month, a soldier encountered a terror squad that attempted to abduct him and was killed. A video of the incident filmed and posted by Hamas showed the terrorists moving freely in broad daylight between the destroyed structures in Khan Younis. Link- A post from Fania Oz-Salzberger- who is an Israeli historian and writer, Professor Emerita of history at the University of Haifa School of Law and the Haifa Center for German and European Studies
Soldiers, regular and reserve,
Parents of soldiers, grandfathers of soldiers,
There is no other way: refuse to serve in Gaza. Refuse, refuse, refuse.
The kidnapped and their unfortunate families were betrayed by the Israeli government.
The mass starvation in Gaza is a horrific and definitive fact.
The daily killings at food distribution centers are not self-defense but a shocking war crime.
International law has long been off our side.
Soldiers sacrifice their young lives in vain, and worse than in vain: for a harmful and destructive purpose.
The moderate public in the world and the last of Israel's friends are distancing themselves from us in horror. Not because they are anti-Semites, but because they are human beings.
The Messianic Right, in its madness, is dragging us into complete isolation in the world, with absolute belief that there is a God and that He is for our good.
Refuse, refuse, refuse.
Politics and the War and General News
- Reuters: Brazil to join South Africa's case against Israel in The Hague
Brazil will officially join South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ). This is according to a source who spoke to Reuters news agency. South Africa filed the case against Israel that was deliberated during 2024 following the Gaza war, claiming that Israel is committing "genocide" against Palestinians in the Strip. Link
- Personal Stories
'He ran to save his comrades and collapsed': Officer critically wounded hours after sending wedding save-the-date
An Armored Corps officer was critically wounded in Gaza hours after sending a wedding save-the-date message; three soldiers were killed in the same attack; His family and fiancΓ©e hold on to hope as he fights for his life at Sheba Medical Center
Acronyms and Glossary
ICC - International Criminal Court in the Hague
IJC - International Court of Justice in the Hague
MDA - Magen David Adom - Israel Ambulance Corp
PA - Palestinian Authority - President Mahmud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen
PMO- Prime Minister's Office
UAV - Unmanned Aerial vehicle, Drone. Could be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, or be weaponized with missiles or contain explosives for 'suicide' explosion mission
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