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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan | |
| Katz vows to destroy Gaza City unless Hamas frees hostages, lays down arms | |
| 2025-08-23 | |
| [IsraelTimes] IDF chief says army ‘expanding activity in Gaza’; Hamas calls for open borders for aid after UN famine report; PMO calls famine declaration ‘outright lie’ and ‘modern blood libel’ Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday vowed that Israel would destroy Gaza City unless the Hamas terror group releases the hostages and lays down its weapons. The comments came hours after a global hunger monitor declared for the first time that famine had struck northern Gaza, a charge Israel swiftly denied, and as mediating countries made a final push to reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal before Israel launches its planned assault. On the ground, Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency said Israeli fire killed at least 46 people on Friday, more than half of them in Gaza City. Hamas figures cannot be verified and do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Umm Mohammed Nasr, a 42-year-old mother of four from Gaza City, said that “the bombing hasn’t stopped since this morning… but we have no idea where to go.” Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza City have already left their homes as Israeli forces have escalated strikes on the Sabra and Tuffah neighborhoods. Some families have left for shelters along the coast, while others have moved to central and southern parts of the enclave, according to residents there. HAMAS DEMANDS GAZA BORDER CROSSINGS OPEN Also on Friday, Hamas called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and lifting of Israeli-imposed restrictions on the flow of aid into the Strip after the United Nations Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system officially declared a famine in parts of the territory earlier in the day. In a statement published online, the terror group called for “immediate action by the UN and the Security Council to stop the war and lift the siege” and demands that border crossings into Gaza be opened “without restrictions to allow the urgent and continuous entry of food, medicine, water and fuel.” According to the IPC report, an estimated 514,000 people — or nearly a quarter of Gaza’s population — are experiencing famine, and that number is expected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September. Those are the ones who are merely chubby rather than morbidly obese. According to the hunger monitor, Israel’s total blockade on aid from early March to mid-May — which came after the collapse of a ceasefire with Hamas — was followed by “critically low volumes through July” and “coupled with the collapse of local food production,” leading to “extreme food shortages.”Israel resumed the supply of aid in May, but the flow remained well below what it had been prior to the blockade; it was only in July, after reports of imminent famine, that Israel announced a series of actions to boost the flow of aid into Gaza, while denying there was starvation in the enclave. Israel swiftly denied the report, saying that the IPC relies on Hamas sources and accused the system of having “twisted its own rules” in declaring a famine. PMO: IPC REPORT IS ‘MODERN BLOOD LIBEL’ In a Friday statement, the Prime Minister’s Office called the IPC famine declaration an “outright lie” and “modern blood libel.” “Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation,” the PMO said. The statement said the report by the IPC report ignores Israel’s humanitarian efforts and fails to mention a drop in the prices of oil, sugar, salt, flour, yeast and chickpeas in Gaza that the PMO attributes to the entry of humanitarian supplies into the Strip. The source of the information on the prices is unclear. The three-story glass and marble mall? Grocery stores? Souks? So many possibilities, and all post on the internet. Citing data from the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Israel has facilitated the entry of millions of tons of aid into Gaza since war there was triggered by the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, the PMO said.Worst genocide ever. The statement also said the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, as well as NGOs facilitated by Israel, have served millions of warm meals to Gazans.On the other hand, the PMO cited UN data as saying that in July, “of 1,012 aid trucks collected, only 10 reached warehouses; the rest were looted before distribution.” The PMO also accused the UN of having refused to deliver “hundreds of pallets of food” from the Kerem Shalom Crossing. The photos show food rotting on the sun because the UN-linked NGOs refused to work with the IDF to get them delivered. The PMO did concede that there had been “temporary shortages” of aid in Gaza “which Israel overcame with airdrops, maritime deliveries, safe transport routes and GHF distribution points manned by American companies,” but blamed the shortages on “Hamas’s systematic theft.”Israel says 220 trucks of aid entered Gaza yesterday, another 370 collected by UN for delivery [IsraelTimes] Over 220 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip yesterday through the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities (COGAT) says. According to COGAT, over 370 trucks carrying aid were also collected by the United Nations and other international organizations from the Gaza side of the crossings yesterday to be distributed. “The contents of hundreds of trucks are still awaiting collection on the Gazan side of the crossings,” COGAT says. Another 155 pallets of aid — about four trucks’ worth — were airdropped by Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Singapore, and Indonesia in Gaza yesterday, according to the IDF. Each pallet has several hundred kilograms of food. Similar amounts of aid deliveries have been reported daily for approximately the past few weeks. The UN has said 600 trucks of aid need to be distributed each day in order to properly feed the Strip’s roughly two million people amid the war.
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