Israel’s security cabinet is expected to approve Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan for a full military occupation of Gaza when it convenes today, according to Israeli media. Elsewhere, pictures show chaos on the ground after aid is parachuted into the enclave. Follow the latest updates below.
Thursday 7 August 2025 15:31, UK
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Nearly 12,000 children under five years old were identified as having acute malnutrition in Gaza in July, the highest monthly figure ever recorded there, according to the head of the World Health Organisation.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus added that around 2,500 of those children are suffering from severe malnutrition.
“The overall volume of nutrition supplies remains completely insufficient to prevent further deterioration,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative for the Palestinian territories.
“The market needs to be flooded. There needs to be dietary diversity.”
Just 92 aid trucks entered Gaza yesterday – despite the humanitarian situation in the enclave worsening, Palestinian officials have warned.
According to the Hamas-run government media office, most of the humanitarian supplies were looted and stolen – which it says is due to the “deliberate security chaos created by the Israeli occupation”.
It comes as the Gaza health ministry, also run by Hamas, said five more people died as a result of starvation or malnutrition in the enclave yesterday.
Officials say at least 600 truckloads of aid are required on a daily basis to meet the needs of Gaza’s population. While new measures have seen more trucks entering, humanitarian groups have warned that not enough food is reaching people.
We hold the occupation and its allies fully responsible for the humanitarian disaster, and we call on the United Nations, Arab and Islamic countries, and the international community to take serious action to open the crossings and ensure the flow of aid.
Gaza government media office statement
Aid sites run by a controversial US and Israeli-backed group in Gaza “have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty”, leading to crowds of people being shot, a charity has said.
In a new report, MSF – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) locations have become scenes of “orchestrated killing”.
Raquel Ayora, one of the general directors of the charity, which provides medical aid in the besieged enclave, said: “In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians.
“The GHF distribution sites masquerading as ‘aid’ have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty. This must stop now.”
MSF has called for the immediate dismantling of the GHF scheme, the restoration of the UN-coordinated aid delivery mechanism, and has urged governments as well as private donors to “suspend all financial and political support for the GHF”.
Sky News has contacted the GHF and the Israeli Defence Forces for a response to the report.
Donald Trump has urged “all Middle East countries” to join the Abraham Accords to ensure peace in the region.
The US president says this is “very important” to him now that Iran’s nuclear arsenal “has been totally obliterated”.
Trump signed the Abraham Accords, a series of normalisation deals struck between Israel and four Arab states, during his first term.
Efforts to expand the accords have been complicated by recent conflicts in the region, including Israel’s war in Gaza.
Red paint has been used to vandalise the offices of an Israeli airline in Paris.
The entrance to El Al’s building has been targeted with slogans, including the word “genocide” and the phrase “Free Palestine”, apparently in response to the crisis in Gaza.
The damage has been condemned by French politicians and Israel’s ambassador to France.
French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said in a post on X: “Acts of hatred and antisemitism have no place in our republic.”
Joshua Zarka, Israel’s ambassador to Paris, also condemned the vandals.
“It’s quite simply an attack, nothing more, nothing less, against an Israeli company, and against the state of Israel,” he told reporters.
France has seen a rise in hate crimes following the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas, and Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza.
Last year, police recorded an 11% rise in racist, xenophobic or anti-religious crimes, according to official data published in March. The figures did not include a breakdown by attacks on different religions.
These are some of the latest pictures of Gaza today.
They show more aid being dropped into the enclave by parachute as well as the chaos on the ground in Gaza City after it lands.
Military analyst Sean Bell says that delivering aid by air is ideally done when planes can land on a runway – but Gaza’s only landing strip in Rafah was shut down in 2021 and the alternative is “very dangerous”.
You can read more on why airdrops are so fraught with danger by reading this explainer piece.
United Nations experts have called on Israel to immediately restore unimpeded access to Gaza for impartial humanitarian organisations.
Earlier, we brought you pictures showing aid trucks queuing to enter Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing (see 8.35 post).
“All states must act decisively to prevent Israel’s destruction of the conditions of life in Gaza and stop its endless war on humanity,” the experts said.
“States must do everything in their power to restore the UN humanitarian system in Gaza.”
The UN has said more than 500,000 people – a quarter of Gaza’s population – are facing famine, with the rest suffering from emergency levels of hunger.
It also warned 320,000 children under the age of five are at risk of acute malnutrition, with serious lifelong physical and mental health consequences.
A senior member of the European Commission has said the displacement and killing in Gaza “looks very much” like genocide.
Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s second-highest ranking official, told Politico: “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning”.
Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations of carrying out genocide in Gaza.
Ribera’s comments make her the first commissioner to level the accusation at Israel and publicly move away from the European Commission’s stance on the conflict.
The Commission has accused Israel of violating human rights in Gaza, but stopped short of accusing it of genocide.
The Spanish socialist is the executive vice president, second only to President Ursula von der Leyen, although she is not responsible for EU foreign policy.
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” she added.
While Israel hasn’t publicly responded to these comments yet, it has repeatedly rejected accusations of genocide, including a case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice.
Benjamin Netanyahu labelled the case “outrageous”.
Israel has insisted its actions in Gaza are self-defence and it accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields, a charge the militant group denies.
The war began when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in an attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.
Israel’s offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
Israeli officials say 50 hostages remain in Gaza, with only 20 of those believed to still be alive.
Ahead of the Israeli security cabinet’s meeting on the Gaza takeover plan (see 7.52 post), families of Israeli hostages have set sail from the Ashkelon Marina.
They’re travelling to the Gaza maritime border to call for the immediate release of hostages and the end of the war.
We can bring you more from Einav Zangauker now, whose son Matan is being held hostage in Gaza (see 9.30 post).
She has called for protests outside the Israeli security cabinet meeting scheduled for later today, where the plan for a full Gaza takeover will reportedly be approved.
Zangauker has called the talks a “death cabinet meeting” and said the plan will condemn her son to death.
“This is a fateful evening for Matan’s life and for 49 other hostages, this is a fateful evening for the life of our country,” she said as she called for people to join the protests.
“I need you, my Matan needs you, all the hostages need you. This is your moment, the people, to leave your homes and save our future!”
She said “we’re going out to flood the country and stop this madness together” starting with tonight’s protest.
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