Netanyahu has “lost the plot,” New Zealand’s leader says, after 27 nations warned the Gaza crisis had reached “unimaginable levels”. Yesterday, the IDF told Sky News evidence supporting an attack which killed six journalists was classified. Watch the interview and follow the latest below.
Wednesday 13 August 2025 08:51, UK
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Trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza have been moving along the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel this morning.
Starvation has intensified throughout the past 22 months of war because of aid restrictions imposed by Israel, humanitarian workers say.
Israel enforced a complete blockade on food and other supplies for around two months beginning in March – and aid organisations say the air drops of food allowed in recent weeks do not do enough to alleviate the situation.
Benjamin Netanyahu says the time for a partial hostage release or ceasefire is “behind us”.
“I want them all,” he says of the hostages in an interview with Israel’s i24 News broadcaster late yesterday.
Egypt’s foreign minister Badr Abdelatty told reporters yesterday that Cairo was trying to advance an earlier proposal for a 60-day ceasefire, release of some hostages and an influx of aid.
Netanyahu adds: “We tried, we made all kinds of attempts, we went through a lot, but it turned out that they were just misleading us.
“The release of all the hostages, both alive and dead – that’s the stage we’re at.”
The demand for the release of hostages isn’t anything new.
Netanyahu has repeatedly demanded the release of all hostages, saying the war would only end when they had returned and Hamas had surrendered.
Meanwhile, Hamas has said it will only release the hostages in return for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
This difference has yet to be surmounted.
By Stuart Ramsay, chief correspondent
The first Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers emerge on to the streets of Hebron, through the pedestrian entrance to an Israeli settlement that has taken over a section of the old town.
They are heavily armed and pass me sitting in the doorway of a shop where I had been sheltering from the burning hot West Bank sun.
I murmur a greeting, but they ignore me and head inside, climbing to an upper balcony of the building to oversee the city’s market area.
Within the hour, they’re joined by dozens of military units of the IDF, on foot and in armoured jeeps, fanning out across the busy streets – ordering shops to shut and market traders to wheel away their stalls of fruit and vegetables.
Groups of Palestinian journalists are shouted at and told to move back, and we are as well after I ask to be told in English what they want.
While soldiers continue to close down stalls and shops around us, we are moved three times by them and then finally led away from an area where a green cloth screen is being unfurled by the soldiers.
They’re closing the whole area down, forcing cars to move on, and clearing the streets.
Watch Ramsay’s report and read more below…
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is at “unimaginable levels,” Britain and 26 partners say.
In the statement issued yesterday, they warn: “Famine is unfolding before our eyes.”
It adds: “Urgent action is needed now to halt and reverse starvation. Humanitarian space must be protected, and aid should never be politicised.”
The statement was signed by the foreign ministers of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
This continues the growing international pressure that Israel has faced from allies over its war in Gaza.
Read the full statement:
The humanitarian suffering in Gaza has reached unimaginable levels. Famine is unfolding before our eyes.
Urgent action is needed now to halt and reverse starvation. Humanitarian space must be protected, and aid should never be politicised.
However, due to restrictive new registration requirements, essential international NGOs may be forced to leave the OPTs imminently which would worsen the humanitarian situation still further.
We call on the government of Israel to provide authorisation for all international NGO aid shipments and to unblock essential humanitarian actors from operating. Immediate, permanent and concrete steps must be taken to facilitate safe, large-scale access for the UN, international NGOs and humanitarian partners.
All crossings and routes must be used to allow a flood of aid into Gaza, including food, nutrition supplies, shelter, fuel, clean water, medicine and medical equipment. Lethal force must not be used at distribution sites, and civilians, humanitarians and medical workers must be protected.
We are grateful to the US, Qatar and Egypt for their efforts in pushing for a ceasefire and pursuing peace.
We need a ceasefire that can end the war, for hostages to be released and aid to enter Gaza by land unhindered.
Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost the plot,” New Zealand’s prime minister says.
Christopher Luxon tells reporters the lack of humanitarian aid, forceful displacement of people and military occupation in Gaza are appalling.
The centre-right coalition government leader warns that Netanyahu has gone way too far.
“I think he has lost the plot,” says Luxon.
Then, referencing an overnight attack earlier in the week, he says: “What we are seeing overnight, the attack on Gaza City, is utterly, utterly unacceptable.”
Earlier in the week, Luxon said he was considering whether to recognise a Palestinian state.
It comes after close ally Australia said on Monday it would join the UK, France and Canada in doing so at a UN conference in September.
Good morning and welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Gaza.
We’ll bring you all the updates throughout the day.
Before we begin, here’s a reminder of the key developments from the past 24 hours to get you up to speed:
Thanks for following our live coverage of the war in Gaza. We’ll be back with more updates soon.
Until then, here’s a reminder of the key developments today:
And if you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay’s special report inside the West Bank below:
The IDF has shared footage that it said shows its forces dismantling tunnel routes and shafts used by Hamas.
It said “dozens of terrorists” were killed in the strikes, which it said hit multiple targets including observation posts and launch positions.
Sky News has not been able to independently verify the footage.
After our interview with IDF spokesperson Nadav Shoshani (see last post to watch it back), we caught up with international correspondent Diana Magnay, who is in Jerusalem.
She says she was “quite surprised” by Shoshani’s willingness to appear on Sky News, especially given he gave no new evidence that slain Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif was a Hamas fighter, as the Israeli military claims.
“It seemed as though the IDF is still standing behind a sort of shield of its sensitive intelligence and verification process,” she says, adding that current evidence was “inadequate”.
“It’s very hard to verify these few documents which they put forward last October, which, for example, had Al-Sharif’s name on what they say is a Hamas telephone list.”
Magnay also notes that Shoshani said categorically that Israel “does not target journalists” in Gaza, despite latest figures suggesting around 200 journalists and media workers have been killed in the enclave since the war began.
“That’s a very, very hefty toll,” she says. “If all of those are collateral damage, because the IDF didn’t mean to kill but they got killed anyway, it looks pretty bad.”
A spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces has told Sky News that Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif is “not this angel people are speaking about”, doubling down on allegations the slain reporter was a Hamas fighter.
The Israeli military claims that Al-Sharif, who was killed alongside five other journalists in Gaza City on Sunday, was a member of Hamas’s military wing and received a salary from the group.
The only evidence Israel has released is screenshots of spreadsheets it says were found in Gaza apparently listing Hamas operatives and containing Al-Sharif’s name.
Al Jazeera denies the claims made against Al-Sharif, as did the correspondent while he was alive. The International Committee of Journalists has also refuted the allegations. The Committee to Protect Journalists in July warned Al-Sharif could be assassinated.
Speaking to presenter Jayne Secker, IDF spokesperson Nadav Shoshani insisted Al-Sharif was part of Hamas but said supporting evidence was classified.
“There are more complex, more delicate intelligence that we have to treat very carefully because intelligence that you declassify, if you don’t do it in a careful manner, you can’t use it the next time,” he said.
Shoshani suggested revealing some types of classified evidence could put Israeli sources in harm’s way and was “a very long, complex” process.
“If you don’t believe it, it’s okay, but do your job and present it – this is a person who celebrated the death of civilians,” he claimed.
“He’s not this angel people are speaking about. He’s a terrorist. And in addition to that, he has been promoting terror and supporting terror in his job as a journalist.”
When challenged over whether the other journalists killed in the attack were also working for Hamas or considered collateral damage by Israel, Shoshani only said the IDF was “looking into further details” of the incident.
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