Live: 54 Palestinians killed, 831 wounded in 24 hours

The amount of aid entering Gaza remains "very insufficient" despite a limited improvement, the German government said on Saturday after ministers discussed ways to heighten pressure on Israel.

The criticism came after Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul visited the region on Thursday and Friday and the German military staged its first food airdrops into Gaza, where aid agencies say that more than two million Palestinians are facing starvation.

Germany "notes limited initial progress in the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population of the Gaza Strip, which, however, remains very insufficient to alleviate the emergency situation," government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said in a statement.

"Israel remains obligated to ensure the full delivery of aid," Kornelius added.

Hamas has denied a claim by the United States special envoy to the Middle East that it was preparing to disarm in exchange for an end to the war in Gaza.

On Saturday, Steve Witkoff met with families of Israeli captives held in Gaza in Tel Aviv, according to Haaretz.

Witkoff assured the families that the US would push for a single hostage deal.

In a recording of the meeting, Witkoff can be heard saying that "Hamas has said that they are prepared to be demilitarised" and that "multiple Arab governments are now demanding Hamas demilitarise".

"We are very, very close to a solution to end this war," he said.

"We don't believe that Hamas speaks for the people... we believe that they have very little political support."

Hamas hit back at Witkoff's comments, denying they had made any such proposal and said they would not lay down arms unless an independent Palestinian state was established.

Read more: Hamas denies US claims it offered to disarm in exchange for ceasefire

Israeli attacks have killed 36 and wounded more than 100 across Gaza today, Al Jazeera reported.

The report said 13 of those killed were aid seekers.

Israeli attacks on Khan Younis and Gaza City have killed five Palestinians, including two women, Wafa news agency is reporting, citing local sources.

According to the sources, Israeli drone strikes targeted the al-Tuwam area in northern Gaza City, killing three Palestinians and injuring dozens more.

A separate attack on the al-Shurafa family home in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood in the northeast of the city, resulted in an unspecified number of casualties, according to the report.

Meanwhile, sources at Nasser Hospital said that a woman was killed in an air strike on the al-Amal neighbourhood in northeast Khan Younis. Another woman was shot dead by Israeli forces near an aid distribution point southwest of Khan Younis.

Wafa also reported that, separately, a man succumbed to injuries sustained in a previous Israeli attack on the al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis.

The news site added that emergency teams recovered the bodies of eight Palestinians from the rubble in Gaza City's al-Zeytoun neighbourhood, following a previous Israeli bombardment.

At least 60,430 Palestinians have been killed, and another 148,722 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza since October 2023.

Israeli writer David Grossman has proclaimed the assault on the Gaza Strip a "genocide", adding to a growing chorus of condemnation of the war.

In an interview published on Friday in the Italian daily La Repubblica, Grossman said the bloodshed in Gaza broke his "heart".

"For years I refused to use the term 'genocide'. But now I can't help but use it, after what I read in the newspapers, after the images I saw and after talking to people who were there," he said.

"I want to speak as someone who has done everything possible to avoid calling Israel a genocidal state - and now, with immense pain and a broken heart, I have to face what is happening before my eyes. 'Genocide'. It's an avalanche word: once you say it, it only gets bigger, like an avalanche. And it brings even more destruction and suffering."

Asked what he thought when he read the death toll in Gaza, he replied: "I feel bad".

Read more: Israeli author David Grossman brands Gaza war a 'genocide'

Hamas said on Saturday that it would not lay down arms unless an independent Palestinian state is established.

In a statement, the Palestinian movement said its "armed resistance... cannot be relinquished except through the full restoration of our national rights, foremost among them the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital".

In a statement on Thursday, Hamas said it was ready to "immediately re-engage in negotiations once aid reaches those in need and the humanitarian crisis and famine in Gaza are brought to an end", while Israeli sources indicated that the framework for a partial deal may be abandoned.

Last week, the United States and Israel unexpectedly withdrew from ceasefire talks with Hamas, despite what mediators described as significant progress towards an agreement. 

According to the Times of Israel, both an Arab diplomat and a source involved in the mediation said that Hamas negotiators in Doha had made it clear they would not return to the negotiating table unless the starvation crisis in Gaza was resolved.

In Israel, a senior official speaking at a media briefing said that “there will be no more partial deals”, signalling a shift in the country’s negotiating stance.

Echoing this position, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a far-right conference that the complete disarmament and exile of Hamas, along with the return of all captives, is the “only acceptable deal”.

These latest remarks suggest that Israel has abandoned the previously discussed phased ceasefire framework and is now working with the United States to pursue a comprehensive agreement.

On Friday, US envoy Steve Witkoff and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visited an aid site in southern Gaza run by the scandal-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. At least 859 Palestinians have been gunned down by Israeli soldiers while attempting to receive aid parcels at the distribution points.

Witkoff said the purpose of the trip was to give Trump "a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza".

“Incredible feat!” Huckabee said in a post on X on Friday, after touring GHF's operations and speaking to "folks on the ground". 

Palestinians denounced the visit as a PR stunt.

“It was a PR stunt, a controlled visit supervised and dictated by the Israeli military,” Ellie Burgos, an American critical care nurse volunteering at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told NBC News. “What they saw was not the reality.”

Amer Khayrat, a father of two who lives in Gaza City, told the BBC: "What Gaza needs isn't another envoy with a press team. We need the siege lifted, the bombing stopped and the blind American support for this war brought to an end."

Scott Paul, Oxfam's Americas director of peace and security, told the BBC that Witkoff and Huckabee would have been "confronted by scenes of countless Palestinian children and their families on the brink of starvation displaced in flattened communities outside their convoy windows".

"This must be what finally spurs the US to use its full influence to put an end to this catastrophe before we pass the point of no return," he added.

On Saturday, Witkoff met with families of Israeli captives held in Gaza in Tel Aviv, as hundreds took to the streets to demand a ceasefire deal, the Israeli daily Haaretz is reporting.

The visit shortly followed footage of emaciated Israeli captives, Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski published by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Witkoff assured the families that US will push for a single hostage deal. In a recording of the meeting, Witkoff can be heard saying that "Hamas has said that they are prepared to be demilitarised" and that "multiple Arab governments are now demanding Hamas demilitarise".

"We are very, very close to a solution to end this war," he said, adding that "we don't believe that Hamas speaks for the people ... We believe that they have very little political support".

Hamas responded with a statement saying : "We reiterate that resistance and disarmament are a national and legal right as long as the occupation continues.

"This right is recognised in international treaties and norms, and cannot be waived except upon the achievement of all our national rights, foremost among them the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital."

In an interview on Kan 11, Israeli energy minister Eli Cohen denied that there is a famine happening in Gaza, and called those countries demanding an end to the suffering in Gaza “hypocrites” for not taking Palestinians in as refugees. pic.twitter.com/JzaagU1RAH

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) August 2, 2025

An Israeli attack on Khan Younis's al-Amal neighbourhood has killed a Palestinian woman, Al Jazeera is reporting.

Israeli strikes destroyed several residential buildings in the same neighbourhood earlier today, with at least 30 people killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn.

At least 98 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attack in the last 24 hours, with another 1,079 wounded, the Palesinian health ministry is reporting.

Of that figure, 39 were aid seekers.

The latest deaths bring the overall toll of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 2023 to 60,430, with 148,722 wounded.

Hospitals in Gaza have recorded seven deaths, including a child, as a result of Israeli-imposed starvation in the last 24 hours.

The latest deaths bring the overall of Palestinians who have died of malnutrition in the enclave to 169, including 93 children.

Al Jazeera is also reporting that 30 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn, including 13 aid seekers.

Former judges at the International Criminal Court have criticised the court's oversight body over its handling of an ongoing investigation into a complaint of alleged sexual misconduct brought against the court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.

Speaking to Middle East Eye, two former judges at the court said they were gravely concerned by the way in which Khan had been publicly identified as the subject of a complaint, and questioned the need for an external investigation into his alleged misconduct.

Cuno Tarfusser, an Italian judge who worked at the court from 2009 to 2019, told MEE: "I am deeply disturbed, even scandalised, by the way the proceedings against Karim Khan seem to be unfolding."

Another former judge, speaking on condition of anonymity, told MEE he feared that a lack of due process had taken the investigation into “bandit country” in which “anything can happen”.

The investigation by the United Nations’ Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) was commissioned by Paivi Kaukoranta, the President of the Assembly of State Parties, the ICC’s oversight body, after details of a sexual misconduct complaint against Khan were leaked to the media in October.

Read more: Karim Khan investigation: Former ICC judges criticise handling of complaint against prosecutor

Israeli settlers have established a new illegal outpost near the village of Kisan, east of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency is reporting citing local sources.

Ahmed Ghazal, secretary of the Fatah movement in Kisan told Wafa that settlers erected tents on the footprint of the homes of 15 forcibly displaced Palestinian families. Two weeks ago, settlers seized aluminium sheets used as roofing and solar panels, and burned the belongings of the displaced families.

According to Ghazal, this marks the eighth outpost established in the area in the last two weeks, noting that this represents a sharp uptick in Israeli settler land seizures.

Kisan and nearby Palestinian communities are facing increasing Israeli settler attacks- the village is now ringed in outposts, restricting the movement of residents.

We reported earlier on the death of 17-year-old Atef Abu Khater due to Israeli-imposed starvation. Al Jazeera, who spoke to his family, is reporting that Khater was very healthy prior to Israel's war on Gaza, and used to be a local sports champion.

He was hospitalised in intensive care after losing a lot of weight, and ultimately died.

He is among 163 Palestinians, 92 of them children, who have died of Israeli-imposed starvation since Israel imposed its total blockade on Gaza in March.

An Israeli strike targeting the Shujaya neighbourhood in central Gaza's Gaza City has killed three Palestinians.

Their deaths bring today's toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces to 24 people, including 13 aid seekers.