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A major Middle East Eye investigation has uncovered extraordinary details of an intensifying intimidation campaign targeting the British chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court over his investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes.
The campaign has involved threats and warnings directed at Karim Khan by prominent figures, close colleagues and family friends briefing against him, fears for the prosecutor’s safety prompted by a Mossad team in The Hague, and media leaks about sexual assault allegations.
It has taken place against the backdrop of Khan’s efforts to build and pursue a case against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials over their conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza and accelerating Israeli settlement expansion and violence against Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Last month, Middle East Eye revealed that Khan was warned in May that if the arrest warrants issued last year for Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant were not withdrawn, he and the ICC would be destroyed.
The warning was delivered by Nicholas Kaufman, a British-Israeli defence lawyer at the court, during a meeting with Khan and his wife, Shyamala Alagendra, at a hotel in The Hague.
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Israel's foreign ministry on Friday said its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi, news agency Reuters has reported.
The ministry said that operations at the consulate in Dubai are ongoing "in cooperation with local authorities and this includes ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats".
On Thursday, Israeli media had reported that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic mission staff in the UAE after Israel's National Security Council updated its travel warning.
Israeli author David Grossman has said that his country is committing genocide in Gaza.
“For many years, I refused to use that term: genocide,” the writer told Italian daily La Repubblica in an interview published on Friday.
“But now, after the images I have seen and after talking to people who were there, I can’t help using it.”
“This word is an avalanche: Once you say it, it just gets bigger, like an avalanche. And it adds even more destruction and suffering,” he said.
Grossman’s works have won many international prizes, including Israel’s top literary prize in 2018.
His comments come days after two major Israeli rights groups also used the term amid growing global alarm over Israeli-imposed starvation in Gaza.
South African authorities are facing mounting pressure to sever ties with Israel and expel Israeli diplomats, amid growing outrage over its genocide by starvation campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Several activists told Middle East Eye that they had intensified their campaign to end what they called South Africa's complicity in Israel's war on Gaza, where more than 200,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded and the entire population is facing famine.
Zukiswa Wanner, a writer and activist, said that many South Africans had thought Pretoria's decision to take Israel to the International Court of Justice in late 2023 would result in a swift end to the 22-month conflict, but Israel, with full Western backing, continued its war on Gaza.
"Almost two years later, Israel has not relented and we continue seeing the horror visited on the Palestinians," Wanner told MEE.
"As individuals, we are all quite powerless on pushing the stop of the genocide - but as citizens - we can demand of our government that they finalise this small thing: South Africa can't be having normal relations with an abnormal, genocidal government.
Since Israel went to war on Gaza, only Bolivia and Belize have severed diplomatic relations with Israel. At various points, the Muslim majority countries of Bahrain, Chad, Jordan and Turkey have withdrawn their ambassadors, but all still maintain diplomatic ties with Israel.
For its part, South Africa hasn't had an ambassador in Israel since 2018. But activists say the country needs to take stronger action against Israel.
Read more: Pressure mounts on South Africa to sever ties with Israel, expel diplomats
The United Nations has nearly 6,000 food trucks currently stuck outside Gaza and ready to enter the territory, said Unwra chief Philippe Lazzarini on Friday.
"UNRWA has 6,000 aid trucks blocked outside Gaza, awaiting the green light to enter," Lazzarini stated on social media platform X, adding that aid airdrops are ineffective and insufficient.
"If there is political will to allow extremely costly, insufficient, and ineffective airdrops, then there should be similar political will to open road crossings," he added, without explicitly naming Israel, which has blocked aid into Gaza, leading to famine.
The UN, including Unwra and partners, "were able to bring in 500 to 600 trucks a day during the ceasefire earlier this year," Lazzarini said.
That aid "reached the entire population of Gaza safely and with dignity" and with "no diversions," he said, stressing that "no alternative to the UN-coordinated response has produced similar results."
Airdrops are at least 100 times more costly than trucks
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) August 1, 2025
Trucks carry twice as much aid as planes.
If there is political will to allow airdrops - which are highly costly, insufficient & inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings.
As the…
Slovenia on Thursday imposed an arms embargo on Israel citing the European Union's failure to take action to stop Israel's assault on Gaza.
"At the initiative of Prime Minister Robert Golob, the Slovenian government confirmed a decision prohibiting the export and transit of military weapons and equipment from or through the Republic of Slovenia to Israel, or the import from Israel to Slovenia," a government statement read.
Golob announced the decision after a government meeting, saying that his country is the first EU nation to take such a step.
Two weeks ago, Slovenia was also the first EU country to declare two Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, persona non grata, accusing them of making "genocidal statements" against Palestinians.
In June 2024, Slovenia followed Norway, Spain and Ireland in recognising Palestine as an independent state and has been among the most vocal European nations in its criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza, with President Natasa Pirc Musar describing the onslaught as a genocide.
In their meeting in mid-July, the EU’s 27 foreign ministers failed to agree on the suspension of the controversial EU-Israel Association Agreement, which covers both trade and political relations. They also failed to agree on nine other possible measures against Israel put forward after it was found to have breached the human rights provisions of the trade agreement.
The measures that would have been agreed last month included full suspension of the agreement, suspension of its preferential trade provisions, an arms embargo, sanctions on Israeli ministers, or imposing a ban on trade with Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine.
Slovenia's Golob has repeatedly stated that his government would act independently if the EU fails to take concrete measures against Israel by mid-July.
Read more: Slovenia becomes first EU country to impose arms embargo on Israel
A spokesperson for the World Health Organization has demanded that the crossings into Gaza be opened and that 600 trucks be allowed into the enclave daily, Al Jazeera has reported.
"The situation in Gaza is a man-made disaster that will end with the entry of aid. Airdropping aid is not a solution; the solution is to bring trucks into Gaza," the spokesperson said.
The UN human rights office has said that 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while waiting for aid in Gaza since late May.
"In total, since 27 May, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food; 859 in the vicinity of [US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] sites and 514 along the routes of food convoys," the UN agency's office for the Palestinian territories said in a statement.
"Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military," it added.
Over the past two years, the world has witnessed such an intensification of atrocities emanating from the Israeli state that each one threatens to obscure the last.
This invariably means that responding to each new outrage risks distracting from the key issue: the relentless Zionist project of ethnically cleansing Palestine in favour of an ethno-nationalist Jewish state, and the creation of a neutralised and neutered regional environment, where states abandon the Palestinian cause out of self-interest or because of bullying by Israel and the US.
Israel’s recent attack on Iran all but wiped out coverage of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
This, in turn, has obscured the violent assaults, land theft and ethnic cleansing taking place in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian citizens face such a multi-levelled onslaught against their lives and livelihoods that, within this maelstrom, many single actions that deserve scrutiny and analysis are overlooked, especially if they are not seen to have lethal outcomes.
To understand the purpose to which Israel’s genocide in Gaza is being put, it is useful to pause and take account of the connections between this extermination project and the regular hate marches in Jerusalem, with all the linguistic violence they embody.
While the wider world has focused on the incriminating genocidal statements made by Israeli leaders since October 2023, Palestinian commentators have been far more attuned to their decades-long history.
It is thus important to look back on the racist and eliminationist rhetoric that has emanated from “Jerusalem Day” since long before the most recent Netanyahu government, with its cabinet of avowed extremists and racists.
Read more: How Israel's racist mobs paved the way for Gaza genocide Opinion by Gwyn Daniel
Israeli attacks killed at least 83 Palestinians, including 53 aid seekers, and injured 554 others across Gaza in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement on Telegram.
Rescuers also recovered one body from the rubble of previous Israeli attacks, the statement.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed 60,332 people and injured 147,643 since 7 October 2023, the health ministry said on Wednesday.
It added that 1,383 Palestinians seeking aid have been killed and more than 9,218 wounded since 27 May, when Israel introduced its controversial system for distributing humanitarian aid.
The UN human rights office said Friday that 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while waiting for aid in the Gaza Strip since late May.
"In total, since 27 May, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food; 859 in the vicinity of (US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) sites and 514 along the routes of food convoys," the UN agency's office for the Palestinian territories said in a statement.
"Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military," it added.
Germany's Bundeswehr armed forces have started dropping aid supplies over Gaza, beginning with two Luftwaffe flights carrying almost 14 tonnes of supplies, the defence ministry said on Friday.
"The flights can only make a very small contribution to providing those affected on the ground with the bare essentials," Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said, adding that he expected Israel to "ensure comprehensive humanitarian supplies" for people in the enclave.
Germany has also pledged an additional €5m ($5.7m) in support for the World Food Programme in Gaza, the foreign office said.
In this powerful new collection, 27 Palestinians from Gaza - students, mothers, fathers, grandparents, children and teachers - recount their experiences of being internally displaced in Gaza after Israel’s invasion of Gaza and subsequent genocidal campaign.
Published by Haymarket Books, in collaboration with the American Friends Service Committee and the Hashim Sani Center for Palestine Studies, the book offers raw, unfiltered voices from the heart of Gaza’s ongoing nightmare.
A searing chronicle of a people’s suffering under genocide, it is also a celebration of their enduring humanity and hope.
From the start, Displaced in Gaza makes clear that these stories are not mere accounts of pain and loss; they are assertions of identity, resilience and resistance.
Reading the testimonies is an emotionally charged experience, one that leaves the reader shaken by the horrors described within.
Read more: Displaced in Gaza: Recounting stories from the Gaza genocide
An Israeli drone strike killed two people in Jabalia in northern Gaza, Al Jazeera Arabic reported, citing al-Shifa Hospital.
The attack raised today's death toll to 17, the report said.
The photo of an 18‑month‑old Palestinian infant from Gaza, his body resembling a “skeleton” with ribs and spine clearly visible, spread rapidly across the internet over the past week.
Widely shared by international media outlets, including the BBC, CNN and The New York Times, the image sparked global outrage.
It also created controversy. Israel and its supporters argued that the infant had “pre‑existing health problems”.
That has been the basis of claims by supporters of Israel to claim that starvation in Gaza is a “lie”.
Middle East Eye visited the child and his mother in their makeshift tent in western Gaza City.
Read more: 'You can see his bones': In Gaza, parents struggle against child starvation and Israeli war crimes denial
Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Israeli forces operating outside US-backed aid centres in war-torn Gaza of routinely killing Palestinian civilians seeking food, as well as using starvation as a weapon of war.
"US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths," said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch.
At least 859 Palestinians were killed while attempting to obtain aid at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites between 27 May and 31 July - most by the Israeli military - according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
"Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families," Wille said in a statement.
