Live: 54 Palestinians killed, 831 wounded in 24 hours

The United Arab Emirates has said it will begin construction of a desalinated water pipeline to supply southern Gaza from Egypt, news agency AFP has reported. 

UAE has already started transferring equipment needed for the project, official Emirati news agency WAM reported on Wednesday.

It stated that the project involves a pipeline nearly 7km long, aimed at addressing a water crisis in Gaza.

UN agencies have said Gaza is currently on the brink of famine due to the Israeli-imposed blockade on aid. Some 154 Palestinians have died due to enforced starvation. 

The government of Belgium on Wednesday said it will take part in a multi-country operation coordinated by Jordan to airdrop aid into Gaza, news agency AFP reported. 

A Belgian plane carrying medical supplies and food worth some €600,000 ($690,000) will "soon" fly to Jordan, and will remain on stand-by to conduct airdrops in coordination with Amman, the defence and foreign ministries said in a statement.

Belgium joins France, Spain and Britain looking to send aid into Gaza by air as fears mount of mass starvation. UN agencies have warned that the Palestinian territory is slipping into famine. 

"I will continue to plead with the Israeli authorities to allow these deliveries to enter Gaza by road as quickly as possible," said Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot. 

"These airdrops are a first step, but they can in no way be a cover for the urgent need to facilitate access by land," he added.

The World Food Programme, Unicef and the Food and Agriculture Organisation warned on Tuesday that time was running out and that Gaza was "on the brink of a full-scale famine". 

Some 154 Palestinians have died due to starvation as Israel continues to block all aid to Gaza. Since May, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinian aid seekers, mostly at the US and Israel-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites.

Israeli forces on Wednesday notified the village of Nu'man, near Bethlehem, that all houses and apartments will be demolished, Wafa news agency reported. 

Village head Jamal Darawi said that Israeli police, accompanied by employees from the Israeli municipality in Jerusalem, delivered notices for the third time in a few months. 

The notice includes demolition of 35 homes, citing lack of permits as the reason. 

Nu'man has a population of 150 people, and Israel has prevented construction in the village for 32 years. 

Some 87 homes have been bulldozed in East Jerusalem by Israeli forces since 7 October 2023. 

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has condemned moves to recognise Palestinian statehood while Israeli captives remain held in Gaza, saying such recognition “amounts to rewarding terrorism”.

On its website, the forum describes itself as a civil organisation focused on the "safe return of all Israeli citizens held hostage" in Gaza.

"Such recognition is not a step toward peace, but rather a clear violation of international law and a dangerous moral and political failure that legitimizes horrific war crimes," the forum wrote.

The family members of the captives said that if the international community desires peace, it "must join US efforts by calling for their release from captivity and an end to the fighting in Gaza". 

According to the Palestinian health ministry, 154 Palestinians - including 89 children - have died as a result of Israeli-enforced starvation.

Israeli forces have killed more than 60,000 Palestinians since the war began.

Far-right ministers in the Jewish Power party have said that "the mission to return the hostages being held in Gaza back to Israel should not be the primary goal of Israel's war in Gaza".

A former US Army Special Forces officer, who resigned from his role at the controversial Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) last month, has said that an emaciated child was shot dead by Israeli forces moments after receiving aid.

Anthony Aguilar told the UnXeptable podcast on Monday that he saw Israeli forces kill the young boy, named Amir, and countless others while he was manning a GHF aid distribution point in southern Gaza on 28 May.

"This young boy, Amir, walked up to me, barefoot and wearing tattered clothes that hung off his emaciated body," Aguilar said. 

"He walked 12km to get there, and when he got there, he thanked us for the remnants and the small crumbs that he got.

"He set them down on the ground, because I was kneeling at this point, and he sets his food down, and he places his hands on my face, on the side of my face, on my cheeks, these frail, skeleton, emaciated hands - dirty - and he puts them on my face, and he kissed me. 

Read more: Starving child in Gaza was killed 'seconds' after receiving aid, former US military contractor says

Fifteen countries have signed a joint French-led declaration, demanding an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional release of all captives held by Hamas and calling for a two-state solution.

"[We] have already recognised, have expressed or express the willingness or the positive consideration of our countries to recognise the State of Palestine, as an essential step towards the two-state solution," the statement said, inviting "all countries that have not done so to join this call".

The statement also called for the unification of "the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority" and expressed "grave concern over the high number of civilian casualties and humanitarian situation in Gaza and emphasised the essential role of the United Nations and its agencies in facilitating humanitarian assistance."

The signatory countries include Andorra, Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Slovenia and Spain.

A New York avec 14 autres pays, la France lance un appel collectif : nous exprimons notre volonté de reconnaître l'Etat de Palestine et invitons ceux qui ne l’ont pas encore fait à nous rejoindre. pic.twitter.com/faCYTYwmES

— Jean-Noël Barrot (@jnbarrot) July 30, 2025

Several more people died in Gaza "due to famine and malnutrition”, the enclave’s Health Ministry said in a statement on Telegram on Wednesday.

The recent deaths brought the total number of people who have starved to death during Israel’s war on Gaza to 154, including 89 children, the ministry said.

The death toll from Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza has risen to at least 16 since dawn, Al Jazeera Arabic reported, citing medical sources.

The toll includes at least 13 people seeking aid, the sources said.

Two men have been forcibly disappeared in Egypt following their alleged participation in the storming of the State Security headquarters at the Ma’asara police station in Helwan in southern Cairo in protest of Egypt's alleged complicity in the Gaza siege, Middle East Eye has learned. 

Twenty-seven-year-old Mohsen Mustafa and his 23-year-old cousin Ahmed Sherif Ahmed Abdel Wahab have not been heard from since Mustafa posted on Facebook claiming responsibility for the raid, shortly before his profile was removed.

The men were reportedly involved in the storming of the police station on 25 July, where a group who identified themselves as “Iron 17” raided the facility and detained several security personnel for hours.

Footage of the raid showing the young men holding the officers captive went viral. The videos, which were published on a Telegram channel and viewed millions of times, showed the men condemning the closure of Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with Gaza and the arrests of activists collecting aid for Palestinians in the territory.

Read more: Two men forcibly disappeared in Egypt after storming police station over Gaza blockade

Eight residents of the Palestinian hamlet of Umm al-Kheir in Masafer Yatta, in the occupied West Bank, were arrested overnight after an Israeli settler killed activist Awdah Hathaleen on Monday, The Times of Israel reported.

According to Peace Now, the village head was among those detained when the military entered the hamlet at around 4.30am on Wednesday.

Hathaleen was part of the Oscar-winning No Other Land film crew. 

Yinon Levi, the settler sanctioned by the US and other countries, was placed under house arrest on Tuesday.

A video shared on Instagram on Monday by the co-director of No Other Land showed Levi firing indiscriminately at Palestinians in Umm al-Kheir.

Four men arrested for throwing stones at Levi’s bulldozer remain in Israeli detention.

Israeli attacks killed at least 12 Palestinians across Gaza since dawn, Al Jazeera Arabic reported, citing medical sources.

The death toll includes six aid seekers shot by Israeli forces near aid centres north of Rafah, according to Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis city.

Britain on Wednesday rejected criticism that it was rewarding Hamas by setting out plans to recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel took steps to improve the situation in Gaza and bring about peace.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer's ultimatum, setting a September deadline for Israel, prompted an immediate rebuke from his counterpart in Jerusalem, who said it rewarded Hamas.

"This is about the Palestinian people. It's about those children that we see in Gaza who are starving to death," British Transport Minister Heidi Alexander, designated by the government to respond to questions in a series of media interviews on Wednesday, told LBC radio.

“We've got to ratchet up pressure on the Israeli government to lift the restrictions to get aid back into Gaza.”

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the sanctions recently imposed on her by the Trump administration will have serious impacts on her life and work.

“It’s very serious to be on the list of the people sanctioned by the US,” said Albanese, adding that individuals sanctioned by the US cannot have financial interactions or credit cards with any American bank.

When used in “a political way”, she said the sanctions “are harmful, dangerous”.

“My daughter is American. I’ve been living in the US, and I have some assets there. So of course, it’s going to harm me,” Albanese said.

“What can I do? I did everything I did in good faith, and knowing that, my commitment to justice is more important than personal interests.”

Last month, New York City's Democratic mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, not only mounted one of the biggest upsets in establishment politics in years, but he also won the most votes of any candidate on a primary ballot in the city's history. 

New polling numbers released on Tuesday show that his open support for Palestinian rights was the issue that "supercharged" his campaign.

An overwhelming 78 percent of New Yorkers who voted for Mamdani agreed with him that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, and 79 percent agreed that weapons transfers to Israel should be restricted.

Out of New Yorkers who voted for him, 63 percent of those also supported arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - as per the warrant from the International Criminal Court - if he visits New York City, something Mamdani has said he would do if he were to be elected mayor in November. 

Read more: Zohran Mamdani's support for Palestinian rights sealed mayoral primary win, poll shows