Live: Six more Palestinians die of famine as Israel blocks Gaza aid

Israel announced on Wednesday that it will establish two additional humanitarian aid distribution centres in the southern Gaza Strip to serve Palestinians displaced by its planned military takeover of Gaza City.

The military said the centres would be completed in the coming days, bringing the total number of distribution sites to five.

According to the health ministry in Gaza, more than 313 Palestinians, including 119 children, have died from malnutrition and starvation under Israel’s blockade.

Reporting by Reuters

Outside the home of Hussam al-Masri, a Palestinian photojournalist killed by Israel this week, mourners gathered to offer condolences. 

But no dates were passed around, nor was there the traditional smell of thick coffee being poured into small cups for mourners outside his family home in western Khan Younis. In Gaza, where Israel is imposing a policy of forced starvation, coffee now costs $50 an ounce. 

Before Hussam was killed on Monday alongside four other journalists, including Middle East Eye correspondents Mohamed Salama and Ahmed Abu Aziz, his home had already been destroyed by Israeli attacks. Neighbours who came here to mourn sat on slabs of stone arranged in a circle around the torn tarpaulins where his family, stunned and grieving, huddled for shelter.

Hussam’s wife Samaher - who suffers from a severe skin disease that has been getting worse amid the lack of treatment in besieged Gaza, to the point where she can barely move - has now lost her husband, who was her primary support system. As mourners gathered at their home, their 15-year-old son, Ahmad, sat in silence. Their 18-year-old daughter, Shatha, remembered that their dad would have turned 50 next year.

“Photography had been his passion for 20 years, and he worked for Palestine TV and Reuters because he always wanted the world to see what was happening here in Gaza,” Shatha told MEE. “Now they killed him because he showed the world.”

In our camp, Hussam was no stranger. He was kin, married to our neighbour’s daughter. As my cousin Mohammed put it: “He is one of us. He was not only our neighbour and our friend, but our voice. His only crime was documenting genocide.”

Israel’s double-tap strike on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza on Monday killed 21 people, including the five journalists. The first missile struck around 11am local time (09:00 BST), as doctors were doing their morning rounds. Minutes later, after rescuers had rushed to the scene, Israel forces hit again.

Read more: Every time Israel kills a Palestinian journalist, we lose a piece of our truth: Opinion by Ghada Ageel

The Israeli military has killed at least 37 Palestinians in Gaza since dawn on Wednesday, Al Jazeera is reporting, citing medical sources.

Among those who were killed were eight seeking humanitarian aid.

Israel’s military offensive on Gaza is nearing the two-year mark. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, and nearly the entire population has been forcibly displaced multiple times. Rising starvation deaths amid an Israeli blockade and aid sites described as "killing sites" accompany increasing warning bells from international humanitarian agencies describing this as genocide.

Yet, many countries seem reluctant to use the word. Last year, UK Foreign Minister David Lammy suggested that not enough people had been killed for it to warrant the term. Others have said it’s a matter for legal courts to determine.

So, is what’s happening in Gaza a genocide? And who gets to decide that? In this episode of Expert Witness, we asked 10 leading scholars. Here’s what they said.

US contractors at a Gaza aid centre interrogated a source of Middle East Eye journalist Mohamed Salama seeking information about his identity and whereabouts before he was killed, MEE can reveal.

Salama was killed alongside MEE reporter Ahmed Abu Aziz and three other journalists on Monday morning as they responded to an attack on Nasser hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis. The two strikes killed 20 Palestinians overall, including medics and first responders.

Days before, a source for one of Salama’s major investigations for MEE told him that they had been briefly detained at an aid distribution centre by US security contractors guarding the site.

There, the source said, they had been interrogated about the identity of the reporter behind the story. Salama worked on the story anonymously for security reasons.

“The source would not have been in contact with me unless they thought something was deeply wrong,” Salama told colleagues at the time.

Read more: Exclusive: US contractors in Gaza pursued MEE journalist before his killing

The death toll from the Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis has risen to 22, after two more Palestinians died of their wounds on Wednesday, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.

The air strike, which also killed five journalists working for Middle East Eye, Reuters, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and other outlets, has sparked global outcry.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said on Wednesday that more information about the strike will be available in the coming days.

“We’re still looking into the details of that incident, and so that in the next few days we will have more information about that,” Danon told reporters.

“Our goal is to fight terrorists, not journalists, not anyone who is not involved in terrorism,” he said.

Pope Leo XIV called on Israel to halt “collective punishment” and the forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, urging an immediate and permanent ceasefire to end what he described as “terror, destruction, and death”.

The pope was interrupted twice by applause as he delivered his appeal during his weekly general audience at the Vatican.

Leo, the first American pope, also appealed for the release of the 50 remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

At least 32 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since dawn, Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting, citing medical sources.

The figure includes eight aid seekers.

Israeli drone strikes killed six Syrian soldiers in the Damascus countryside, state-run Al-Ekhbariya TV reported on Wednesday.

Syria said Israel deployed 60 soldiers on Monday to seize a strategic hilltop overlooking Beit Jinn, calling the invasion a violation of its sovereignty and a threat to regional security.

The incident comes as Syria and Israel hold US-mediated talks to reach a security deal.

At least 80 Palestinians have been injured in an ongoing Israeli raid on Nablus in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera is reporting.

Residents said the raid began around 3am and has lasted more than 13 hours, with soldiers storming several neighbourhoods in the old city, home to about 30,000 people.

The Israeli military confirmed to AFP it was conducting an operation without specifying its purpose.

Nablus’ old city has been the site of repeated major raids, including in 2022, 2023 and during the Second Intifada in 2002.

Five current and former Microsoft employees were arrested at the company’s headquarters in Washington after staging a sit-in at the president’s office, demanding that the company cut ties with the Israeli government.

Police carried the protesters out in full-body harnesses, according to a former employee who helped organise the action.

“No arrests, no violence, will deter us from continuing to speak up,” Abdo Mohamed, who was fired last autumn after holding a vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza, told the Guardian. 

Israel is using delay tactics to prolong its genocide in Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday.

Israel has yet to respond to the ceasefire proposal accepted by Hamas earlier this month, with mediator Qatar saying on Tuesday that it is “unwilling to reach an agreement”.

The Palestinian ministry called the move a “political trap” aimed at eroding international consensus and undermining UN demands for an immediate ceasefire. It warned that the international community’s accommodation to Israel’s shifting deadlines risks catastrophic consequences for civilians.

Medical sources in Gaza have told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israeli forces have killed at least 26 Palestinians since dawn on Wednesday, including seven aid workers.

Gaza’s Government Media Office says only 14 percent of essential food and aid has entered the territory in the past month, as Israel’s siege chokes supplies and drives a deepening starvation crisis.

“The Israeli occupation authorities continue to commit a systematic starvation crime against the population of the Gaza Strip,” the office said in a statement.

It reported that hunger and malnutrition have killed 313 people so far, including 119 children, warning the situation is most dire for “children, the sick, and the elderly.”

Officials said Israeli forces have closed all border crossings and banned the entry of 430 critical food items, leaving an “86 percent shortfall in aid."

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has condemned the killing of journalists in Gaza, calling their deaths “unjustifiable” during a speech on Wednesday.

Her comments came after an Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza on Monday killed at least 20 people, including five journalists working for Middle East Eye, Reuters, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and other outlets.

Meloni’s remarks add to a growing chorus of international criticism over Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s medical facilities and journalists.