Smoke rises as Israeli forces demolish the home of Abdul Karim Sanoubar, a suspected Palestinian militant who has been accused by Israel of planting bombs on buses in central Israel, in Nablus, West Bank, on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

Palestinians collect leaflets dropped by an Israeli drone warning people to stay away from the so-called yellow line in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Monday, October 20, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

Heavy machinery operates at a site where searches for deceased hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel are underway amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on October 19, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A drone view shows the destruction in a residential neighbourhood, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in Gaza City, on October 19, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Thousands of people protested on Saturday (August 31, 2025) against Israel’s siege of Gaza on the sidelines of the Venice Film Festival, seeking to move the spotlight from movie drama to real-world trauma.

Organised by left-wing political groups in northeast Italy, the demonstration began in the early evening a few kilometres from the festival where top Hollywood talent from George Clooney and Julia Roberts to Emma Stone have walked the red carpet in recent days.

The protesters, whose numbers AFP reporters estimated to be about three to four thousand, marched slowly to the entrance of the festival in the beachfront Lido district, waving Palestinian flags, as the Hollywood blockbuster “Frankenstein” was due to have its world premiere nearby.

“You are all an audience to genocide” read one sign.

Protesters said the film industry should use its public platform at Venice — the world’s oldest film festival whose movies often go on to Oscar glory — to focus attention on Gaza.

“The entertainment industry has the advantage of being followed a lot, and so they should take a position on Gaza,” Marco Ciotola, a 31-year-old computer scientist from Venice, told AFP at the rally.

“I don’t say that everyone needs to say ‘genocide’, but at least everyone needs to take a position, because this is not a political situation. This is a human situation.”

“We all know what is happening and it’s not possible that it carries on,” said Claudia Poggi, a teacher holding a Palestinian flag as people shouted “Stop the Genocide!” and “Free Palestine”.

The Gaza war was one of the main talking points in the lead-up to the festival due to an open letter denouncing the Israeli government and calling on the festival to speak out against the war more forcefully.

The letter, drafted by a group called Venice4Palestine, has garnered more than 2,000 signatures from film professionals, including “Frankenstein” director Guillermo del Toro, according to organisers.

A similar initiative was organised at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

“The objective of the letter was to bring Gaza and Palestine to the core of the public conversation in Venice,” Venice4Palestine co-founder and director Fabiomassimo Lozzi told AFP.

“We are amazed at the amount of reaction,” he added.

“It was like people in our business were just waiting for someone to raise our voice.”

On the same day just blocks away on the red carpet, “Frankenstein” stars Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi posed for the paparazzi and signed autographs.

The Netflix-produced film is one of 21 movies in the main competition vying for the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion.

On the red carpet Friday, Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani held up a sign saying “Stop the Genocide in Gaza.” She told AFP it was “essential that we make our voices heard.”

“I want every person to be able to speak out on this. And raise their voice. And make their voice heard,” she said, calling what was going on in Gaza “an attack on humanity.”

The festival has said it would not disinvite actors who have supported Israeli’s actions in Gaza, as the collective had asked it to do for Israeli actor Gal Gador and Britain’s Gerard Butler — who regardless were not expected to attend the festival.

Venice4Palestine’s Lozzi defended the proposed boycott.

“I believe that it’s justified in the same way I believed about 40 years ago that it was justified boycotting artists who performed in South Africa at the height of the apartheid system,” he said.

Next week will see the premiere of “The Voice of Hind Rajab”, set in Gaza, by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, in the main competition.

Actors Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix, and directors Alfonso Cuaron and Jonathan Glazer, have joined the movie as executive producers, according to film business news outlet Deadline.

It tells the true story of a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in January 2024 by Israeli forces alongside six family members while trying to flee Gaza City.

Israel invaded Gaza nearly two years ago and has killed at least 63,025 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the UN considers reliable.

The United Nations has declared a famine in the territory caused by Israel’s blockade on the territory of nearly two million people.

The war was sparked by the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Published – August 31, 2025 07:12 am IST

Palestinians gather at the site of Israeli strikes on houses and residential buildings, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip on October 20, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli strikes on multiple homes in the northern Gaza Strip overnight and into Sunday (October 20, 2024) left at least 87 people dead or missing, the territory’s Health Ministry said.

It said another 40 people were wounded in the strikes on the town of Beit Lahiya, which was among the first targets of Israel’s ground invasion nearly a year ago.

Israel has been carrying out a large-scale operation in northern Gaza for the last two weeks, saying Hamas has regrouped there. Palestinian officials say hundreds of people have been killed and that the health sector in the north is on the verge of collapse.

The United States is meanwhile investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents that assess Israel’s plans to attack Iran, according to three U.S. officials. A fourth U.S. official said the documents appear to be legitimate.

The documents, attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency and marked top secret, indicate that Israel was moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack on October 1.

The U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The U.S. is urging Israel to press for a cease-fire in Gaza following the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week. But neither Israel nor Hamas has shown any renewed interest in such a deal, after months of negotiations sputtered to a halt in August.

Iran supports Hamas and the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, where a year of escalating tensions boiled over into all-out war last month. Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon at the start of October.

The Lebanese Army said three of its soldiers were killed in an Israeli strike on their vehicle in southern Lebanon. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on Sunday’s (October 20, 2024) strike.

Lebanon’s Army has largely kept to the sidelines in the war between Israel and the Hezbollah. The military is a respected institution in Lebanon but is not powerful enough to impose its will on Hezbollah or defend the country from an Israeli invasion.

On Saturday (October 19, 2024), a drone targeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house, causing no casualties, as part of a barrage of incoming projectiles across the country’s northern border. It wasn’t clear if the house was hit.

Israel has meanwhile ramped up strikes on southern neighbourhoods of Beirut known as the Dahiyeh, a crowded residential area. Hezbollah has a strong presence there, but it is also home to large numbers of civilians and people unaffiliated with the militant group.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, has called civilian casualties in Lebanon “far too high” in the Israel-Hezbollah war and urged Israel to scale back some strikes, especially in and around Beirut.

Among the dead from the strikes in Beit Lahiya were two parents and their four children, and a woman, her son and her daughter-law and their four children, according to Raheem Kheder, a medic. He said the strike flattened a multi-story building and at least four neighbouring houses.

There was no immediate comment on the strikes from the Israeli military.

Mounir al-Bursh, director general of the Health Ministry, said the flood of wounded from the strikes compounded “an already catastrophic situation for the health care system” in northern Gaza, in a post on X.

Doctors Without Borders, the international charity known by its French acronym MSF, called on Israeli forces “to immediately stop their attacks on hospitals in North Gaza” after the Health Ministry said Israeli troops had fired on two hospitals over the weekend.

The military said it was operating near one of the hospitals but had not fired directly at it, and that it was looking into the other incident.

“The ever-worsening escalation of violence and non-stop Israeli military operations that we have been witnessing over the past two weeks in northern Gaza have horrifying consequences,” said Anna Halford, an emergency coordinator for MSF.

“When hospitals are attacked, their infrastructure destroyed, and the electricity cut off, the lives of patients and medical staff are under threat.”

Internet connectivity went down in northern Gaza late Saturday and had not yet been restored by midday Sunday (October 20, 2024), making it difficult to gather information about the strikes and complicating rescue efforts.

Israel has been carrying out a major operation in Jabaliya, also in northern Gaza, for the last two weeks. The military says it launched the operation against Hamas militants who had regrouped there.

Over the course of the war, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to Jabaliya, a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

The north has already suffered the heaviest destruction of the war, and has been encircled by Israeli forces since late last year, following the deadly Hamas’ attack on Israel.

Israel ordered the entire population of the northern third of Gaza, including Gaza City, to evacuate to the south in the opening weeks of the war and reiterated those instructions earlier this month. Most of the population fled last year, but around 400,000 people are believed to have remained in the north.

Palestinians who fled the north at the start of the war have not been allowed to return.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 captives are still being held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.

Displaced children draw at a school-turned shelter in Beirut, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, on October 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Strikes hit south Beirut on Wednesday (October 16, 2024), an AFP journalist saw, less than an hour after the Israeli military ordered residents to leave part of the Lebanese capital.

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Black smoke billowed from between buildings in Haret Hreik after the first strike, which followed Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee telling people to leave the area.

Moments later an AFP journalist witnessed a second strike in south Beirut.

“You are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah, which the IDF (Israeli military) will work against in the near future” Adraee wrote in Arabic on X before the strikes, addressing Haret Hreik residents.

The Israeli military has repeatedly bombarded south Beirut in recent weeks, as well as carrying out deadly strikes elsewhere in the capital and across Lebanon.

At least 1,356 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel escalated its bombing last month, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israel needs to address urgently “catastrophic conditions” among Palestinian civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip and stop “intensifying suffering” by limiting aid deliveries, its ally the United States told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, October 9, 2024.

Referring to reports of squalid conditions in south and central Gaza, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “These catastrophic conditions were predicted months ago, and yet they have still not been addressed. That must change, and now.”

“We call on Israel to take urgent steps to do so,” she said in a blunt statement.

The 15-member Security Council met over the humanitarian crisis a year after a deadly attack by Palestinian militants Hamas on southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza. Israel has since laid to waste much of the enclave and almost the entire population of 2.3 million has been displaced.

Israel says Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, while health authorities in Gaza say nearly 42,000 people have been killed so far during Israel’s retaliation. Thomas-Greenfield also addressed a recent Israeli order for civilians in Gaza’s north to evacuate again, saying they must be able to return to communities to rebuild.

Also Read: U.S. spends a record $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since Gaza war

“There must be no demographic or territorial change in the Gaza Strip, including any actions that reduce the territory of Gaza,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, told the Security Council: “Hundreds of thousands of people are again being pushed to move to the south, where living conditions are intolerable.

“Yet again, Gazans are teetering on the edge of a man-made famine,” he said.

‘NO RESTRICTIONS’

The U.N. has long complained of obstacles to getting aid into Gaza and distributing it during the war. Reuters reported last week that food supplies to Gaza have fallen sharply in recent weeks because Israeli authorities have introduced a new customs rule on some humanitarian aid and are separately scaling down deliveries organized by businesses.

“We need to see fewer barriers to the delivery of aid, not more of them,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon defended his country’s record: “Israel imposes no restrictions on humanitarian aid. In fact, 82% of all requests for humanitarian coordination have been approved and implemented.”

He accused Hamas of diverting aid from those in Gaza who need it.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward told the council that Israel “must do much more” to avoid civilian casualties and ensure the U.N. and aid groups can operate safely and effectively in Gaza.

“Delivery of humanitarian assistance is being hindered, and humanitarian workers are constantly under threat,” French U.N. Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere said.

More than 300 humanitarian aid workers, most of them UNRWA staff, have been killed.

Palestinians check the damage in the al-Zahra school used as a refuge by displaced Palestinians following an Israeli strike, in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City on August 8, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Israeli military has ordered another mass evacuation in large areas around Khan Younis in southern Gaza, saying its forces will soon operate there in response to Palestinian rocket fire. Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis suffered widespread destruction during air and ground operations earlier this year.

Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to heavily destroyed areas of Gaza where they had fought earlier battles against Hamas and other militants since the start of the 10-month-old war.

Gaza faces a severe humanitarian crisis with Israeli restrictions on aid and ongoing fighting limiting access to crucial medical, food and other supplies. The Health Ministry in Gaza says the death toll in the territory is nearing 40,000.

Regional tensions have soared since Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed July 31 in Iran by a presumed Israeli strike. Retaliation has been expected.

Cease-fire talks

World leaders have been pushing for a cease-fire in Gaza. On Thursday (August 8,2024), the foreign powers involved in brokering a possible deal — the U.S., Egypt and Qatar — issued a joint statement calling on Israel and Hamas to resume stalled cease-fire talks on Aug. 15.

Israel has confirmed it will send negotiators to resume indirect cease-fire talks with Hamas next week in response to a proposal by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Thursday (August 8,2024) that the government would heed the call by foreign mediators to revive negotiations aimed at halting the fighting in Gaza after 10 months of devastating war and bringing home Israeli hostages still captive in the enclave.

The statement said that on August 15, at a place to be determined, the parties would hash out the implementation of a “framework agreement” that has already been finalized. The mediators said the talks would take place either in Qatar’s capital of Doha or Egypt’s capital of Cairo.

There was no immediate response to the offer by Hamas. Last week’s killing of its top political leader in Tehran raised tensions across the region, an escalation widely seen as a blow to cease-fire talks.

The foreign powers involved in brokering a possible cease-fire aimed at halting the fighting in Gaza and releasing Israeli hostages have jointly appealed to Israel and Hamas to return to the negotiating table next week.

The statement issued Thursday (August 8,2024) by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, the three mediators in the monthslong Israel-Hamas war, called on the parties to resume stalled cease-fire talks on Aug. 15 in either Qatar’s capital of Doha or Egypt’s capital of Cairo.

“There is no further time to waste nor excuses from any party for further delay,” it said, adding that the negotiators have already finalized a “framework” for the deal. All that’s left to hammer out, it said, are the details of implementation.

Palestinians inspect the destruction following overnight Israeli strikes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 6, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement.
| Photo Credit: AFP

As well as killing more than 34,000 people and causing catastrophic levels of hunger and injury, the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas has also caused massive material destruction in Gaza.

“The rate of damage being registered is unlike anything we have studied before. It is much faster and more extensive than anything we have mapped,” said Corey Scher, a Ph.D. candidate at the City University of New York, who has been researching satellite imagery of Gaza.

As Israel launches an offensive on Rafah, the last population centre in Gaza yet to be entered by its ground troops, AFP looks at the territory’s shattered landscape seven months into the war sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack.

Three-quarters of Gaza City destroyed

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet, where before the war 2.3 million people had been living on a 365-square-kilometre (140-square-mile) strip of land.

According to satellite analyses by Mr. Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek, an associate professor of geography at Oregon State University, 56.9 % of Gaza buildings were damaged or destroyed as of April 21, making a total of 160,000.

“The fastest rates of destruction were in the first two to three months of the bombardment”, Mr. Scher told AFP.

In Gaza City, home to some 6,00,000 people before the war, the situation is dire: almost three-quarters (74.3%) of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed. 

Five hospitals now rubble

During the war, Gaza’s hospitals have been repeatedly attacked by Israel, which accuses Hamas of using them for military purposes, a charge the militant group denies.

In the first six weeks of the war sparked by the Hamas attack, which killed more than 1,170 people according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures, “60% of healthcare facilities… were indicated as damaged or destroyed”, Mr. Scher said.

The territory’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa in Gaza City, was targeted in two offensives by the Israeli army, the first in November, the second in March.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the second operation reduced the hospital to an “empty shell” strewn with human remains. 

Five hospitals have been completely destroyed, according to figures compiled by AFP from the OpenStreetMap project, the Hamas health ministry and the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT). Fewer than one in three hospitals — 28% — are partially functioning, according to the UN.

Over 70% of schools damaged

The territory’s largely U.N.-run schools, where many civilians have sought refuge from the fighting, have also paid a heavy price.

As of April 25, UNICEF counted 408 schools damaged, representing at least 72.5% of its count of 563 facilities.

Of those, 53 school buildings have been completely destroyed and 274 others have been damaged by direct fire.

The U.N. estimates that two-thirds of the schools will need total or major reconstruction to be functional again.

Regarding places of worship, combined data from UNOSAT and OpenStreetMap show 61.5% of mosques have been damaged or destroyed. 

More bombed-out than Dresden

The level of destruction in northern Gaza has surpassed that of the German city of Dresden, which was firebombed by Allied forces in 1945 in one of the most controversial Allied acts of World War II.

According to a U.S. military study from 1954, quoted by the Financial Times, the bombing campaign at the end of World War II damaged 59% of Dresden’s buildings.

In late April, the head of the U.N. mine clearance programme in the Palestinian territories, Mungo Birch, said there was more rubble to clear in Gaza than in Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia more than two years ago. 

The U.N. estimated that as of the start of May, the post-war reconstruction of Gaza would cost between 30 billion and 40 billion dollars.