After nearly 700 days of war, the death toll in Gaza has risen to extraordinary levels. Amid heavy bombardment that has turned the territory into a wasteland of rubble and stringent blockades that have led to mass hunger and even starvation, over 61,000 Palestinians have died and over 145,000 have been seriously wounded, according to Gaza’s Hamas-affiliated health authorities, which do not distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters.
But the true number of the war’s casualties may far outstrip those figures, which do not include the thousands of bodies that remain under the rubble, the large number of dead that could not arrive at morgues, and the excess deaths from the destruction of infrastructure and the ensuing disease, famine, and lack of medical care. In February, the medical journal The Lancet published an extensive analysis based on a wide variety of sources (including obituaries) and estimated that the official death toll underreported the direct war deaths in Gaza by at least 41 percent and perhaps by as much as 107 percent, while not accounting at all for nontrauma-related deaths resulting from the impact of Israeli military operations on Gaza’s health services, food and water supplies, and sanitation.
In sum, the authors of the study suggested that Israel’s campaign has caused at least an additional 26,000 Palestinian deaths and perhaps over 120,000 additional deaths, with the true death toll possibly exceeding 186,000. Taking that into account, as of late July 2025, Israel’s war in Gaza has led to the deaths of between five to ten percent of the prewar population of about 2.2 million. This represents an unprecedented slaughter. Israel’s campaign in Gaza is the most lethal case of a Western democracy using the punishment of civilians as a tactic of war.
Leaders and scholars have long assumed that democracyoffered a solution to the worst pathologies of authoritarian states, especially the willingness of a government to subject populations to coercion, cruelty, and violence. Indeed, the United States and other Western democracies, including Israel, have insisted that democracy is crucial for the promotion of fundamental human rights, individual prosperity, and a more peaceful world. For Israel, a country that has long touted its democratic bona fides, to violate core democratic norms in such dramatic fashion cheapens the value of democratic government itself.
Israel’s defenders may insist that civilian deaths are inevitable in a conflict against a burrowed-in terrorist enemy. But it has been clear from Israeli actions—including the targeting of children by snipers, the relentless bombing of civilian infrastructure and residences, and the blockade and starvation of the civilian population—as well as the rhetoric of numerous Israeli officials that Israel’s war is not simply against Hamas but aimed at all the residents of Gaza. That is also the conclusion of numerous international institutions and human rights groups. Indeed, the notion that Hamas can be eradicated via military means is a “fantasy,” as the former Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen said this week. As civilians continue to suffer in Gaza, Israel has squandered the moral high ground for no good strategic purpose.
Israel’s critics may demand that, based on its treatment of the Palestinians, the country should not be considered a democracy. That understates the full dimensions of Israel’s behavior in Gaza. Even now, Israel retains the political institutions built on majority rule and the high levels of citizen participation in free elections that are the hallmarks of representative government and that have long characterized Western democracy. Independent experts, such as Freedom House, still recognize Israel as a democracy. What is truly shocking about events in Gaza is both the scale of the devastation and that the government of Israel can genuinely say that its policies reflect the will of most Israelis. The carnage in Gaza is not the work of authoritarians or demagogues but bears the imprimatur of democracy. Israel’s campaign thus has profound implications both for the long-term security of the country and the value of democracy around the world.
IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY
In my 1996 book, Bombing to Win, I studied every campaign in the twentieth century that employed airpower with the intention of inflicting harm on civilians: 40 campaigns in all, including the Spanish Civil War, the Vietnam War, and the 1991 Gulf War. Only five of the 40 involved civilian deaths greater than one percent of the civilian population. These included four campaigns in and around World War II—Japan’s invasion of China from 1937 to 1945, Germany’s invasion of Poland from 1939 to 1945, the Allied bombing and invasion of Germany from 1939 to 1945, and the U.S. bombing and conquest of Japan from 1942 to 1945—and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1988. In proportional terms, Nazi Germany’s attack on Poland ranks as the deadliest of these campaigns, killing more than 20 percent of the prewar population over six years. That figure was enlarged, of course, by the Holocaust and the slaughter in ghettos and concentration camps of millions of Polish Jews.
Until Gaza, the worst civilian punishment campaign by a Western democracy was the bombing and ground invasion of Germany in World War II, which killed approximately two to four percent of the population, outpacing even the U.S. nuclear attacks and fire-bombing raids on Japan, which killed about one percent of the population. Those estimates from Germany account for deaths caused by both Soviet and Western forces, as well as direct and indirect deaths (as in The Lancet’sstudy on Gaza).
Whether it is called a “genocide” or not, no sensible observer could look at Israel’s war in Gaza and miss the stunning levels of devastation that Palestinians have endured. Beyond the mass death and suffering, the level of physical devastation is remarkable: satellite analysis by credible independent media outlets, such as The Economist and the Financial Times, reveals that at least 60 percent of all the buildings and 90 percent of homes in Gaza have either been severely damaged or completely destroyed. All 12 of Gaza’s universities, 80 percent of its schools and mosques, and numerous churches, museums, and libraries have also been demolished. No hospital in Gaza is fully functioning, and only 20 out of 36 hospitals are partially functioning.
And yet despite this mammoth destructive enterprise, Israel has not come close to fulfilling its stated aim of eliminating Hamas. The group still has significant appeal among Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It may be diminished as a military force, but it can replenish its depleted ranks with new recruits—indeed, by some accounts, it has managed to bring in over 10,000 new fighters since the war began. The extreme brutality Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people has not produced the strategic gains that Israeli officials promised.
The moral case for harming civilians is always dubious even when such violence serves a strategic purpose. When that strategic purpose does not exist, however, the moral case evaporates altogether. Israel now finds itself in a morally untenable situation. Rather than incur the world’s growing wrath, increased economic pressure, and the greater likelihood of future violence, Israel must reverse course and pursue alternatives to its campaign of mass death in Gaza.
THE END OF STRATEGY
Throughout history, states have repeatedly punished civilian populations harshly to try to compel local communities to turn against governments and terrorist groups. But even intense civilian punishment rarely achieves these goals. Instead, it often leads to what I have termed the “Pearl Harbor effect”: growing support among the assailed civilian community for its government or for the local terrorist group.
In June 2024, I argued in Foreign Affairs that at least in one way, Hamas was stronger then than it was before October 7, 2023. To be sure, Israeli attacks had devastated the group’s leadership and smashed much of its infrastructure. But according to the most reliable polling information available at that point, Palestinian support for Hamas had remained the same or risen in Gaza and the West Bank. Overall, the taproot of Hamas’s power—its ability to recruit new fighters to replenish losses—had actually increased. In January 2025, U.S. officials revealed that according to their estimates, Hamas had recruited around 15,000 new fighters since the start of Israel’s military operations in 2023, more than making up for the 11,000 to 13,000 losses that U.S. intelligence estimated the group had suffered.
Israel now finds itself in a morally untenable situation.
Much has happened since the start of this year: the end of a two-month cease-fire in March, the escalating Israeli siege and the tightened blockade on food and humanitarian goods entering the territory, the humanitarian crisis affecting Gaza’s entire population, and Israel’s announced intention to conquer at least 75 percent of Gaza—along with the overt consideration by some Israeli leaders that they should expel all Palestinians from the territory. For its part, Hamas seems to be stepping up its guerrilla tactics of ambushes and bombings targeting Israeli soldiers in Gaza, but the group has not been able to meaningfully defend the territory and its population from Israeli attacks.
Media reports in recent months have revealed sporadic demonstrations in Gaza against Hamas, suggesting that some Palestinians are fed up with the group and its actions. But according to recent polling, Hamas remains broadly popular among Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. The unprecedented scale of Israeli action has not yet exploded the assumptions in my original analysis.
Hamas’s relative power cannot simply be measured the same way one would measure the military balance between Israel and its state rivals. In contests between states, the military balance between opponents is of paramount importance. Their militaries usually engage in direct, large-scale battles to take and hold territory, control the skies over territory, or secure access to contested territory. The success of these operations is determined by key indicators, such as the numbers of fighters, stocks of weapons, and levels of economic support. If such factors determined the nature of combat between Hamas and Israel, the war would have been over long ago, since Israel far outpaces the group on all the usual indicators of military strength. That the war has continued for nearly two years and Hamas retains sufficient governing authority in Gaza to hide the remaining Israeli hostages and inflict casualties on the Israeli security forces strongly suggests that the true power of Hamas cannot be found in the traditional metrics of the military balance.
THE PERSISTENCE OF HAMAS
Terrorist groups such as Hamas fight asymmetrically. They rarely seek to seize and hold territory and almost never attempt to win pitched military-to-military battles. Instead, these groups seek to impose losses on their opponents in other ways, mostly through guerrilla operations that pick off enemy military personnel in small numbers and over long stretches of time and through attacks against civilians. Most often, they simply want to maximize harm to vulnerable civilian targets. And since they are always weaker than their state rivals in the usual military indicators, terrorist groups expect to suffer great losses as the conflict persists. As a result, the most telling power of Hamas is its ability to replace the fighters it loses with new ones. Estimates of Hamas’s fighting strength bear out this logic. According to the Israeli military, in early 2025, Hamas had as many as 23,000 fighters, a figure roughly the same as an Israeli estimate of the group’s size before October 7, 2023.
Hamas can recruit new fighters because it still enjoys support. Surveying public opinion is the best way to measure how much support exists among Palestinians for Hamas. The best available surveys conducted among Palestinian populations in Gaza and the West Bank are by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), an independent, nonprofit survey center established in 1993 following the Oslo accords that collaborates with Israeli scholars and institutions.
My previous June 2024 analysis relied on the PSR surveys from 2023 and 2024. When recent surveys from May 2025 are added to the mix, a striking finding emerges: Hamas has more support among Palestinians today than it did before October 7. Hamas is now, for instance, substantially more popular than its main political rival, the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which dominates the Palestinian Authority. In September 2023, Fatah enjoyed a four-point lead over Hamas (26 to 22 percent). In polling from May 2025, Hamas now enjoys an 11-point lead over Fatah (32 to 21 percent).
The shift toward Hamas is particularly acute in the West Bank, where support for Hamas has more than doubled. There, support for armed attacks on Israeli civilians has risen from 48 percent in June 2023 to 59 percent in May 2025.
Waiting for food in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, August 2025 Hatem Khaled / Reuters
In Gaza, support for Hamas has remained flat, despite the enormous suffering brought on the territory in the wake of Hamas’s October 2023 attack. In September 2023, Hamas had a 13-point lead over Fatah in Gaza (38 to 25 percent), and in May 2025, the numbers were almost the same: Hamas held a 12-point edge over Fatah (37 to 25 percent). The one sign that the Israeli campaign may have changed some views in Gaza is the drop in support among Gazans for armed attacks on Israeli civilians, which fell from 67 percent in September 2023 to 37 percent in May 2025.
But the polling suggests that Israel has not succeeded in severing the connection between Gazans and Hamas. Far from dwindling, support for Hamas has grown or remained the same, and the willingness of Palestinians to attack Israeli civilians remains high enough to satisfy Hamas’s recruiting needs, despite the most brutal punishment campaign by a Western democracy in history. For Israel’s security, the tragic reality is that Hamas likely retains the key asset that could allow it to carry out another major attack down the road: vast numbers of fighters willing to fight and die for the cause.
Hamas’s abiding popularity could be a factor in wider violence beyond Gaza. With Israeli forces stepping up raids on Palestinian refugee camps and settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank, the region is now a powder keg. The West Bank is home to 2.7 million Palestinians and 670,000 Israeli settlers living in proximity. Recent Israeli plans to expand settlements in the West Bank and rhetoric from far-right figures calling for the territory’s annexation will likely add fuel to this potential fire.
Israel’s announced intention to seize control of at least 75 percent of Gaza and then confine Gazans to a small portion of territory won’t succeed in divorcing the population from Hamas. As Palestinians are driven into a small corner of the enclave, Hamas will just move with them; this plan is no more likely to defeat Hamas than were the previous population transfers that forced people from area to area inside Gaza. Indeed, such Israeli actions will cause more suffering among civilians—and produce more terrorists. Israel could go further still, expelling Gazans into the Sinai Desert, but such a drastic measure would stoke the possibility of future retributive violence targeting Israelis. And most damaging for long-term Israeli security, throwing Gazans out of the territory would leave Israel open to accusations of engaging in ethnic cleansing, undermining any moral case for supporting the country.
Military operations that, intentionally or not, result in historic levels of civilian deaths are ultimately leading to a more dangerous situation for Israel, making it a less desirable home for Jews and a more likely target for those seeking revenge. Instead, Israel should establish a new security perimeter between Israeli civilian population centers and the Palestinians in Gaza, allowing Gazans enough space to rebuild their lives, letting humanitarian and economic aid to flow into the territory unimpeded, and working with international allies to foster alternative political arrangements to Hamas or Israeli control in Gaza.
THE STRATEGIC COSTS OF IMMORAL ACTIONS
Since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, international support for the country has been based in significant part on the recognition that Jews were the victims of the worst genocide in history. The war in Gaza, however, has seen a swelling tide of condemnation of Israel for committing intentional harm to civilians, mass atrocities, and even genocide. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants that require some 125 countries, including France and the United Kingdom, to detain Israel’s prime minister and other members of Israel’s cabinet. Even within Israel, prominent voices are calling for a course correction: former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has declared that Israel’s actions in Gaza are tantamount to a “war crime,” arguing that “what we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: the indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians.” As Israel becomes an international pariah and faces stiffening resistance to its rule in Gaza, the historic scale of its punishment of civilians is only jeopardizing the country’s long-term security.
Many Western countries have already begun to make moves to chastise Israel, including by joining much of the rest of the world in formally recognizing a Palestinian state, a step that could lead to large-scale humanitarian intervention in Gaza and economic sanctions on Israel. The United States will likely not follow that path, but U.S. President Donald Trump is mercurial. He has already contradicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and insisted that the starvation of Gaza must end. Rifts within Trump’s base are widening over Israel. U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a leading hard-right Republican, declared that Israel is in fact committing genocide in Gaza, borrowing from rhetoric heard more often on the left. A tactical alliance could grow in the United States between elements of the far right and the far left that seek to roll back U.S. support for Israel.
Israel is the most militarily powerful country in the Middle East and has scored numerous victories over its opponents in recent years. But it is also a tiny country surrounded by rivals. And it needs close relations with major Western democracies to ensure the viability of its economy. Those relations could be tested and strained as Israel continues waging the worst campaign of civilian punishment ever performed by a Western democracy, a campaign that has not come close to eliminating Hamas and has given Israel more adversaries and left it more isolated. Israeli leaders must decide whether their ongoing immoral actions in Gaza are really worth the costs to their country’s future.
Dozens of countries face higher levies on their exports to the US now that Donald Trump’s latest wave of country-specific tariffs has come into force.
The sweeping “reciprocal” rates announced by the White House a week ago – just before a previous 1 August deadline was due to elapse – were in place as of a minute past midnight Washington time on Thursday.
Just before midnight, Trump claimed on social media that billions of dollars would start flowing into the US as a result of the tariffs.
“The only thing that can stop America’s greatness would be a radical left court that wants to see our country fail,” the president wrote in capital letters, referencing an ongoing case in the US court of appeals which is considering whether he exceeded his authority in imposing the “reciprocal” tariffs.
The rates range from 41% on war-torn Syria to 10% for the UK and will be applied on top of the usual tariffs applying to products imported to the US.
This means that while Brazil’s “reciprocal” level is 10%, its total rate is 50% after an executive order imposed a 40% additional levy from Wednesday linked to the prosecution of the country’s former president Jair Bolsonaro.
The EU is the only trading partner where its baseline rate – set at 15% after a framework deal – will include previous tariffs. It means, for example, cheeses that are normally hit with import duties of 14.9% will be taxed at 15% and not 29.9%.
Since the announcement late on Thursday last week, governments around the world have been racing to try to reach deals to avert border taxes they fear could deter investors and result in job losses.
President Lula Da Silva talks on 5 August about the tariffs that President Trump will apply to Brazil. Photograph: Ton Molina/NurPhoto/Rex
The Swiss president, Karin Keller-Sutter, was in Washington on Tuesday for two days of meetings with senior Trump administration officials to try to reverse a 39% levy that blindsided the government when it was unveiled.
The Swiss government were set to hold an “extraordinary meeting” on Thursday, following the return of officials from Washington
Meanwhile, India’s 25% tariff rate could rise to a total of 50% after Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday imposing an additional levy in retaliation for the country’s purchase of oil from Russia. Delhi has 21 days to respond. Trump has threatened to use the same tactic on other countries that supply Russia.
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Trump first unveiled the raft of country-specific rates on 2 April, a date he called “liberation day”, claiming the rest of the world had looted the US for decades.
After a 90-day pause brought in a week later and another four-week truce announced on 7 July, he confirmed the new set of rates last Friday.
Some trading partners secured reductions via negotiations or by striking deals, including the UK, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan and the EU.
Other countries are negotiating tariffs not covered by last week’s announcement. Canada has been hit with a total rate of 35% that came in last Friday, while Mexico avoided an increase from its 25% rate on the same date after it was granted a 90-day extension. China faces a 30% rate while negotiations continue before its separate 12 August deadline for higher rates.
On Wednesday, Trump also warned that the US would impose a tariff of about 100% on semiconductor chips imported from countries not producing in America or planning to do so.
Over recent months, the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip has turned securing life’s most basic needs — water, food, and safety — into a daily tribulation. For many, even intense efforts will fail to provide a full stomach or a restful night.
Anas Arafat, a father of three living in Gaza City, described wartime life to The Times of Israel as a relentless struggle for survival from morning to night. “We focus on the basics,” he said.
Arafat lives in a building in the al-Daraj neighborhood in the northwestern part of Gaza City. Arafat has moved between several neighborhoods in the city, his hometown, during the war due to overcrowding and fears of IDF strikes. He is currently renting an apartment from a friend.
Unlike hundreds of thousands of other Gazans living in tents in displacement camps, Arafat has access to a jerry-rigged but functioning bathroom at home. He also still has his belongings, including clothing and kitchenware, from before the war.
With a nest egg that allows him to buy food, water, and power to charge his phone, Arafat is in many ways better situated than many others in Gaza who, lacking his means, have been left destitute, practically homeless and at the mercy of infrequent aid handouts requiring long journeys and deadly risks.
Yet even his relatively tolerable existence is still one of near-constant hardship. For Arafat and others like him who spoke to The Times of Israel to describe daily life in the Strip, making it through each day is a Sisyphean struggle filled with hunger, darkness and grave uncertainty.
“Yesterday morning, I went looking for someone selling water for washing and bathing,” Arafat told The Times of Israel via telephone. “I started around 7 a.m., and only found someone around 9 a.m.. After that, I looked for drinking water — two or three jugs. We need water for washing and for laundry every day. Even the water we buy for drinking isn’t really safe, but it’s all there is.”
While Arafat’s neighborhood has been targeted by the IDF multiple times during the war, the building he currently lives in remains habitable.
According to satellite imagery and UN statements, large parts of Gaza have been completely destroyed, including the northern tip of the Gaza Strip, eastern Gaza City, much of Rafah, and large sections of Khan Younis in the south of the Strip. In January, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced that 92 percent of buildings in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.
This aerial view shows a war-devastated neighborhood in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on April 2, 2025. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)
However, in western Gaza City, where the IDF’s ground operations were conducted primarily in the early months of the war, there are still areas with habitable buildings. The same is true for Deir al-Balah in the center of the Strip, where the IDF has conducted few ground operations.
Life in Gaza before the war was not exactly easy either. Since 2007, when the Hamas terror group seized power in a violent coup, Israeli restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of the Strip, as well as Hamas’s own policies, made the enclave into something of an economic basket case, with sky-high unemployment and a heavy reliance on foreign aid.
‘Every day, each member of the family gets one pita to last 24 hours. If we bathe once a week, that’s a success’
Israel said its embargo on Gaza was necessary to keep Hamas from building up its armed wing. Despite its efforts, Hamas still managed to develop a formidable fighting force along with miles of tunnels to support its activities beneath the Strip.
War erupted on October 7, 2023, as Hamas unleashed that force on southern Israel in a surprise attack, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251, mostly civilians. Gazan terrorists still hold 50 hostages. Israel has said it will end the war and allow aid to flood the Strip the moment Hamas releases the hostages and disarms, blaming the terror group for the woes that have befallen Gaza’s people.
Protesters hold posters of the hostages in front of a still image taken from a Hamas video of hostage Evyatar David, on August 2, 2025. (Paulina Patimer/ Hostages and Missing Families Forum)
While lower-income segments of society before the war were dependent on humanitarian assistance, and electricity and other essential needs were often in short supply, it was possible in the past to make a living in Gaza.
Arafat, a former lawyer who was part of the Strip’s sizable self-supporting professional class, described going out to restaurants, visiting friends and experiencing a thriving social scene in his former neighborhood. Others talked about going to cafes or the beach from time to time.
One thing that remains in Gaza is cellular reception, allowing The Times of Israel to speak with residents to understand what daily life consists of. The reception relies on local infrastructure operated by Palestinian telecom companies, some of which was damaged during the war and partially repaired by Palestinians in coordination with Israel. It is also supported by cell towers located inside Israeli territory near the Gaza border.
All other trappings of modern life, like consistent access to food and water, are gone, Gazans say.
“Every day, each member of the family gets one pita to last 24 hours,” said Mouin Hilu, a Gaza City father of 10 and grandfather of two. “If not, they go to sleep hungry. For the past three or four months, we haven’t been eating properly. Every night, we go to bed hungry – waiting for morning, hoping maybe tomorrow there will be something.”
Thirst
Water scarcity in Gaza predated the war, but the crisis has worsened since the conflict began.
Before the war, Gazans used water purchased by the Palestinian Authority from Israel’s Mekorot company, as well as from local wells and desalination facilities within the Strip.
Many wells across Gaza have been damaged in Israeli strikes. In addition, in November 2023, shortly after the October 7 Hamas-led invasion, Israel announced that it would stop selling water to Gaza.
Though the supply was gradually restored in the months that followed, damage to infrastructure remains extensive. Gaza’s desalination plant also went offline after Israel severed its supply of electricity to the Strip in March 2025. On July 26, Israel said it would reconnect power to the facility, but so far, this has not been confirmed by the UN or by local sources in the Gaza Strip.
As a result, houses in Gaza don’t have access to functioning pipelines, leaving them with no running water for bathrooms, showers, cooking and drinking needs.
Palestinians ride on a truck loaded with food and humanitarian aid as it moves along the Morag corridor near Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, August 4, 2025. (AP/ Mariam Dagga)
To operate his toilet and shower, Arafat said he buys water from a private vendor who fills a cistern approximately every four days at the cost of NIS 100 ($30) per fill-up — an astronomical sum beyond the reach of many in the enclave.
The high cost means showers are an infrequent luxury, and always cold, due to the lack of electricity or functioning solar water heaters.
“If we bathe once a week, that’s a success,” said Arafat. “Hygiene has deteriorated; soap and shampoo are expensive.”
‘You can’t imagine the sight — men, women, and children running after water trucks’
For drinking water, “there are maybe three or four vehicles for the whole area that distribute water for free,” Arafat said, referring to trucks likely operated by humanitarian organizations.
But access is limited and supply outstrips demand, “so we have to buy it.”
Private suppliers provide drinking water at a cost of approximately NIS 8-10 per day ($2.36-$3) for an amount sufficient for Arafat’s family of five, which is relatively small by Gaza standards. The source from which those companies obtain the water is unknown to him.
Palestinians line up near their containers as they await a water distribution truck at Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on July 17, 2025. (Eyad BABA / AFP)
Hilu told The Times of Israel over the phone that “every morning, the first thing I do is search for water for drinking and for bathing.”
“As we speak, my children are downstairs with the water jugs, waiting by the trucks [that sell water]. You can’t imagine the sight — men, women, and children running after water trucks,” he said.
What little water his family can obtain is used for drinking or cooking, but there’s not enough for daily showers, Hilu said.
Hunger
“After the water, we look for someone selling firewood so we can cook,” said Arafat. “There’s no gas, no fuel — nothing. Every day, we hunt for firewood so our children can eat. Some people burn plastic because firewood is too expensive.”
Both Arafat and Hilu cook in their homes using utensils they had before the war, but because there is no gas, cooking is done with firewood over an open flame in the kitchen.
Obtaining something to cook is another matter entirely.
“Flour is another essential,” Hilu said. “It’s incredibly expensive.”
Hilu and Arafat, who both spoke to The Times of Israel on July 27, said they buy food from local markets in Gaza City that are still operating. Markets in Gaza operate in areas where people still live in buildings, such as western Gaza City, the Nuseirat camp and Deir al-Balah, though not near displacement camps.
But prices can be extremely high and wildly volatile, often depending on when the aid trucks most recently reached the area.
Hilu said flour was costing him NIS 40-50 per kilogram (approximately $5.45 to $6.80 per pound), down from 10 days earlier, when those who could buy the staple for NIS 150-200 per kilogram ($20-$27 per pound).
Palestinians receive meals from volunteers in Gaza City, on July 28, 2025. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)
“I listened to the news all night, hearing that aid trucks would arrive today or tomorrow. I thought I could buy flour at five shekels per kilogram, but it’s still 40,” he lamented. “Nothing has changed.”
The grandfather said his family buys enough food for a single day. Hours before he spoke to The Times of Israel, he bought a kilogram of lentils for NIS 70 ($20 for 2.2 pounds) and a kilogram and a half of flour for NIS 60 ($18 for 3.3 pounds).
“That’s our food for today. Tomorrow? I don’t know what will happen,” he said.
Arafat said he stocked up months earlier when prices were lower, allowing his family steady access to a limited diet.
“We have lentils and pasta — we eat lentils one day, pasta the next. I bought five or six kilos [11 or 13 pounds] of lentils back when more aid was entering and prices were lower,” he said.
Palestinians carry humanitarian aid they received at the Rafah corridor as they walk in the Mawasi area of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on July 30, 2025. (AFP)
Except for a few months in the summer of 2024, Israel has blocked the private import of goods during the war, meaning food and other essentials are technically only supposed to be attainable gratis from international humanitarian organizations. Only in the last few days did Israel announce it would again allow commercial goods into the Strip.
But obtaining aid can be incredibly difficult, with international organizations having only limited supplies and near-daily reports of deadly incidents outside facilities run by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which now receives most of the supplies.
Gazans with means, therefore, usually prefer to buy food at markets that are still operating, though much of the goods they sell is thought to come from looted aid supplies.
‘That’s our food for today. Tomorrow? I don’t know what will happen’
It is unclear to what extent Hamas is involved in this theft.
Since the beginning of the war, Israel has repeatedly emphasized that Hamas is stealing the humanitarian aid sent to Gaza — particularly the aid delivered through the UN and international organizations — and reselling it to fund its terror activities.
The argument has been used to justify restrictions on the entry of food and supplies into the Strip.
However, senior military officials told The New York Times last month that no evidence had been found of Hamas systematically stealing aid from the UN, which has provided the majority of humanitarian assistance to Gaza throughout most of the war.
A woman sits by food cooking on a fire as children play nearby at the southern Gaza Strip on December 18, 2023. (Mahmud Hams / AFP)
Both men said food shortages in markets have worsened in recent months and prices have gone up, especially after Israel halted humanitarian aid for two months starting in March this year, and later reduced the flow through UN channels in favor of GHF.
Unlike Arafat and Hilu, many Gazans have no money to spend at markets and no supplies of stored food, leaving them completely reliant on limited aid supplies and public kitchens that provide hot meals, amid accounts of severe food shortages. According to estimations of humanitarian organizations, tens of thousands of people in Gaza fall into this category.
‘The hardest part is the children. We give them two meals a day. And even those aren’t real meals — just something to quiet their hunger’
In recent weeks, reports have proliferated of widespread starvation in the Strip, with Hamas-controlled health authorities in Gaza reporting dozens of deaths from hunger. These numbers are disputed by Israel.
On August 1, World Central Kitchen said it was managing to provide 90,000 meals a day to Gazans when supplies allowed, far below the number needed, due to Israeli military restrictions hampering the flow of aid supplies to their facilities. It was also supporting 25 community kitchens with supplies, down from over 90 kitchens it was able to help earlier in the war.
“The major drop in our ability to serve hot meals, along with reduced availability of food through other means in Gaza like local markets, has meant the need far exceeds what we can serve,” the group said.
Children wait with pots to receive meals from a charity kitchen in Gaza City on July 14, 2025. (Bashar TALEB / AFP)
Arafat and Hilu both said the food they buy and cook for their families was not enough for three full meals a day.
“The hardest part is the children,” said Arafat. “We give them two meals a day, one in the mid-morning, one in the afternoon. We can’t afford three. And even those aren’t real meals — just something to quiet their hunger. We purchase 2–4 kilograms of flour daily. If it’s too expensive, we look for alternatives — maybe a bowl of hummus in the morning.”
Powerless
The two men live in houses in Gaza City and haven’t relocated into tents or other shelters, which are considered more difficult living conditions due to a lack of bathrooms, showers, proximity to food, and overcrowding.
According to the UN, over 1 million Gazans are living in temporary shelters across Gaza, some in displacement camps, others in scattered pockets of open space, including traffic circles.
But even those in homes lack electricity. Clothes are washed by hand and night is experienced by candlelight.
Electricity was already limited for Gaza residents before the war, but it is now completely unavailable.
In prior years, Israel sold electricity to the Palestinian Authority, which transferred it to the Strip, and there was a single power station in Gaza that generated electricity using fuel imported from Israel. Israel provided most of Gaza’s electricity, though the amount varied over time depending on the security situation in the Strip.
Flares light the sky as Palestinians gather to meet trucks carrying humanitarian aid at a distribution point at the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, early on June 9, 2025. (Eyad BABA / AFP)
On October 9, 2023, Israel cut off its electricity supply to Gaza. Gaza’s power station has also ceased to operate due to bombings and the halt of diesel deliveries.
As a result, no electricity flows to private homes or institutions in the Gaza Strip, and there is no ability to generate it independently.
Hospitals and other humanitarian organizations rely on diesel-powered generators, but these are generally not available to private households.
Some Gazans have access to power through solar panels. Before the war, rooftop panels were widespread due to Gaza’s chronic power shortages, but it’s difficult to determine how many survived the destruction wrought by the war.
People walk through the Al-Sahaba Market in the center of Gaza City, July 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
In other areas of daily life, a black market has emerged, including one for charging cellphones and other devices for those who can afford to pay for it.
“Some people who have solar panels offer to charge your phone for one shekel a day. If you do that for a month, that’s 30 shekels,” said Arafat.
Footage on social media shows that some businesses are now offering electricity. For example, a cafe in Khan Younis posted a list last week of prices for charging devices, charging NIS 4 ($1.16) per megawatt for two hours of use.
Empty wallets
The job market in Gaza has been nonfunctional for nearly two years. Since the war began, most private businesses within the Strip have shut down, though videos circulating on social media during the war have shown restaurants and cafés open in Gaza, including in recent months.
Arafat, who testified that there were no restaurants or cafés open in his part of Gaza City, described life on the streets as nearly frozen, especially after dark, with destitution and lawlessness widespread.
“People go out only for necessities,” he said. “By 5 p.m., the streets are empty. Anyone who ventures out at night risks being targeted by airstrikes or theft. There’s no internal security in Gaza.”
When Hamas stopped visibly operating on the ground in Gaza out of fear of being targeted by Israel with the outbreak of war, it also ceased operations of its internal security forces, such as the police.
According to reports from Gaza, armed Hamas forces still operate against the Palestinian population, but in a more limited and selective manner — for example, acting against individuals attempting to loot aid, as part of Hamas’s effort to control the humanitarian assistance entering Gaza.
Men walk carrying sacks of flour that were taken from a raided truck carrying foodstuffs, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 22, 2025. (AFP)
Arafat has been out of work since the war started, along with pretty much every other Gazan.
Even Hamas, which shut down government institutions at the start of the war, has stopped paying salaries to its fighters as of early 2025, according to the Wall Street Journal, due to the organization’s budgetary difficulties.
It’s unclear if the terror group, which was Gaza’s largest employer before the war, has continued paying government officials. Many in Gaza, which had rampant unemployment and poverty even before the war, are thought to be broke.
‘By 5 p.m., the streets are empty. Anyone who ventures out at night risks being targeted by airstrikes or theft’
Arafat, Hilu and others in Gaza said they were living off of savings in their bank accounts. Arafat said that during the war, he also received sporadic donations from friends outside Gaza who transferred money into his bank account.
A resident of Gaza City, who requested anonymity and whose financial situation was relatively good compared to others in the Strip, said he had saved a significant amount of money before the war and is now “set,” as he put it.
Palestinians walk through a market ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, in Gaza City, June 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Hilu is a former employee of the Palestinian Authority, which employed tens of thousands of civil servants who were dismissed following Hamas’s violent takeover of the Strip in 2007. To maintain symbolic control over the territory, the Palestinian Authority continued to pay their salaries, which were deposited monthly into bank accounts in Gaza prior to the war.
Hilu said that during the war, he continued receiving his salary, though delayed and partial, similar to PA employees still working in the West Bank. However, over the past two months, he has not received any salary at all, due to the PA’s budgetary difficulties stemming from Israel’s withholding of tax revenues it collects on the PA’s behalf under the Oslo Accords.
A café in Khan Younis offering device charging services due to the electricity shortage in Gaza. July 25, 2025. (Instagram, clause 27a of the copyright law)
But even those with money in the bank don’t have easy access to the funds.
Most banks have been closed since the war began and only partially reopened during the last ceasefire, though the institutions, which are all headquartered outside of the Strip, continue to give Gazans access to their accounts via phone apps.
To take out cash, many in Gaza are forced to use private currency brokers who charge high fees.
‘I have money in the bank, but it’s no use if I can’t access it’
“I have money in the bank, but it’s no use if I can’t access it,” said Hilu. “You have to pay a 50% commission to withdraw it. I have 200–300 shekels in my wallet now – not even enough for one day’s food.”
Some also take out money by finding friends or associates willing to loan out cash and get paid back via bank transfer.
“When I run out of money, I go to a friend who’s a merchant — he gives me 200 shekels, and I send it to him later through the bank’s app,” Hilu said.
Stunted
Like other institutions, schools, universities and daycares in Gaza have been shuttered since the war began with Hamas’s deadly invasion of southern Israel on October 7.
During the ceasefire, some schools partially reopened, but currently everything is closed again and the children remain at home.
Arafat said he struggles with trying to protect his children — ages 6, 5 and 19 months — while trying to keep them busy.
A woman and a boy sit by debris and destroyed tents following overnight Israeli bombardment at a camp sheltering in the northwest of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 28, 2025. (AFP)
“We don’t want them playing too much — they’ll get hungry. We feed them, then tell them to sleep or rest,” he said. “It’s dangerous outside because of bombings. I don’t let them leave the building. I set up a little learning space for kids in our building during the war. They sit on chairs, play a little, but I don’t let them expend a lot of energy.”
Despite everything, the families remain hopeful as they hear news of potential increases in aid.
“My kids say to me: ‘We want meat, it’s been so long.’ My daughter told me, ‘You said to grow strong, we need to eat — but we eat nothing but lentils and pasta. I want a banana.’ That hurts more than the bombings,” Arafat said. “But even if aid comes in, people have no money to buy it. Still, there’s hope. As long as there are Palestinians, and as long as Allah exists, there is hope.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit China for the first time in over seven years, a government source said on Wednesday, in a further sign of a diplomatic thaw with Beijing as tensions with the United States rise.
Modi will go to China for a summit of the multilateral Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that begins on August 31, the government source, with direct knowledge of the matter, told Reuters. India’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Modi’s trip will come at a time when India’s relationship with the US faces its most serious crisis in years after President Donald Trump imposed the highest tariffs among Asian peers on goods imported from India, and has threatened an unspecified further penalty for New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil.
Modi’s visit to the Chinese city of Tianjin for the summit of the SCO – a Eurasian political and security grouping that includes Russia, will be his first since June 2018.
US president Donald Trump may meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin as early as next week to discuss the war in Ukraine, White House officials have said.
The development comes as senior administration officials have also warned that serious “impediments” remain to achieving a ceasefire.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio said he was hopeful the progress could lead to a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy in future, but that he did not want to overstate progress made during US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow.
“What we have is a better understanding of the conditions under which Russia would be willing to end the war,” he said. The US would then need to compare that with “what the Ukrainians are willing to accept”.
Here are today’s key stories at a glance:
Trump hails ‘progress’ after Witkoff meets Putin
Donald Trump has claimed “great progress was made” during talks on ending the war in Ukraine between his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Wednesday. The three-hour talks came two days before a deadline the US president set for Russia to reach a peace deal in the war or face fresh sanctions.
Read the full story
Trump threatens 50% tariffs on India
The White House is placing an additional 25% tariff on imports from India, bringing total tariffs up to 50%, in retaliation for the country’s purchase of oil from Russia, according to an executive order signed on Wednesday morning.
India has 21 days to respond to the potential tariffs before they go into effect. The tariffs will be tacked on to a 25% tariff on India Donald Trump set last week as a “penalty” for the country’s trading relationship with Russia.
Read the full story
Apple to invest $100bn in US manufacturing, Trump says
Donald Trump on Wednesday celebrated a commitment by Apple to increase its investments in US manufacturing by an additional $100bn over the next four years.
Apple’s plan to up its domestic investment comes as it seeks to avoid Trump’s threatened tariffs, which would increase the tech giant’s costs as it relies on a complex international supply chain to produce its iPhones.
Read the full story
Trump plans 100% tariffs on chips but spares companies ‘building in US’
Donald Trump said he would impose a 100% tariff on foreign computer chips, likely raising the cost of electronics, autos, household appliances and other goods deemed essential for the digital age.
Read the full story
Texas redistricting standoff escalates with bomb threat
Texas Democrats who left the state say they experienced a bomb threat at their Illinois hotel amid an ongoing clash with Republicans over their effort to block a new congressional map from going into place.
Read the full story
Report reveals abuse of women and children at Ice facilities
A new report has found hundreds of reported cases of human rights abuses in US immigration detention centers. The alleged abuses uncovered include deaths in custody, physical and sexual abuse of detainees, denial of access to attorneys, and child separation.
Read the full story
Border patrol agents ambush people at LA Home Depot
The report comes on the same day that US border patrol agents carried out a raid outside a Home Depot in Los Angeles on Wednesday, with officers jumping out of an unmarked rental truck and chasing and arresting more than a dozen people. The raid raised questions about whether the US government was complying with a federal court order.
Read the full story
Trump administration freezes $584m in grants for ‘life-saving research’ at UCLA
In a sweeping escalation of its attacks on institutions of higher education, Trump administration has suspended $584m in federal funding for the University of California, Los Angeles – nearly double the amount that was previously expected, the school’s chancellor announced on Wednesday.
Read the full story
JD Vance’s team had water level of Ohio river raised for family’s boating trip
JD Vance’s team had the army corps of engineers take the unusual step of changing the outflow of a lake in Ohio to accommodate a recent boating excursion on a family holiday, the Guardian has learned.
Read the full story
What else happened today:
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 5 August 2025.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, China’s President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. —Xinhua/Reuters/AFP/File
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi will have separate meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping in northern China’s historic city Tianjin on August 31 on the brinks of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.
However, a meeting between Pakistan and India’s leaders has been ruled out. Highly placed diplomatic sources told The News here Wednesday evening that Chinese President could play a role in reconciliation between its two neighbours.
“Pakistan hasn’t desired a meeting of its prime minister with his Indian counterpart, but if such a request is made by New Delhi, Pakistan could consider its possibility since it believes resolution of disputes through dialogue. Any role of third country would be welcomed in this regard,” well-placed sources confided with this scribe. Pakistan is willing to discuss Kashmir, water and other bilateral issues with India on any forum. The Chinese leader has been impressing upon Pakistan and India to settle their disputes in the light of “SCO spirit” in their own and regional stability’s interest.
In a major development, the holding of QUAD summit where US President Donald Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Modi had to meet in New Delhi towards the end of this year, has become uncertain. Indian diplomats have said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting Indian capital during the same period. Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Shankar is also visiting Moscow later this month where he is scheduled to have extensive discussions on the regional developments with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
LONDON: Social media platform X played a “central role” in amplifying false and inflammatory content targeting Muslims and migrants after the deadly Southport attack in Britain last year, according to research released by Amnesty International on Wednesday.
The report accuses X’s algorithm systems and weakened content moderation policies of facilitating the spread of harmful narratives that contributed to real-world violence and anti-Muslim sentiment in the United Kingdom.
Three girls were fatally stabbed in Southport on July 29 last year by Axel Rudakubana, a British national born in Wales.
Despite the suspect’s background, false claims spread rapidly online alleging he was a Muslim asylum seeker. Within hours, anti-Muslim and anti-migrant content surged, leading to attacks on mosques and shelters housing migrants.
Amnesty’s technical analysis revealed that X’s recommender system prioritises content that provokes outrage and engagement, with little regard for the potential harm. “As long as a post drives engagement, the algorithm appears to have no mechanism to assess the damage it may cause, unless users flag it manually,” the report states.
One such post by an account known for Islamophobic content, falsely linking the attacker to immigration and Islam, reached over four million views. Posts repeating similar falsehoods gained a staggering 27 million impressions within 24 hours.
Amnesty linked this surge in hate to major changes at X under Elon Musk, including mass layoffs of moderation staff, the disbanding of safety teams, and the reinstatement of banned accounts such as that of far-right agitator Tommy Robinson.
“These design and policy choices created fertile ground for hate to thrive,” said Pat de Brun of Amnesty. “They continue to pose a serious human rights risk.”
Elon Musk has not issued any direct response to the Amnesty International’s analysis. Amnesty confirmed that it had sent its findings in a formal letter to X on July 18, but X had not responded by the time of the report’s release on Wednesday Aug 6.
Musk has previously made public comments on the platform related to the incident, notably tweeting on Aug 5 last year during the riots following the Southport murders, declaring that “civil war is inevitable” as tensions surged around slavery and immigration themes.
These statements were widely criticised, including by the British government, which accused him of contributing to escalating violence.
BEIRUT: Hezbollah said on Wednesday it would treat a Lebanese government decision to disarm the militant group “as if it did not exist”, accusing the cabinet of committing a “grave sin”.
Amid heavy US pressure and fears Israel could expand its strikes on Lebanon, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said on Tuesday that the government had tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict weapons to government forces by year end.
The plan is to be presented to the government by the end of August for discussion and approval, and another cabinet meeting has been scheduled for Thursday to continue the talks, including on a US-proposed timetable for disarmament. Hezbollah said the government had “committed a grave sin by taking the decision to disarm Lebanon of its weapons to resist the Israeli enemy”. The decision on the thorny issue is unprecedented since Lebanon’s civil war factions gave up their weapons three and a half decades ago.
“This decision undermines Lebanon’s sovereignty and gives Israel a free hand to tamper with its security, geography, politics and future existence…Therefore, we will treat this decision as if it does not exist,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement.
Group says move serves Israel’s interests, leaves Lebanon exposed to the enemy without any deterrence
‘Serves Israel’s interests’
The government said its decision came as part of implementing a November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah which culminated in two months of full-blown war. Hezbollah said it viewed the government’s move as “the result of dictates from US envoy” Tom Barrack.
It “fully serves Israel’s interests and leaves Lebanon exposed to the Israeli enemy without any deterrence”, the group said.
Hezbollah was the only faction that kept its weapons after Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war. It emerged weakened politically and militarily from its latest conflict with Israel, its arsenal pummelled and its senior leadership decimated.
Israel has kept up its strikes on Hezbollah and other targets despite the November truce, and has threatened to keep doing so until the group has been disarmed.
An Israeli strike on the southern town of Tulin on Wednesday killed one person and wounded another, the health ministry said. Hezbollah said Israel must halt those attacks before any domestic debate about its weapons and a new defence strategy can begin.
‘Pivotal moment’
“We are open to dialogue, ending the Israeli aggression against Lebanon, liberating its land, releasing prisoners, working to build the state, and rebuilding what was destroyed by the brutal aggression,” the group said.
Hezbollah is “prepared to discuss a national security strategy”, but not under Israeli fire, it added. Two ministers affiliated with Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement walked out of Tuesday’s meeting.
