Category: 2. World

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Burger King manager recounts waiting for shooting to endpublished at 20:00 British Summer Time

20:00 BST

Tom Joyner
Live reporter

As news of a shooting spread, staff working at the Burger King on the military base knew exactly what to do.

Under the watch of their manager, they made their way into the restaurant’s safe room – a sealed chamber designed to insulate them from the outside world.

There, unable to hear what was happening above them, they remained glued to their social media feeds, refreshing for updates.

“I pulled them into the room so they don’t hear anything,” the restaurant’s manager says, referring to the sound of gunshots.

“They knew it was an active shooter but they didn’t know exactly where.”

When it was safe to emerge, their phones started to explode with calls from worried family members.

Outside, a line of customers had formed at the door. Some people sheltered in their cars in the drive-through queue during the ordeal.

“I wasn’t worried about the food, I was worried about my crew,” she says. “It’s my job to keep them safe.”

Twenty people have been killed and more than 30 injured in central Gaza after four trucks overturned on a crowd, the Hamas-run civil defence agency says.

Crowds rushed to the vehicles on a road south east of Deir al-Balah on Tuesday evening. They climbed on top of the trucks, causing the drivers to lose control, local journalists told the BBC.

The area was under Israeli military control and the roads were rugged and dangerous, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmoud Basal said.

The private transport association now operating in Gaza said that 26 commercial trucks entered the territory on Tuesday. Six were looted, and four of those overturned, resulting in deaths and injuries.

Israel announced that it would start to allow the gradual entry of goods into Gaza via the private sector to “increase the volume of aid” entering the enclave while reducing reliance on the UN.

The approved supplies include baby food, fruits, vegetables, hygiene products and basic staples.

The BBC has contacted the Israeli ministry of defence for comment.

Hamas said civilians had been waiting for basic supplies to be delivered via road for weeks. “This often results in desperate crowds swarming the trucks,” its media office said.

Aid trucks have been frequently rushed, leading to chaotic scenes.

In a separate incident on Wednesday, Jordan said Israeli settlers attacked a Gaza-bound aid convoy of 30 trucks and accused Israel of failing to prevent such attacks.

The convoy crossed the Jordanian border and was heading towards Gaza’s Zikim crossing. Settlers blocked the road and pelted the trucks with stones, smashing windscreens.

“This requires a serious Israeli intervention and no leniency in dealing with those who obstruct these convoys,” government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said.

He added this was the second attack on a Jordanian aid convoy, following a similar incident on Sunday.

On Wednesday, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that its latest satellite survey showed the amount of accessible and undamaged farmland in Gaza has been reduced to less than a square mile.

That equates to just 1.5% of the total area available for cultivation, the organisation said, down from 4.6% in the previous survey published at the end of May.

“Gaza is now on the brink of a full-scale famine,” the FAO’s director-general, Qu Dongyu, said in a statement.

According to he Hamas-run health ministry, 193 people have now died of hunger and malnutrition since the start of the war, including 96 children.

More than 100 international aid organisations and human rights groups have warned of mass starvation in Gaza, and accuse Israel of impeding the distribution of crucial aid.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, denies there is starvation in the territory and insists his country is not blocking aid.

Last week, Israel’s military said it would open humanitarian corridors to allow aid convoys into Gaza following mounting international pressure.

It also announced what it called a “local tactical pause in military activity” for humanitarian purposes in three areas, and permitted foreign aid drops.

About 90% of Gaza’s 2.1 million people have been displaced, some repeatedly, and are living in overcrowded and dire conditions.

The UN has repeatedly called for the full and sustained entry of humanitarian supplies, but access remains sporadic and many aid trucks are looted.

Israel insists there are no restrictions on aid deliveries and has repeatedly rejected what it describes as “the false claim of deliberate starvation”.

Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken to Gaza as hostages.

At least 61,020 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since then, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

The Lebanese armed group says the move was dictated by the US and that it ‘fully serves Israel’s interest’.

Hezbollah has branded the Lebanese government’s push to have a state monopoly on arms as a “grave sin” and is dismissing it out of hand “as if it doesn’t exist”.

The group on Wednesday rejected a decision by the Lebanese cabinet a day earlier that authorises the Lebanese army to draw up a plan to confine arms across the country to six official security forces by the end of the year.

The government decision followed ramped-up pressure by the United States to get the Lebanese armed group to lay down its arms, amid burgeoning fears that Israel could intensify strikes on Lebanon, even while it carries out near-daily violations of the November truce it signed with Hezbollah to end the war.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam confirmed the decree after the cabinet meeting, saying it is “the state’s duty to monopolise the possession of weapons”, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA).

Salam’s declaration on Tuesday amounted to an official rejection by the Lebanese government of Hezbollah’s military presence in the country, an unthinkable development two years ago when the group held sway in the country and its military powers were a forceful reality in the region.

In a written statement on Wednesday, Hezbollah said the move was a result of US “diktats” and that it would “deal with it as if it does not exist”.

“The government of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam committed a grave sin by taking a decision to strip Lebanon of its weapons to resist the Israeli enemy … This decision fully serves Israel’s interest,” the group said.

The statement said Shia ministers walked out of the six-hour-long cabinet session before the decision was reached as “an expression of the resistance’s [Hezbollah’s] rejection of this decision”.

The group said it remained ready to discuss a broader national security strategy and urged its supporters to remain patient.

“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 [Israeli] aggression,” Hezbollah’s statement read.

It added that Israel must first adhere to the ceasefire agreement reached in November of last year – which Israel has been flagrantly breaking.

Underscoring regular attacks on its northern neighbour, an Israeli drone strike targeting the southern Lebanese town of Tulin killed a child and injured his father on Wednesday, the publication Al-Akhbar reported. NNA also reported that Israeli jets dropped four bombs over the Wazzani River in the southeast of the country.

Late Wednesday evening, Lebanese media outlets reported that Israeli jets launched a wave  of attacks in southern Lebanon. Strikes targeted the villages of Eastern Zawtar and Deir Siriane, according to the reports.

The Hezbollah-affiliated al-Manar TV said three Israeli missiles hit a single site in Deir Siriane. Al Jadeed TV reported that ambulances were trying to reach the area with the Israeli strikes still ongoing.

Lebanon’s cabinet is scheduled to meet again on Thursday to continue discussions on US proposals to disarm Hezbollah within a specific time frame.

Lebanese politicians have not ruled out disarming Hezbollah by force, with the Lebanese army to step in to do so if such a decision is made.

But on Friday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun warned that disarmament is a sensitive issue due to sectarian divisions within the country, and this could have consequences for national peace.

Tuesday’s session at Lebanon’s presidential palace was the first time the cabinet addressed Hezbollah’s weapons.

Hezbollah emerged weakened from war with Israel last year that saw most of the group’s senior leaders assassinated by Israel, including its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah. The conflict killed thousands of its fighters and Lebanese civilians, and left tens of thousands from the Shia and other communities displaced from their destroyed homes.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem reiterated on Tuesday as the cabinet met that the group will not lay down its weapons under Israeli fire, instead stating that the strategy should not be a timeline to disarm, and that resistance to Israel must be discussed in national consensus.

In a televised speech from a secure location, Qassem said, “The resistance is fine, strong and ready to fight for Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence … Hezbollah made heavy sacrifices to defend Lebanon against the Israeli aggression.”

Ramallah, August 6, 2025 – Most children do not spend their childhood considering the state of their human rights. Yet, for Palestinian children in Gaza, such consideration is unavoidable, as they find themselves amid a genocide, and the lives and rights they once enjoyed continue to deteriorate. 

In collaboration with Maastricht University, Defense for Children International – Palestine interviewed four children living in Gaza about the status of their rights. Overwhelmingly and without hesitation, each child readily stated that they had no rights. Highlighting their lack of access to shelter, healthcare, food, water, and education, each child described how their most basic human rights have been stripped from them and their families by Israel’s genocide. 

Deprivation of Shelter  

Since October 7, 2023, Palestinian children have undergone systemic and continual forced displacement, leaving them without access to adequate or safe shelter. “Right now, we have nothing, just our tent,” said 14-year-old Jana. “Every couple of days we’re displaced from one tent to another. Our social ties are gone. If we get to know someone in a new place, we’re afraid to play with them outside. We’re scared — if we go out and there’s a bombing nearby, we could get shrapnel injuries. We move to areas where we don’t know anyone, no community, nothing familiar, just the tent. Our whole day is spent in queues, two hours or more to get clean water, two hours more for salty water. Even to use the bathroom, we wait over two hours. Our day is wasted. I don’t even have time to rest. We can’t go on like this.”  This displacement is constant as families attempt to find safety in a place devoid of safety. “[T]he army surrounded us,” recalled 16-year-old Ramez. “We had nowhere to go. Either we move toward death, or we stay and risk dying. Either way, it’s death.”

Displacement is accompanied by direct targeting from Israeli forces, who openly harass or beat Palestinians seeking shelter. “We were terrified,” recalled 16-year-old Sumaya. “[W]e moved on foot, which was extremely difficult, especially for me. I was dragging a bicycle loaded with belongings through sand. We kept walking . . . and saw people who had thrown away everything they owned under Israeli pressure. We saw tanks next to us. The tanks began to chase us to scare us into walking faster. We were running through sand mixed with flour, and our feet sank in it. The tanks were scaring us as if they were going to run us over.” 

Israel forces regularly target children fleeing shelters, often directly after ordering civilians to evacuate an area, as Ramez and his family experienced:

One time we were in Jabalia camp. The army came and said coldly, “You have to leave.” We said, “Why should we leave the camp?” Then they started firing smoke bombs at us. They dropped leaflets. People began comforting themselves, saying maybe it’s just psychological warfare. Then came zero hour. We grabbed our belongings and got in the car — thank God we had a car. [T]hey started firing bursts of bullets into the walls to terrify people, to create panic. But [they] told us to evacuate, and we listened. So why the intimidation? I mean, I’m 16, I can somewhat understand and cope with fear. But with us was my little sister. She had a psychological breakdown. She started yelling, “Dad, they’re shooting! We’re going to die!” My dad kept trying to calm her down, saying, “It’s okay, it’s just intimidation fire.” We were trying to reach a house, and she kept insisting, “Dad, we’re going to die.” I kept trying to act tough. I’m a kid, but I pretended I wasn’t scared. My dad told us, “You boys, don’t show fear in front of your younger sisters.”

Deprivation of Healthcare

Living in displacement is fraught with poor health conditions and with hygiene products included in the aid that Israel has blocked from entering Gaza, infections and disease run rampant among the already vulnerable Palestinian population. “If one of us gets a virus, it spreads to the whole family,” Jana explains. “I wear a mask in the tent, so I don’t infect my little siblings. I can’t sleep at night because of the itching and fever. Dad stays up with me all night. Mom applies compresses. We can’t sleep.” Amidst this displacement, children have no access to healthcare. Children face burns, shrapnel or bullet wounds, dismemberment, disease and acute malnutrition – all without access to aid, health care or medical supplies. “Right now, there are sick children who get hit and there’s no one to treat them,” Ramez said. “They die from bleeding because no one can help them. I saw incidents at the hospital — the patient would arrive, bleeding on the bed, and the doctor would say, ‘I swear I can’t do anything for you.’ And it’s true — the doctor literally couldn’t help because there were no resources, nothing to work with. There are no resources at all because of the Israeli occupation, the closing of the borders, the blockade.” For Palestinian children, it is clear that their right to health has deteriorated past the point of existence. Sumaya, who contracted Jaundice while sheltering in a classroom with three other families, explained, “The right to health doesn’t exist. Even when hospitals ask for help from abroad, the occupation refuses to allow medicine in. I believe their goal is to kill the sick, children, and nurses.” 

Deprivation of Food and Water

The Palestinian children who have survived Israeli fire, bombs and the lack of medical treatment, are simultaneously facing a different threat: starvation. Israel has illegally used starvation as a method of warfare throughout its genocide, but in March 2025, Israel implemented its most severe deprivation of food, blocking any aid from entering Gaza for over 11 weeks. “Now, nothing is available for us children or even for the elderly,” shared the young Tamer. Even upon Israel allowing some aid to reenter Gaza, the aid was minuscule in the face of the starvation facing the population. “Now it’s just one meal a day,” shared Jana. “Even canned food like beans and peas are expensive. Pasta too, we now mix it with flour because flour is unavailable. Dad works an entire week just to get one batch of dough, and we mix it with expensive pasta to make it last. All night my siblings and I were crying, and my mom and dad cried for us because of the hunger and misery we’re living in. We’re sick of this life—we don’t want to live this life anymore. We don’t know how to live. We are alive and dead at the same time.”

Infants and newborns are dying within months of their birth and mothers are too malnourished to breastfeed their babies. Every child in Gaza is facing starvation, including Sumaya:

The right to food is violated. Before the war, my father worked and provided for us, so food was available. But after the war . . . I became the only one providing for my family. If I bring money, they can eat. If I don’t, there’s nothing to eat. I’m the sole provider after my brothers were martyred. Last night, flour was brought in through the Zikim crossing and dropped off in a far area at 2 a.m. We hadn’t eaten bread for a week. Around 3 or 4 a.m., I left with my brother and father. My father dropped us off at a point, and we continued on foot. We asked someone if there was still flour, and they said yes. We kept walking, hoping to find it. When we reached the place, we heard people say the trucks dumped the flour on the ground and left. I didn’t find any at first but kept searching. Someone told us there was flour inside a house. I entered with the crowd and begged for flour. Suddenly, they uncovered a pit filled with flour. Men went down to get it. I begged for some. It was crowded and hot. Someone tried to steal my flour. An old man claimed I was with him to take my bag. Still, I managed to get seven kilos and shared it with three other young men who helped me carry it partway. Then I walked alone, with the bag on my shoulder and a metal rod in my hand to defend myself in case someone tried to rob me, because people carrying flour often get attacked. I carried that rod for protection. My brother got lost on the way, and I had to leave him behind to save the flour. It was more precious than gold to us. 

Now, in partnership with American mercenaries, the Israeli government has begun distributing what it describes as aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). In reality, this aid, which contains no hygiene or medical products, is not only nutritionally insufficient, but must be collected by aid-seekers, automatically excluding anyone unable to travel, including children, from receiving aid. Herded into fenced distribution sites, GHF aid sites have become deadly, as Israeli forces have targeted and killed hundreds of aid-seekers, including children. Toddlers trampled to death, children shot while fetching potable water by Israeli forces, and outbreaks of violence among desperate aid-seekers are all-too-common scenes resulting from this sham of an aid organization. As Ramez describes,” Even with the so-called U.S. aid – you know that show where they throw food into the jungle and people get shot trying to get it? That’s us now. In Rafah and Netzarim, they place the aid pallets, and people run to grab food while the army shoots at them. Whoever gets it, eats. We’re living the law of the jungle—people kill each other for food. All because of the Israeli army. They treat us worse than dogs—throwing food, letting us fight for it. Ninety percent chance you’ll die trying to get food; ten percent chance you’ll survive. That’s what opening aid looks like.” 

This systemic deprivation of life-sustaining resources also applies to potable water. While potable water in Gaza has long been controlled by private companies, after the 7th of October, Israel targeted Gaza’s desalination plants, wells, and prevented water from being brought into Gaza. Now, Gaza’s population is left with contaminated water. “We used regular water for everything—drinking, washing, everything,” Sumaya shares. “The water is contaminated. My brother had stomach pain from it. There was no treatment, no access to hospitals, no healthcare. When our neighbor’s son went to fetch water, he was killed by the occupation.” In direct contradiction to international law, and its role as an occupying power, Israel continues to deprive Palestinians of their right to water, blocking access to their natural resources and contaminating Gaza’s only aquifer with overextraction. “If the army opens [the valve], we get water—not healthy, but drinkable,” says Ramez. “They bomb the pipelines and prevent repairs. It’s systematic extermination. Drinking water comes from a filtered source, but it’s not really filtered. The salinity is 21%. I saw the test myself. The occupation blocks imports. No filters are allowed in Gaza. What can we do? It’s a choice between bad water or worse.” 

Deprivation of Education

An entire generation of Palestinian children have had irreparable damage to their education, as Israel has decimated Gaza’s educational infrastructure. Children are left without access to continue their educational pursuits. Ramez, who used to be a top student, hasn’t been to school in two years and misses “holding a pen.” Sumaya believes children have forgotten everything they have learned. Young Tamer, states that there is “no good food for intelligence, brain and thinking.” According to Jana, despite her efforts to continue her education online, has found several challenges to obtaining her right to an education. “There’s . . . only online education, and they’re just mocking us with it. There’s no real studying. Teachers send cards . . . but there’s no internet to even use it—unless we sit in a sunny area. But we can’t handle the sun. There might be volunteers running a school in our area, not accredited by the Ministry or anything. I went to register several times, maybe for a year now, but they always tell me there’s no room. Everyone’s on the waitlist. Even when I try to study in my free time, the sound of drones prevents me from concentrating.” 

Deprivation of the right to life

For the thousands of children in Gaza, both recorded and unrecorded, their right to life has been horrifically ripped away. For those still alive, their lives resemble death, as Israel has ensured through its policies and tactics that continually and flagrantly violate international law. “My right to life is completely denied,” said Sumaya. “We could have died at any moment. If we made any move, the soldier could have shot us without caring.” These children are enduring trauma that will affect their entire generation and remain in the collective memory of the Palestinian people forever. “We’ve been sitting like this for two years, nothing but water and the tent,” shared Jana. “Nothing else. We’re under mental pressure from the Israeli army, the tent, displacement, water, fire, viruses in the air, garbage without disposal, sewage – all of these things affect us. Two days ago, a nearby house was bombed. The kids screamed. The whole family was wiped from the civil registry, all dead. I saw them burning and screaming. I haven’t been able to sleep since.” 

Israel has ensured that Palestinians who remain in Gaza are devoid of any life-sustaining resources while they face the constant threat of being shot or bombed by Israeli forces, and children bear the brunt of this policy, as Ramez explained. “They’ve stripped us of every right, especially the right to life, and safety. We don’t live in safety. As a Palestinian child living in Gaza, I’m telling you: we don’t feel safe. I could be talking to you now and a little later I become a ‘news item.’ I go home and maybe find my brother, father, or mother dead. This is our reality. What can I say? Today might be yours — the next hour might not. The situation is catastrophic – catastrophic beyond words.”

Israel has enacted its genocide openly and blatantly in front of the world, with entrenched impunity. Built to anchor power to colonialist and imperialist states, the international legal and political systems that are supposedly designed to prevent and punish those who conduct genocide are not working. The truth of the matter is that Western nations and hundreds of businesses and corporations all profit from Israel’s actions and have for decades. It is not in the interest of the powerful to hold Israel to account. It is the Palestinian children of Gaza who bear the torture of that reality. It is clear that our current rules-based system refuses to hold to account a state that flagrantly violates international law, openly conducts genocide, and calls for the destruction of the Palestinian people. It is equally clear that the only remedy to realising the rights of Palestinian children is to deconstruct the systems of power that enable their violation. It must be through collective international action that we hold these institutions accountable and demand that all states adhere to their obligations under international law. Palestinian children must not be the exception to these ideals.

These stories were also published by Children’s Rights Research. 

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