Category: 2. World

At least nine people, including five children, have been killed in an Israeli strike while fetching water in al-Mawasi, an area of southern Gaza which Israel has designated as a safe zone, health officials said.

A doctor from al-Nasser hospital shared a picture of the children’s bodies in the hospital, as well as a picture of water jugs left in a pool of blood at the site of the attack on Tuesday.

The attack came shortly after the Israel Defense Forces encouraged people to leave Gaza City for al-Mawasi, before Israel’s looming invasion of Gaza City. The Israeli military has sought to displace people from the city before its offensive and has promised that southern Gaza would be able to accommodate them, despite experts disagreeing with the suggestion.

“We wish to remind you that in al-Mawasi, enhanced services will be provided with an emphasis on access to medical care, water and food,” the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a post on X on Tuesday afternoon.

Israel continued to push ahead with its operation and began the mobilisation of tens of thousands of reservists on Tuesday.

At least 60,000 reservists will be called up, with the service of an additional 20,000 to be extended as the Israeli military slowly ramps up its military activity in Gaza City, which it has described as the last stronghold of Hamas.

Israel has said that the operation, known as Gideon’s Chariots II, to take over Gaza City will involve five divisions from the country’s standing army and could extend into next year.

Already Israel has pushed into the western parts of Gaza City, levelling the once prosperous neighbourhood of Zeitoun and declaring the entire city a “dangerous combat zone” last week. It has intensified its strikes, claiming to have killed the spokesperson of Hamas’s armed wing, Abu Obeida, in a strike on an apartment building in Gaza City on Saturday.

The Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 76 people across the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours, Gaza health authorities said.

On Monday, the world’s leading association of genocide scholars said Israel’s actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of the crime. Aid groups have warned that an invasion of Gaza City and the forced displacement of about 1 million people could have devastating humanitarian consequences. The population of the city has swelled over the course of the last 23 months as it became a refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced from the near 80% of Gaza that is under evacuation order.

The city is already gripped by famine created by Israeli restrictions on aid entering Gaza, which experts say will worsen even in the absence of a military operation. Thirteen people, including three children, died from malnutrition on Tuesday, bringing the total number of people who have starved to death over the last 23 months to 361 – the majority of whom have died since July.

Israel is seeking to forcibly displace Gaza City’s residents before its operation and has tried to entice Palestinians to southern Gaza, which already is packed with other displaced people.

The head of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, said on Saturday that there is no safe way to conduct a mass evacuation of Gaza City and that no other part of Gaza had the capacity to absorb such mass displacement. Earlier in August, the UN human rights office spokesperson Thameen al-Kheetan said that Palestinians in al-Mawasi had “little or no access to essential services and supplies, including food, water, electricity and tents”.

Many residents of Gaza City have refused to leave, suspicious of what awaits them in southern Gaza after Israel has attacked so-called humanitarian zones in the past.

The Gaza City operation, pushed forward by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure from far-right members of his ruling coalition, faces stiff opposition at home. Tens of thousands of Israelis have marched across the country in protest against the war, which they say is aimless and endangers the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza.

Israeli media has reported internal opposition between the country’s cabinet and the military chief of staff. According to Israeli media’s retelling of a security cabinet meeting on Sunday, the Israeli military chief urged the government to take a ceasefire deal instead of pressing on with the Gaza City operation, which he said could harm the lives of hostages in Gaza.

Hamas had accepted a ceasefire proposal two weeks prior that resembled an earlier US draft which Israel had approved in prior rounds of negotiations. Israel has yet to respond to the proposal, baffling mediators.

Israel’s planned military operation in Gaza City as well as its continued systematic starving of the territory’s population has prompted a wave of global condemnation.

On Tuesday, Belgium announced it would join a growing list of European countries in recognising Palestine as a state. It also announced it would ban goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and designate Hamas leaders, violent Israeli settlers and two far-right Israeli ministers as persona non grata.

“This is not about sanctioning the Israeli people but about ensuring that their government respects international and humanitarian law and taking action to try to change the situation on the ground,” the Belgian foreign minister, Maxime Prévot, said in a post on X. He added that the EU should suspend its trade pact with Israel to further pressure it.

The move further increases the growing international isolation of Israel as its war in Gaza and subsequent famine grinds on.

At least 63,633 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the last 23 months. Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages on 7 October 2023.

They stood together like old friends, heads thrown back in jovial laughter, clutching one another’s hands affectionately. Except this was no ordinary gathering of three men, but a meeting of three of the most powerful non-western leaders: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi.

The overt displays of intimacy were widely regarded by observers as a telling message of defiance aimed at their western counterparts, in particular Donald Trump, who just a few days earlier had slapped India with 50% import tariffs, among the harshest of the US president’s trade penalties.

“India likes other great powers to know that New Delhi has options,” said Christopher Clary, an associate professor of political science at University at Albany, State University of New York. “One advantage of being in lots of clubs is you can make high-profile entrances to those clubs if you’re upset with how things are going in other relationships.”

This was Modi’s first visit to China in seven years and yet the hostilities that had come to define the India-China relationship in recent years were nowhere to be seen. Instead, as the Indian prime minister arrived in China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, he received a far more effusive welcome from the Chinese premier than most guests were granted.

The leaders’ brotherly encounter in the city of Tianjin did not go unnoticed by the Oval Office. Hours after the meeting, Trump went on another tirade against India, calling trade with the country a “one-sided disaster” while his trade adviser Peter Navarro said in a social media post: “It is a shame to see Modi getting in bed with Xi Jinping and Putin. I’m not sure what he’s thinking.”

Even just a year ago, such a scene between Modi and Xi would have been difficult to imagine. The two countries had remained in a hostile military standoff since 2020 after China’s rapid encroachments and troop incursions along its mountainous Himalayan border with India led to a violent clash between soldiers on the two sides.

It was followed by a mammoth mobilisation of military personnel, infrastructure and weapons along both sides of the border. Anti-China sentiment ran rampant in India, with hundreds of Chinese apps – including TikTok – banned and Chinese companies prevented from investing in India.

The US, meanwhile, had seized upon the tensions to cultivate its close ties with India even further, viewing the country as a critical counterweight to China’s rise.

Yet Trump’s own foreign policy position has accelerated something of a geopolitical repositioning. The US, once seen as an unshakable ally to India, is now viewed in the corridors of New Delhi as a turbulent, even hostile adversary.

The double tariffs on India, which were announced with no warning, appear to largely be a punishment after falling out with Modi, who refused to credit the US president with halting possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan in May. Particular umbrage was also taken in New Delhi at Trump’s attempts to use tariffs to shape India’s own policies.

Meanwhile China has observed the alienation of New Delhi and Washington with overt glee and made it clear their priority now is for a complete normalisation of Indo-China ties. During Modi’s China visit, he and Xi agreed to friendlier relations, which include stabilising their border and reopening their economies to each other. Speaking on Sunday, Xi said it was “vital to be friends, a good neighbour, and the dragon and the elephant to come together”.

As analysts emphasised, the beginning of a rapprochement between India and China had pre-dated Trump’s second term. Nonetheless, the prospect of a second unpredictable Trump term had been seen by many as a primary driver for China’s sudden willingness to discuss disengagement with India.

“This meeting was a partial response to Trump’s tariff tantrum,” said Clary. “The core reality for India is that it does not have enough military capability to be confident of how an India-China fight would go. In this Trumpian world, India may not be able to find an outside ally that it can depend on and so it needs to make sure the India-China relationship is calm.”

Prior to the 2020 clashes, Modi had been seen as very gung-ho in strengthening the India-China relationship, hosting Xi in India just a few months after being elected prime minister. Harsh V Pant, a professor of international relations at the India Institute of King’s College London, said it was likely the two leaders would try to revert the relationship to how it had been five years ago, despite the border remaining an ongoing challenge.

Even with the risk of infuriating its western allies, analysts emphasised India had a lot to gain from bettering ties with China. Much of India’s manufacturing, which Modi is trying to boost, is reliant on materials and rare earths from China. China, meanwhile, stands to gain economically if it regains access to India’s market.

However, Pant emphasised that there were still significant limitations on the India-China relationship beyond the border tensions. China remains a major backer and supplier of weapons to Pakistan – widely seen as a way to keep India’s regional power in check – and it was Chinese jets and weaponry that were used against India during the India-Pakistan hostilities in May.

“It would be a mistake to view this as some kind of a grand rapprochement between India and China,” he said. “In India, the trust deficit with China is still very, very high and there are enough pressure points that will keep the relationship a bit tenuous.”

BRUSSELS — Belgium will move toward recognizing a Palestinian state, the country’s foreign minister said Tuesday, joining a growing list of countries preparing to take the step as Israel steps up its offensive in Gaza.

Maxime Prévot said Belgium’s plans to recognize a Palestinian state will be announced at the United Nations General Assembly later this month.

However, the acknowledgment is predicated on two conditions — the return of all Israeli hostages held in Gaza and the removal of Hamas from political power in the coastal exclave. The conditions make it unlikely the recognition will be formalized anytime soon.

The announcement marks the latest sign of international support for a Palestinian state, and would add Belgium to a list of more than 140 countries to recognize Palestinian statehood, including more than a dozen in Europe.

Prévot on Tuesday also announced plans to ban goods coming from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and designate Hamas leaders, violent settlers, and two far-right Israeli ministers as persona non grata.

“This is not about sanctioning the Israeli people but about ensuring that their government respects international and humanitarian law and taking action to try to change the situation on the ground,” Prévot said on social platform X.

Prévot said the European Union should put more pressure on Israel by suspending ties with the country, including its trade pact known as the Association Agreement.

Israel’s war in Gaza has stressed ties within the bloc’s 27 nations, ignited protests across the continent, and frayed political coalitions including in Belgium and its neighbor the Netherlands. But despite growing political tension, Israel’s deep ties with European military, business and academic institutions remain largely intact.

Belgium’s announcement sparked fury from Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who, along with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, is a likely target of the new sanctions.

“The self-righteous European countries that are being manipulated by Hamas — at the end they’ll discover terrorism on their own flesh,” Ben Gvir said in a statement to The Associated Press.

France and the United Kingdom have both announced plans to recognize Palestine, putting added diplomatic pressure on Israel. France and Saudi Arabia are planning an event around the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, which starts Sept. 23, when new pledges are expected to be officially announced.

Australia, Canada and the European countries moving toward statehood recognition have predicated the step on the Palestinian Authority making reforms. The current Palestinian leadership is seen as corrupt and autocratic by many Palestinians. While the leaders cooperate with Israel on security matters, Israel does not view them as effective or fully committed to peace, and says the Palestinian Authority should have no role in postwar Gaza.

The Palestinians seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast war.

Israel’s government and most of its political class have long opposed Palestinian statehood and now say it would reward militants after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

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Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Israel began mobilising tens of thousands of reservists and repeated evacuation warnings on Tuesday (September 2, 2025) as part of its plan to widen its offensive in Gaza City, which has sparked opposition domestically and condemnation abroad.

The call-up, which was announced last month, comes as ground and air forces press forward and pursue more targets in northern and central Gaza, striking parts of Zeitoun and Shijaiyah — two western Gaza City neighborhoods that Israeli forces have repeatedly invaded during the nearly two-year war against Hamas militants.

Zeitoun, once Gaza City’s largest neighbourhood with markets, schools and clinics, has been transformed over the past month, with streets being emptied and buildings reduced to rubble as it becomes what Israel’s military last week called a “ dangerous combat zone.”

Gaza City is Hamas’ political and military stronghold and, according to Israel, still home to a vast tunnel network, despite multiple incursions throughout the war. It’s also one of the last refuges in northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are sheltering, facing the twin threats of combat and famine.

Reservists protested the call-up in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, questioning whether the offensive was a political move and whether it would push Israel toward its goals of crippling Hamas’ military capabilities in Gaza.

Israel on Tuesday repeated earlier warnings to Palestinians who have remained in Gaza City, unconvinced that another displacement will keep them safe.

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned that combat operations would soon be expanding, and that services would be made available in Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp south of Gaza City.

At least 47 people have been killed across the Gaza Strip since dawn on Tuesday, according to hospitals.

In Gaza City, Israeli strikes killed at least 26 people, who arrived at Shifa hospital since Tuesday morning, an official there told The Associated Press.

A strike on a residential building in Tel al-Hawa wounded 28 people on Tuesday, according to al-Quds Hospital, a day after overnight strikes in the neighborhood.

Overnight, a strike on a residential building in the neighborhood killed 15 people including at least 3 children. AP footage showed rescue workers pulling a bloodied infant alive from beneath rubble, then placing the dead under white sheets — a scene that captured the dangers facing Gaza City’s exhausted residents, uprooted time and again and uncertain if any place is secure.

“We were sleeping safe and sound in our home, and then we suddenly woke up to the sound of banging and rising smoke,” Sana Drimli, a woman who lived in the building with her family, told the AP. “We woke up to see what happened to us and check in on our children and discovered that everyone around us is dead.”

Shifa Hospital’s morgue confirmed 15 deaths from the Israeli strike, one of several lethal strikes on the neigborhood.

Further south, Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said they received 22 casualties killed by Israeli airstrikes and gunfire near distribution sites and in a corridor frequented by U.N. convoys.

In recent months, more than 2,300 aid seekers have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The toll includes Palestinians who have sought aid in areas where U.N. convoys have been overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds, and where people have been fatally shot while heading to sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, an Israeli-backed American contractor.

Israel’s military and GHF didn’t immediately respond to questions about the latest incidents.

At least 60,000 reservists will be gradually called up, Israel’s military said last month. It will also extend the service of an additional 20,000 reservists already serving.

In Israel, with a population of less than 10 million, most Jewish men complete compulsory military service and remain in the reserves for at least a decade. But criticism over the war in Gaza is growing. A number of movements are organizing to encourage reservists not to serve, though it’s unclear how many will refuse the latest call-up.

Refusing to show up for reserve duty is an offense that can merit prison time, though only a handful of reserve soldiers who have refused to serve have been put in military prison over the course of the war.

Since the world’s leading authority on food crises declared last month that Gaza City was experiencing famine, malnutrition-related deaths have mounted. Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday that a total of 185 people died of malnutrition in August — marking the highest count in months.

A total of 63,633 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the ministry, which says another 160,914 people have been wounded as of Tuesday. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up around half the dead.

The Ministry is part of the Hamas-run government but staffed by medical professionals. U.N. agencies and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of war casualties. Israel disputes them, but hasn’t provided its own toll.

The war started when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage. Forty-eight hostages are still inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefires or other deals.

Published – September 02, 2025 08:58 pm IST