Updates: Israel to displace Palestinians in Gaza, forcing them south

Thank you for joining us.

Find out more about the latest Palestinian victims of Israeli-imposed starvation and bombings across the Gaza Strip here.

Read more about the US suspending visas for Gaza residents after fury online from right-wing critics here.

See why the remaining journalists in Gaza are afraid for their lives and their families after Israel’s assassination of Al Jazeera staff here.

And you can always find our comprehensive coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict here.

• The Israeli military killed at least 25 Palestinians, including 12 aid seekers, across Gaza. In addition, 11 more people, including children, died of starvation imposed by Israel, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health.
• Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will start being forcibly displaced towards southern Gaza, beginning tomorrow, the Israeli army has said, as it advances with plans to seize Gaza City in the north.
• Hamas said Israel is carrying out a “systematic destruction” of Gaza City and its Zeitoun neighbourhood as it besieges the area with warplanes, artillery and explosive robots.
• Tens of thousands of Israelis in Tel Aviv protested the government’s plans for Gaza and called for a comprehensive deal to bring back all captives as they prepare for a general strike on Sunday.
• Israeli soldiers shot dead an 18-year-old Palestinian boy during a raid on the al-Mughayyir village in the occupied West Bank’s Ramallah, where settlers had attacked hours earlier.
• A senior Israeli cyber official working directly under Benjamin Netanyahu is facing felony charges over trying to lure a child for a sex act in Las Vegas, but has already been allowed to return to Israel.
• Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the Israeli prime minister “is now a problem in himself”, adding that the time is not currently right to support a Palestinian state.

Israeli forces have stormed the village of Susiya in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, sources on the ground told our colleagues.

The raid comes after reports of Israeli forces storming the town of Kafr Dan, west of Jenin, and setting fire to a house.

A group of Egyptian journalists gathered to remember Al Jazeera journalists killed by Israel in Gaza in an attempt to silence their reporting ahead of a plan to occupy Gaza City and other parts of the enclave.

Numerous protests and vigils worldwide have hailed the journalists and condemned Israel for the assassinations, which it carried out based on unproven claims that media workers in Gaza are Hamas operatives.

"يوم تضامني" بنقابة الصحفيين في #مصر دعما لغزة وللتنديد باغتيال أنس الشريف ورفاقه#ألبوم pic.twitter.com/EJn0oGh227

— الجزيرة فلسطين (@AJA_Palestine) August 16, 2025

Translation: “Solidarity Day” at the Journalists’ Syndicate in Egypt in support of Gaza and to condemn the assassination of Anas al-Sharif and his comrades.

Palestinian journalists have long known Gaza to be the most dangerous place on earth for media workers, but Israel’s latest attack on a tent housing journalists in Gaza City has left many reeling from shock and fear.

Four Al Jazeera staff were among the seven people killed in an Israeli drone strike outside al-Shifa Hospital on August 10. The Israeli military has admitted to deliberately targeting the tent after making unsubstantiated accusations that one of those killed, Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, was a member of Hamas.

Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed at least 238 media workers since October 2023, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office. This toll is higher than that of World Wars I and II, the Vietnam War, the war in Afghanistan and the Yugoslavia wars combined.

Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud said, “Press vests and helmets, once considered a shield, now feel like a target.”

Read more here.

Yitzhak Yosef, a top rabbi in Israel, has lambasted the ultra-Orthodox leaders in the country for listening to Benjamin Netanyahu and not introducing a law that would exempt Haredi students from serving in the military when the prime minister was first forming his far-right government.

“You believe him? He is an atheist. You trust someone like that?” Yosef said about Netanyahu during a speech broadcast by Israeli media.

The former Sephardic chief rabbi and current member of the rabbinic leadership council of the Shas party claimed that the military police mainly arrest Sephardic deserters, and instructed ultra-Orthodox men not to open their doors to the military police.

Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that the military exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox must end, and Netanyahu’s delaying of passing legislation in support of the Haredi has led to affiliated parties exiting the coalition.

Israeli forces set fire to a house in the town of Kafr Dan, west of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.

Local sources told Wafa that Israeli forces set fire to the home of the Abu Sultan Abed family after raiding and searching it.

Troops also stormed the town of Kafr Dan, deployed their vehicles in the streets, and fired live ammunition.

The Palestinian armed group, Islamic Jihad, has slammed the Israeli army’s plans to introduce tents into southern Gaza after announcing forced eviction plans as a “mockery of international conventions and a disgrace to UN institutions”.

“Forcing people to flee amidst starvation, massacres, and displacement is an ongoing crime against humanity. Criminal behaviour in Gaza is inseparable from the daily crimes committed by the occupation in the occupied West Bank,” the group said in a statement.

It added that alongside ongoing settler attacks, they all had one goal “to expel Palestinians from their land”.

“The living forces and free peoples of the world must raise their voices loudly in rejection of the occupation policies,” Islamic Jihad urged.

Several family members of Israelis held captive in Gaza and soldiers killed in the enclave have addressed the large rally in Tel Aviv, calling for a comprehensive deal and a halt to military expansion in Gaza that they believe will endanger the captives.

“Force does not bring back hostages, force kills and has killed hostages. A deal brings back hostages. Bring them home, make one deal that brings them all back,” read a statement from the families released on social media.

Pushpa Bipin, sister of Nepalese student Joshi Bipin, who is held in Gaza, for the first time addressed the crowds for the first time while standing next to her mother, after making the long journey from Nepal.

“It took us 22 months to find the strength to come here. We were isolated in Nepal, separated by language, culture and fear. We focused on praying for him, but prayers are not enough,” she said.

כיכר החטופים – התקווה!

🛑מחר ישראל עוצרת🎗️

קרדיט צילום: יאיר פלטי pic.twitter.com/xEY45lM0I4

— מטה המשפחות להחזרת החטופים והנעדרים (@BringThemHome23) August 16, 2025

Translation: Hostages Square – The Hope! Tomorrow, Israel stops.

Netanyahu’s office has reiterated that Israel will agree to a ceasefire deal on the condition that all the hostages are released at the same time, following reports of renewed pressure from the mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US for a pause in fighting.

In a statement, the prime minister’s office said agreeing to a deal would take place in line with their conditions to end the war, including “disarming of Hamas, the demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip, Israeli control of the Gaza perimeter, and the installation of non-Hamas and non-Palestinian Authority governance that will live in peace with Israel.”

The Israeli news outlet, the Times of Israel, reported yesterday, citing an Israeli official and an Arab diplomat, that Hamas negotiators in Cairo had signalled a willingness to retreat from demands the group made to secure a ceasefire during the last round of talks in July.

Moreover, Channel 12 also reported on Friday that Netanyahu had recently received a “dramatic” document from a “professional” source involved in the negotiations, which expressed Hamas’s willingness to reach a partial deal.

The US has been reportedly mediating between Israel and the UN over the so-called GHF, the entity set up by Israel and the US to exclude the UN and international organisations from the aid delivery process to Gaza.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Joyce Musa met with White House envoy Steve Witkoff and his close confidant Aryeh Lightstone last Tuesday.

Msuya was quoted as describing the meeting as “constructive”, focusing on the “dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and the need to scale up desperately needed aid”.

Last week, another meeting was reportedly held with UN representatives, which included Johnny Moore, the evangelical leader close to Trump who is acting as the executive chairman of the GHF.

The UN’s Dujarric emphasised that the organisation has not changed its fundamental stance towards the GHF, and that its staff can only work with entities that “operate based on the international humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, independence and humanity”.

Here’s a quick look at the latest developments:

• Israeli warplanes bombed buildings in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis in some of their latest attacks on the enclave, where a child and at least 10 others starved to death over the past day.
• Israeli soldiers shot dead an 18-year-old Palestinian boy during a raid on the al-Mughayyir village in the occupied West Bank’s Ramallah, where settlers had attacked hours earlier.
• Las Vegas police confirmed a senior Israeli cyber official working directly under Benjamin Netanyahu is facing felony charges over trying to lure a child for a sex act.
• Tens of thousands of Israelis have again demonstrated in Tel Aviv for the release of all captives from Gaza, and are planning a general strike for Sunday to pressure the government.
• Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the Israeli prime minister “now a problem himself” and said she would try to put pressure on Israel over the war on Gaza.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has destroyed most of the Strip’s sewage and water treatment facilities.

Health authorities warn that the dire sanitation situation could cause outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports from Khan Younis:

Hamas says the former Israeli intelligence chief comments that 50 Palestinians should be killed for the death of one Israeli during the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, was “an explicit admission of the occupation’s genocidal ideology”.

“The confessions reveal that the crimes of the occupation were the result of high-level decisions and official policy from the leadership of the criminal Nazi entity. These Nazi statements place the international community before its responsibility to hold the leaders of the occupation accountable for the crimes of genocide,” Hamas said in a statement.

Israeli news outlet Channel 12 reported leaked recordings of Major General Aharon Haliva, who said that killing 50 Palestinians was “necessary for future generations” as a deterrence.

He added that “they [Palestinans] need a Nakba every now and then to feel the price,” referring to the 1948 forced displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians.

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reports from the Hasbaya district in the southern part of the country that Israeli forces opened fire on local officials earlier today.

It said the mayor of a locality in the area “miraculously survived” after being targeted by machinegun fire coming in from Israeli positions while accompanying another local official.

The area is close to the border with Israel. The Israeli army, which continues to carry out assassinations and bombings on Lebanese soil despite a ceasefire reached with Hezbollah last year, has not commented.

NNA also reported earlier today that an Israeli drone flew at low altitudes over several areas in the Nabatieh and Marjayoun districts in southern Lebanon. It said an Israeli helicopter dropped a sound bomb on the town of Ramya in Tyre as well, without any injuries reported.

An 18-year-old Palestinian boy has been shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in the al-Mughayyir village in the occupied West Bank’s Ramallah, where settlers had attacked hours earlier.

The Wafa news agency cited the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah as confirming his death after succumbing to injuries in a hospital.

The head of the local village council said Israeli forces stormed the village and shot the boy in the back before assaulting him.

الشهيد حمدان موسى أبو عليا الذي ارتقى قبل قليل بعد إصابته برصاص جيش الاحتلال واحتجازه مصابا في قرية المغير شمال شرق رام الله. pic.twitter.com/gifixpDYiS

— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) August 16, 2025

Translation: The martyr Hamdan Musa Abu Aliya, who ascended shortly ago after being shot by the occupation army and detained while injured in the village of al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah.

Former Israeli army chief of staff has announced he will join the families of captives at their protest tomorrow to call on the government to return those held in Gaza, Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported.

Gadi Eizenkot called on “all those for whom the Israeli ethos and the values of Judaism are dear” to take part in the protest.

Last month, Eizenkot resigned from his seat in the Knesset after saying that the past 22 months of Israel’s war on Gaza had achieved none of the government’s war goals, and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “lack of leadership and refusal to make difficult decisions, out of personal and political considerations, are dragging Israel into the abyss”.

A senior Israeli intelligence official working directly under Benjamin Netanyahu was arrested, and released, by US authorities even though he and several others are facing felony charges over attempting to lure children to meet for sexual purposes.

Las Vegas police confirmed that 38-year-old Tom Artiom Alexandrovich was among eight arrested men, all of whom now face felony charges of luring a child with a computer for a sex act.

The suspects were released, but indictments are expected to be filed against them, police said. Israeli media reported that Alexandrovich, who was arrested while attending a professional conference in the US, has since returned to Israel.

A publicly posted screenshot of Alexandrovich’s page on LinkedIn, which has since been deleted, described him as the executive director of the Israel Cyber Directorate, an Israeli government agency working under direct authority of the office of the prime minister.

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said officials downplayed the incident and said it carried “no political implications”. Israeli media cited the Cyber Directorate as saying it had agreed with the official that he would be placed on leave until the issue is clarified.