Updates: Israel kills 61 in Gaza, UN chief slams ‘deliberate’ famine

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Read more on Israel’s latest attacks in Yemen here.

Learn about shifting US public opinion on the war in Gaza here.

For coverage of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s calls for Israel to annex parts of Gaza, read here.

And, you can always find all our coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

This live page will be closing soon. Here’s a recap of the day’s major developments:

• Israeli forces continued attacks across Gaza, killing over 60 people, including 19 aid seekers, according to local medical sources.
• Four more people, including two children, died of “famine and malnutrition” in the enclave, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
• UN chief Antonio Guterres addressed the mounting hunger-related deaths, saying famine in Gaza is a “present-day catastrophe” caused by “deliberate decisions that defy basic humanity”.
• The UN Security Council voted to extend UNIFIL, a long-running peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, until the end of 2026 when it will begin a yearlong drawdown.
• The Israeli military carried out an aerial assault in Yemen’s Sana’a area, claiming to strike a Houthi “military target”.

Across Australia, students once cast their vote to push universities to divest from apartheid South Africa, a movement that changed policies, inspired a global campaign, and now serves as a strong historical precedent for a new referendum on Gaza.

Watch Al Jazeera’s report from Sydney here:

Senator Chris Van Hollen has called on Israel to stop weaponising hunger after he visited a UN aid warehouse in Israel where thousands of food containers are stuck, pending Israeli permission to move into the enclave.

“We visited a WFP [World Food Programme] site in Israel with enough food to feed everyone in Gaza for 3 weeks,” Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, wrote in a post on X. “The Netanyahu govt’s weaponization of hunger must stop.”

.@SenJeffMerkley and I were just in Israel to discuss the situation in Gaza and press to end the war and return all the hostages.

We visited a @WFP site in Israel with enough food to feed everyone in Gaza for 3 weeks. The Netanyahu govt’s weaponization of hunger must stop. pic.twitter.com/O9xfOHibvV

— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) August 28, 2025

Israeli forces have launched several new raids in the occupied West Bank, after earlier carrying out a wave of home invasions and arrests that included targeting activists and journalists, according to the Wafa news agency.

The latest incursions occurred in the town of al-Yamun, near Jenin, and Jalazone camp, near Ramallah, reports Wafa.

In al-Yamun, Israeli forces raided several homes and tampered with residents’ contents, while in Jalazone camp, they fired tear gas near homes, according to Wafa.

Earlier today, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed Israel’s extensive military campaigns in the occupied West Bank, calling them “profoundly alarming” developments that are “driving displacement and deepening vulnerability”.

Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows a series of Israeli strikes occurring near a busy street in Gaza City, causing widespread panic.

People in the area, including children, are seen running away as powerful blasts rock the area.

As we’ve been reporting, Israel’s military has been intensifying attacks in and around Gaza City, which is currently carrying out a plan to seize.

Earlier, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from the enclave, said some Israeli strikes in Gaza City have hit residential neighbourhoods, seemingly in an attempt to clear them of residents.

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Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting that Netanyahu has condemned the incident in which protesters poured red paint on the street in front of the home of Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir.

Netanyahu called the protesters “extremist activists,” and said that attempts to hurt the Israeli military and its commanders must be heavily denounced, the newspaper said.

The protesters, from the organisations Standing Together and Soldiers for Hostages, called on Zamir to refuse the Netanyahu government’s plan to take over the Gaza Strip, Haaretz stated.

Israeli settlers have attacked water wells and vandalised a local water authority site in the town of Ein Samia in the occupied West Bank, according to the Wafa news agency.

Damage to one of the wells in the Palestinian town affected residents’ water supply for hours, before authorities repaired it, said Wafa.

Meanwhile, settlers also attacked property belonging to the local water authority, including vandalising one of its vehicles and surveillance cameras, said Wafa.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Israel has continued its attacks across Gaza, including a strike near a school in Jabalia an-Nazla, killing at least five people.
• Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called on the government to begin annexing parts of Gaza if Hamas refuses to disarm, a proposal far beyond Israel’s planned Gaza City offensive, which the UN has condemned.
• In a statement, Hamas says Smotrich’s words represent “an official call to exterminate our people”.
• The UN Security Council has unanimously extended UNIFIL, a long-running peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, until the end of 2026 when the operation will then begin a yearlong “orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal”.
• Since dawn, Israeli forces have arrested a dozen people across the occupied West Bank, targeting journalists, activists and freed prisoners during raids and home invasions, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Media Office.
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has addressed the situation in the West Bank, where Israeli forces have carried out a series of intensive raids in recent days, including in Ramallah and Nablus, calling the situation “profoundly alarming”.
• Guterres has also condemned the Israeli government’s plan to construct thousands of new settlement units in the E1 area of the West Bank, saying it would split the territory in two and poses “an existential threat to the two-state solution”.
• The Israeli military says its forces have struck a Houthi “terrorist regime military target in the area of Sanaa”. There are no immediate reports of casualties.

This news comes from the director of al-Shifa Medical Complex, Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, who said the hospital lacks the correct equipment to determine its origin, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting that six protesters demonstrating against the war on Gaza have been arrested in Haifa in northern Israel.

The newspaper said that dozens of demonstrators held signs of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza, while others stated “Stop the genocide” and “Stop starving Gaza.”

One protester was arrested for playing the sound of drones on a speaker mimicking the constant hum of the Israeli drones that can be heard over many parts of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli official Ron Dermer met US President Trump and other senior officials at the White House yesterday, saying Israel’s main demand to end the war in Gaza is that control of the enclave be handed to an authority other than Hamas, US news site Axios reports.

The meeting also included US Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff, as well as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who presented ideas on post-war governance and reconstruction, according to Axios.

Trump unexpectedly invited Dermer, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs and a close confidant of Prime Minister Netanyahu, to share Israel’s perspective, the report says.

Citing an unnamed source “with direct knowledge,” Axios reports that Dermer claimed Israel “doesn’t want to occupy Gaza for good and doesn’t want to expel the Palestinian population”, despite a push from some within its government to do so.

However, he said Israel insists that Gaza be governed by an authority other than Hamas. “Dermer’s message was: As long as our conditions are met, we will be flexible about everything else,” Axios quotes the source as saying.

As we just reported, the far-right Israeli finance minister released a plan today that calls for the full annexation of the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, Hamas said that his words represent “an official call to exterminate our people”.

“Smotrich’s statements are an official admission of the use of starvation and siege against innocent civilians as a weapon”, the statement continues.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called on the government to begin annexing parts of Gaza if Hamas refuses to disarm, a proposal far beyond Israel’s planned Gaza City offensive, which the UN has condemned.

A staunch opponent of any ceasefire deal with Hamas, Smotrich said his annexation plan – illegal under international law – would allow Israel to “win in Gaza by the end of the year”.

At a news conference in Jerusalem, he said Israel should give Hamas an ultimatum: surrender, disarm and release remaining captives, or Israel will take control of one section of Gaza each week for four weeks.

He added that Palestinians would be forcibly displaced southward while Israel imposes a siege on the north and central Gaza to target remaining Hamas fighters, concluding with full annexation.

“This can be achieved in three to four months,” he said, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to adopt this plan in full immediately”.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, has responded to the UN decision by saying: “For a change, we have some good news coming from the UN.”

Israel has long been wary of UNIFIL, which was founded to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion.

Last year, Israeli forces repeatedly fired at UNIFIL headquarters and bases. Today, Israeli forces continue to occupy several positions in southern Lebanon in violation of a November ceasefire.

In videos posted by locals on Instagram and verified by Al Jazeera, Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip can be seen trying to catch drops of water in cans from underneath a truck transporting water.

The water they collect has run down the side of containers, through wooden pallets and along the underside of the truck.

Other children are cooling themselves in the extreme heat, allowing drops of water to fall over them.

The entire Gaza Strip continues to suffer under Israel’s famine-inducing starvation policy with severe shortages of food, water and medicine prevailing in all areas.

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