Press Release: Veritas Press C.I.C. Author: Kamran Faqir Article Date Published: 29 Aug 2025 at 10:44 GMT Category: Middle East | Palestine-Gaza | US-Israel At War Source(s): Veritas Press C.I.C. | Multi News Agencies
On 28 August 2025, Israeli bombardment across Gaza intensified dramatically. Medical sources confirmed that at least 61 Palestinians were killed since dawn, including 19 shot near aid distribution centres, as Israel pressed forward with its full-scale operation targeting Gaza City. UN Secretary-General António Guterres sharply condemned the escalation, warning that the offensive “signals a new and dangerous phase” and calling for accountability for the “endless catalogue of horrors”. Over the same 24-hour period, Gaza’s Health Ministry recorded 71 deaths, raising the death toll of this prolonged conflict to more than 100,000.
Starvation, Aid Blockades & Killings at Aid Centres:
In areas such as northern and southern Gaza, starving Palestinians gathered at aid sites, but tragically, many were killed or wounded while awaiting food. These incidents illustrate a humanitarian nightmare exacerbated by militarised aid distribution.
Since early June 2025, reports document a pattern of deadly shootings at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution points. Between May and July, at least 859 Palestinians were killed while seeking aid at these sites, actions that Human Rights Watch identifies as possible war crimes and crimes against humanity. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights further reported nearly 800 deaths due to Israeli strikes near food distribution hubs and convoy routes since late May.
Media investigations, including by the Financial Times and The Guardian, uncovered that more than 1,373 people were killed and over 2,000 injured in just 48 days around GHF sites, many by what witnesses described as indiscriminate, targeted gunfire.
In one grim snapshot: on 24 August, four Palestinians were reportedly shot dead approaching a food distribution site in the Netzarim corridor near Gaza City, where Israeli military presence is heavy. Witnesses described chaos; the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation denied the incident, and Israel issued no immediate comment.
Famine: A Man-Made Catastrophe
The drought of food in Gaza isn’t a mere byproduct of war; it amounts to a deliberate strategy, say humanitarian analysts. The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has officially declared a famine in Gaza City, with 514,000 people affected, potentially rising to 641,000 by September’s end.
Aid groups and the UN hold Israeli restrictions responsible for blocking vital relief; many accuse the state of weaponising starvation as leverage in war. Analysts draw parallels to historical famines caused or deepened by military strategy, situations such as the Holodomor or the siege of Leningrad, but stress that Gaza’s is uniquely grim due to Israel’s capabilities to act otherwise.
Tragically, malnutrition-related deaths continue to climb. As of 28 August, at least 317 deaths have been attributed to starvation, including four new ones since dawn, two of them children. Earlier, eight deaths were reported, including two children, bringing the toll to 281 from hunger, of whom 114 were children.
Ramping Up Bombardment & Destruction:
Israel’s military is advancing aggressively in Gaza City, especially in southern and eastern neighbourhoods like Shujayea, Zeitoun, Sabra, and Tal al-Hawa. Civil defence reports that no buildings remain standing in southern Zeitoun, where more than 1,500 homes have been demolished.
Meanwhile, forces have sharpened their focus across regions: in the north (Jabaliya), centre (Deir al-Balah), and south (Khan Younis), including “humanitarian zones” like al-Mawasi, previously declared safe, residents continue to suffer bombardment, displacements, and casualties.
Voices Of Witnesses:
Residents recount harrowing experiences:
- In Sheikh Radwan (northwest Gaza City), one man described a “firebelt” attack from only 150 meters away, including helicopter fire—“very scary bombardments”.
- A displaced father in al-Mawasi, sheltering with grandchildren after losing their father months ago, implored: “Stop this war against us… Have mercy on the children.” His area had been deemed a safe zone, yet it was still struck without warning.
International Outcry & Legal Concerns:
The world’s condemnation is mounting:
- António Guterres laments the “catastrophe” in Gaza, calling it the result of “deliberate decisions that defy basic humanity”.
- Legal authorities and NGOs argue that killing starving civilians and obstructing aid could constitute war crimes and even genocide or extermination, pressing for accountability.
Aid groups like UNRWA, MSF, Oxfam, and others warn that the situation is worsening “by the hour,” and demand unrestricted access, safe corridors, and lasting ceasefire measures.
Conclusion: Evidence Of Genocide, Enabled By Global Complicity.
What is happening in Gaza is not collateral damage. It bears every hallmark of a planned and executed campaign of extermination. The deliberate starvation of over two million people, systematic targeting of civilians at aid points, and destruction of so-called “safe zones” are not random acts of war; they are intentional measures aimed at physically destroying a national group, in whole or in part. Under the Genocide Convention of 1948, this is the textbook definition of genocide.
International humanitarian law prohibits the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. Yet Israel has turned starvation into a weapon of mass punishment, blocking food, bombing bakeries, and killing those who queue for flour. The pattern is consistent and documented: aid becomes bait, and death becomes the price of survival.
Despite over 100,000 Palestinians dead, famine declared by the UN, and mass displacement engineered through relentless bombardment, there is no serious mechanism of accountability. The International Criminal Court stalls. Western governments issue statements while supplying arms. Global institutions that vowed “never again” after Rwanda and Srebrenica are watching another genocide unfold in real time.
History will not see Gaza as a battlefield. It will see it as a crime scene, a deliberate eradication of a people under siege, carried out with impunity and legitimised by the silence, or worse, the complicity, of powerful states. The question is no longer if this is a war crime; it is whether the world will allow genocide to be live-streamed without consequence.
he evidence from Gaza is no longer ambiguous. It satisfies nearly every element outlined in Article II of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948):
- Killing members of the group – Tens of thousands of Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians, have been killed in targeted and indiscriminate strikes.
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm – From amputations without anaesthesia to psychological trauma in displacement camps.
- Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy the group in whole or in part – The systematic starvation, destruction of food systems, bombing of safe zones, and killings at aid queues constitute deliberate acts.
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that Israel’s military campaign is creating “a new and dangerous phase,” calling the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza “man-made and preventable.” The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has gone further, stating that the “pattern of destruction and deprivation appears to meet the threshold of genocide under international law.” (UN Human Rights Office statement, July 2025
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