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Speaking to Qatar News Agency (QNA) regarding the turning point in the Palestinian cause and the targeting of journalists in Gaza, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Qatar Press Center, Saad Al Rumaihi stated that the Israeli assaults on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, represent a historic shift in the course of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as the people of Gaza stood alone in the face of this brutal aggression that did not distinguish between people and stone.He added that the Palestinian people have recorded a heroic epic that will be immortalized in history. Now, as the second year nears its end, the struggle and resistance of Gaza's people continue, despite the imbalance of power between the two sides.Regarding the objective of the Israeli entity in continuing its aggression on the devastated Strip, Al Rumaihi stressed that people cannot learn the facts and what is happening on the ground and the course of battles, except through journalists and media professionals who deliver information to the public, as known in wars and major events.He added that they are unknown soldiers who stand bravely so that the world can see, hear, and read the news of these events and understand the reality and what is happening.Therefore, he accentuated, the Israeli occupation has deliberately silenced these voices as long as they convey to the world the true image and the tragedies faced by the people of Gaza.He highlighted that the occupation can only achieve this through the most heinous and extreme violations, unfortunately, through the physical elimination of these great journalists.He underscored that the Israeli assaults on Palestinian journalists clearly reveal Israel's insistence on imposing its unilateral media narrative, which contradicts the reality on the ground.In light of the world's failure and inability to enact binding laws to protect journalists and media professionals and defend them against Israeli arrogance, the Chairman of the Qatar Press Center affirmed in his statements to QNA, that the situation requires urgent action to protect journalists, so that the matter does not remain a mere dream difficult to achieve.Al Rumaihi confirmed that Israel continues its arrogance without any deterrent punishment from international bodies and organizations concerned with humanitarian and journalistic affairs.He reiterated the need to capitalize on the wave of international outrage and the storm of criticism directed at Israeli policy due to its continuous and deliberate targeting of civilians in the Gaza Strip, including journalists, emphasizing the importance of harnessing the growing global humanitarian sentiment toward the Palestinian cause and Al Aqsa Mosque.He pointed out that the demonstrations and sit-ins that have swept many countries around the world now reflect this solidarity, even in the United States of America, where university campuses have turned into platforms for defending Gaza and its people.He explained that the Qatar Press Center has sought and continues to support the steadfastness of the people of Gaza through numerous media initiatives, seminars, exhibitions, news coverage, and other means, which it considers a duty as it lives through these events and follows their developments.The Chairman of the Qatar Press Center concluded by emphasizing the necessity of standing by the Palestinian people, moving beyond mere condemnation and denunciation, which is all we currently possess.He added that specialized global organizations must exert more pressure on Israel to stop its aggression against the Palestinian people, enabling them to obtain their most basic rights to live in safety and dignity.With every Israeli assault on media workers in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, renewed calls emerge from all press unions, media, human rights, and legal organizations around the world for explicit condemnation of these repeated crimes, with the urgent need to put an end to them, so that Israel does not succeed in its attempts to silence voices and images and prevent the transmission of the truth about the crimes it commits against the Palestinian people.

The Israeli military pressed operations around Gaza City Wednesday, as President Donald Trump prepared to host a White House meeting on post-war plans for the shattered Palestinian territory.Israel is under mounting pressure both at home and abroad to end its almost two-year campaign in Gaza, where the United Nations has declared a famine.Mediators have circulated a truce proposal which has been accepted by Palestinian group Hamas, but Israel has yet to give an official response.On the ground, Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 24 people Wednesday.The Israeli military, which is preparing to conquer Gaza City, said troops were operating on the outskirts of the territory's largest city "to locate and dismantle terror infrastructure sites".As aid groups have warned against expanding the Israeli offensive, the army's Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said on X that Gaza City's evacuation was "inevitable".The vast majority of the Gaza Strip's population of more than 2mn people have been displaced at least once during the war.In Jabalia, just north of Gaza City, resident Hamad al-Karawi said he had left his home after a message broadcast from a drone ordered people to evacuate immediately."We scattered out onto the streets with no place or home to take refuge in," he told AFP.The UN estimates that nearly a million people currently live in Gaza governorate, which includes Gaza City and its surroundings in the north of the territory.Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said the US president was to host top officials at the White House later Wednesday to thrash out a detailed plan for post-war Gaza."It's a very comprehensive plan we're putting together," Witkoff told Fox News, without offering more details.Trump stunned the world earlier this year when he suggested the United States should take control of the Gaza Strip, clear out its inhabitants and redevelop it as seaside real estate.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the proposal which sparked a global outcry.In Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood Wednesday, residents reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight."Warplanes struck several times, and drones fired throughout the night," said Tala al-Khatib, 29."Some neighbours have fled... But wherever you flee, death follows you," she said.AFP footage showed thick smoke rising into the sky following air strikes on parts of Gaza City.Defence Minister Israel Katz vowed on Friday to destroy the city if Hamas does not agree to end the war on Israel's terms.Zeitoun resident Abdel Hamid al-Sayfi, 62, said he had avoided going outside for more than 24 hours."Whoever steps outside is fired upon by the drones," he told AFP by telephone.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.Speaking after a security cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Netanyahu declined to share what had been decided.The Israeli leader last week said he ordered immediate negotiations aimed at securing the release of all remaining captives, while also doubling down on the plan to seize Gaza City.Out of 251 hostages seized during Hamas's 2023 attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.Key mediator Qatar said on Tuesday it was still "waiting for an answer" from Israel on the latest ceasefire proposal, which would see the staggered release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody over an initial 60-day truce.

The Palestinian Presidency urged the international community on Wednesday to impose sanctions that would compel the Israeli occupation to reconsider its destructive policies in the region and the world, and to take immediate action to confront its defiance of international legitimacy and law, rather than limiting itself to a policy of condemnation and denunciation.In remarks, the Official Spokesperson for the Palestinian Presidency, Nabil Abu Rudeineh said that the dangerous Israeli escalation in cities, villages, and refugee camps is condemned and rejected, most recently the storming of Nablus by military forces at dawn today, the encirclement of the Old City, the targeting of citizens, and forcing them to leave their homes.He noted that this is being accompanied by the ongoing war of extermination and starvation in the Gaza Strip. He stressed the need for the occupation to bear responsibility for the escalation of its military attacks and settler terrorism against the Palestinian people, asserting that the continuation of this policy will lead to the destruction of everything and will lead the region to further tension and instability.At dawn today, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) stormed Nablus and Tulkarm, accompanied by large crowds of soldiers, and carried out raids on homes and arrests of civilians, amid a prolonged silence regarding these practices, which are increasing throughout the occupied territories and coincide with the war of extermination targeting Gaza and its people.

More than 10,000 people took part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Copenhagen on Sunday, calling for an end to the war in Gaza and urging Denmark to recognise the state of Palestine.Some 100 organisations including Oxfam, Greenpeace and Amnesty took part in the march, as well as unions, political parties, artists' collectives and activists including Greta Thunberg.Police did not provide an estimate of the number of demonstrators.Gathering under sunny skies outside the Danish parliament, the demonstrators -- many of them families with young children -- waved flags and carried banners, chanting "Stop Arms Sales", "Free Free Palestine" and "Denmark Says No to Genocide".A traditional supporter of Israel, Denmark has said it wants to use its current presidency of the European Union to increase pressure on the Israeli government to end the war in Gaza, which Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen recently said had gone "too far".But Denmark has said it has no plans to recognise a Palestinian state in the near future."Those who are in power are not stopping the genocide, so it's even more important to go out and protest and show all the leaders that we do not agree with this," 43-year-old demonstrator Michelle Appelros told AFP.

Starvation is the slow, silent unmaking of the body. Deprived of basic sustenance, the body first burns through sugar stores in the liver. Then it melts muscle and fat, breaking down tissue to keep the brain and other vital organs alive.As these reserves are depleted, the heart loses its strength, the immune system surrenders, and the mind begins to fade. The skin tightens over the bones, and breathing grows faint. Organs begin to fail in succession, vision fails, and the body, now empty, slips away. It is a prolonged, agonising way to die.We have all seen the images of emaciated Palestinian babies and children withering away from starvation in their mothers’ arms. Yet now that Israel is intensifying its war – embarking on a new campaign to seize control of Gaza City – thousands more Palestinian civilians may be killed, either by bombs or by starvation.“This is no longer a looming hunger crisis,” Ramesh Rajasingham, a senior UN humanitarian official, told the UN Security Council on Aug 10. “This is starvation, pure and simple.” Alex de Waal, an expert on famine, estimates that thousands of Gazan children are now too weak to eat, even if they had access to food. “They have got to that stage of severe acute malnutrition where their bodies just can’t digest food.”There is a growing consensus that Israel is committing the most serious of crimes in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare. Palestinian and international human-rights groups raised the alarm about this risk within months of the start of the war, and it has since been echoed by states on every continent, as well as by many in Israel. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, for example, has decried what he describes as war crimes in Gaza, and leading Israeli human-rights groups say Israel’s actions in the territory amount to genocide.On Oct 9, 2023, then-Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” The population of Gaza was dehumanised, and no distinction was made between civilians and combatants – a violation of a cardinal rule of international humanitarian law. The siege shut off all supplies into Gaza for 70 days, imposing collective punishment.This first siege was eased only slightly when Israel allowed supplies to trickle into Gaza in early 2024. By that April, Samantha Power, then the head of USAID, was already warning of famine in parts of Gaza. The following month, Cindy McCain, the executive director of the World Food Programme, announced “a full-blown famine” in northern Gaza.International law prohibits the use of starvation as a weapon of war. As the occupying power in Gaza, Israel must ensure that the civilian population receives adequate food, water, medical supplies, and other essentials. If those supplies cannot be located within Gaza itself, they must be sourced externally – including from Israel.Over the past 21 months, several governments and aid agencies have pleaded with Israel to let them deliver aid. Granting such permission is also a legal obligation: Israel has a duty to facilitate others’ relief schemes “by all means at its disposal.” But Israel has continuously thwarted these efforts. At this very moment, it is blocking humanitarian organisations from delivering aid.In January 2024, the International Court of Justice, through legally binding decisions ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.” Two months later, it reaffirmed that order and required that the measures be taken “in full co-operation with the UN.” The UN-led humanitarian system was the only one capable of preventing widespread famine in Gaza. During the cease-fire between January and March of this year, the UN and other humanitarian organisations were operating as many as 400 relief distribution sites. But after Israel broke the cease-fire in March, these were shut down, and another siege was unlawfully imposed.Israel justified the new siege by saying that it was cutting off aid to exert greater pressure on Hamas – thus acknowledging its use of starvation as a weapon. When aid resumed in May, the UN was replaced by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private food-distribution arrangement organised by Israel. But since then, nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while attempting to obtain food at the GHF’s four distribution sites.Worse, the GHF scheme was never going to work. According to a report from the Famine Review Committee last month, “Our analysis of the food packages supplied by the GHF shows that their distribution plan would lead to mass starvation, even if it was able to function without the appalling levels of violence.”Under international law, the war crime of starvation begins at the point of deprivation. When it becomes a more expansive policy undertaken with the intent “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” it becomes genocide. Multiple senior Israeli officials have openly expressed such intent – including Gallant in October 2023, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who in August 2024 remarked that “it might be justified and moral” to “cause 2mn civilians to die of hunger,” and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister for National Security, who tweeted that “food and aid depots should be bombed.”Palestinians are being intentionally starved to death. Although signs of the coming horrors were clear within months of the war’s onset, many governments averted their eyes. They rationalised the restrictions on aid by arguing that it was going to Hamas – a claim that Israel now says it has no evidence for – and transferred more tonnage in weapons to Israel than they delivered in aid to Gaza. Now, they are failing in their duty to prevent and stop a genocide.History will forever record this moment of global shame. It will archive the images of skeletal children alongside those from past episodes where the world did nothing. One can only hope that the world will act now to salvage at least a measure of our humanity, before even more children die. – Project SyndicateBinaifer Nowrojee is President of the Open Society Foundations.