Israel-Gaza War LIVE: Opposition Chief Backs Nationwide Strike for 120+ Gaza Hostages — Tensions at Breaking Point
Israel’s opposition chief supports a nationwide strike to demand the release of 120+ hostages in Gaza. Follow LIVE updates on protests, war developments, and international reactions
Condemnations poured in from the United Nations, the EU and media rights groups on Monday (Augsut 11, 2025) after an Israeli strike killed an Al Jazeera news team in Gaza, as Palestinians mourned the journalists and Israel accused one of them of being a Hamas militant.
Al Jazeera called the strike a “targeted assassination” while press freedom groups denounced the rising death toll facing Palestinian journalists working in Gaza. Mourners laid the journalists to rest in Gaza City.
Palestinians reported the heaviest bombardments in weeks on Monday in areas east of Gaza City, just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expected to complete a new expanded offensive in the enclave “fairly quickly”. French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday (August 11, 2025) slammed Israel’s plans to step up its military operation in Gaza as a disaster waiting to happen and proposed an international coalition under a United Nations mandate to stabilise Gaza.
Israeli opposition chief Yair Lapid on Tuesday (August 12, 2025) backed calls for a general strike in solidarity with hostages still held in Gaza.
“Strike on Sunday,” Mr. Lapid posted on X, saying even supporters of the current government should take part and insisting it was not party political.
Sunday is the first day of the working week in Israel.
“Strike out of solidarity. Strike because the families have asked, and that’s reason enough. Strike because no one has a monopoly on emotion, on mutual responsibility, on Jewish values.”
Mr. Lapid’s post followed a call on Sunday by around 20 parents of hostages still held by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip for a strike.
On Monday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main representative group for relatives, backed the idea.
The group has been pressing the leaders of Israel’s main trade union federation, Histadrut, to join in but it decided against doing so.
Instead, it said it would support “workers’ solidarity demonstrations”, the Forum said.
“Allow a citizens’ strike, from the grassroots to the top. Allow everyone to take a day off on Sunday to follow the dictates of their conscience,” the Forum added in a statement.
“The moment has come to act, to take to the streets,” it said, adding “675 days of captivity and war must end”.
The group again accused the government of sacrificing the remaining hostages “on the altar of an endless, aimless war”.
Last week, Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to expand the war into the remaining parts of Gaza not yet controlled by the military, sparking fears that more hostages might die as a result.
Of the 251 hostages taken captive by Palestinian militants during Hamas’s October 2023 attack on southern Israel, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
In early August, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad released videos showing two hostages in emaciated conditions.
Hamas’s 2023 attack that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 61,499 people, the majority civilians, according to the figures from the Hamas-run health ministry considered reliable by the United Nations. — AFP
Reuven Azar, Israel’s Ambassador to India, reacted sharply to Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s recent allegations accusing Israel of genocide in Palestine, countering her claims with a detailed rebuttal.
In response to Gandhi Vadra’s remarks, Mr. Azar said, “What is shameful is your deceit. Israel Killed 25,000 Hamas terrorists. The terrible cost in human lives derives from Hamas’s heinous tactics of hiding behind civilians, their shooting of people trying to evacuate or receive assistance and their rocket fire.”
He also highlighted Israel’s humanitarian efforts, saying, “Israel facilitated 2 million tonnes of food into Gaza while Hamas tries to sequestrate them, thereby creating hunger.”
Addressing demographic concerns raised indirectly by the accusations, Azar added, “Gaza population has grown 450% in the last 50 years, no genocide there.”
He concluded with a caution to the international community, urging, “Don’t buy Hamas numbers.”
This exchange comes amid intensifying violence and growing international debate over the humanitarian crisis and civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.
Student Maha Ali was determined to become a journalist one day and report on events in Gaza. Now she and other students have just one ambition: finding food as hunger ravages the Palestinian enclave.
As war rages, she is living among the ruins of Islamic University, a once-bustling educational institution, which like most others in Gaza, has become a shelter for displaced people.
“We have been saying for a long time that we want to live, we want to get educated, we want to travel. Now, we are saying we want to eat,” honours student Ali, 26, said.
Ali is part of a generation of Gazans — from grade school through to university — who say they have been robbed of an education by nearly two years of Israeli air strikes, which have destroyed the enclave’s institutions.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in Israel’s response to Palestinian militant group Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on its southern communities, according to Gaza health authorities. Much of the enclave, which suffered from poverty and high unemployment even before the war, has been demolished.
Palestinian Minister of Education Amjad Barham accused Israel of carrying out a systematic destruction of schools and universities, saying 293 out of 307 schools were destroyed completely or partially.
“With this, the occupation wants to kill hope inside our sons and daughters,” he said.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military or foreign ministry.
Israel has accused Hamas and other militant groups of systematically embedding in civilian areas and structures, including schools, and using civilians as human shields.
Hamas rejects the allegations and along with Palestinians accuses Israel of indiscriminate strikes. — Reuters
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the Israeli state is committing “genocide” and slammed the Indian government for standing “silent” as Israel “unleashes devastation” on the people of Palestine.
The Congress general secretary said the “Israeli state murdered over 60,000 people, 18,430 of whom were children”.
“It has starved hundreds to death including many children and is threatening to starve millions,” she said in a post on X.
Enabling these crimes by silence and inaction is a crime in itself, Priyanka Gandhi asserted.
“It is shameful that the Indian Government stands silent as Israel unleashes this devastation on the people of Palestine,” she said.
New Zealand parliamentarian Chloe Swarbrick was ordered to leave Parliament on Tuesday (August 12, 2025) during a heated debate over the government’s response to Palestine.
An urgent debate was called after the centre-right government said on Monday it was weighing up its position on whether to recognise a Palestinian state.
Close ally Australia on Monday (August 11, 2025) joined Canada, the UK and France in announcing it would recognise a Palestinian state at a U.N. conference in September.
Ms. Swarbrick, who is co-leader of the Green Party, said New Zealand was a “laggard” and an “outlier” and the lack of decision was appalling before calling on some government members to support a bill to “sanction Israel for its war crimes.” The bill was proposed by her party in March and is supported by all opposition parties.
“If we find six of 68 Government MPs with a spine, we can stand on the right side of history,” said Ms. Swarbrick.
Speaker Gerry Brownlee said that statement was “completely unacceptable” and she had to withdraw it and apologise. When she refused, Ms. Swarbrick was ordered to leave parliament. — Reuters
Italy is considering implementing sanctions against Israel, not as a move against the Jewish state but “as a way to save its citizens from a government that has lost its reason and humanity,” Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, published on Monday (August 11, 2025).
Crosetto emphasised the need to differentiate governments from states and peoples, as well as from the religions they practise. “This applies to Netanyahu, and it applies to Putin, whose methods have become dangerously similar,” he said, drawing a parallel between the Gaza war and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Speaking on the possibility of Italian sanctions against Israel, Crosetto said, “As you know, I think the occupation of Gaza and some serious incidents in the West Bank mark a qualitative leap forward, and decisions must be made that force Netanyahu to think.”
“What is happening [in Gaza] is unacceptable. We are not facing a military operation with collateral damage, but the pure denial of the law and the founding values of our civilisation,” he added, as reported by The Jerusalem Post.
Crosetto further stressed the need to make Netanyahu reconsider his actions, stating, “We must now find a way to force Netanyahu to think clearly.” — ANI
During President Joe Biden’s administration, the U.S. military carried out waves of air drops of food into Gaza, delivering some 1,220 tons of assistance.
But the option hasn’t been seriously considered by Donald Trump’s administration, U.S. officials and other sources say, even as he voices concern over starvation in Gaza amid Israel’s nearly two-year-old military campaign against Hamas.
One source said it is seen as an unrealistic option because airdrops would not come close to meeting the needs of 2.1 million Palestinians.
This comes even as close U.S. allies including Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Britain have carried out air drops of assistance to Gaza.
Humanitarian aid groups have long been critical of air drops of aid, calling them more symbolic than truly effective when the scale of the need in Gaza requires open land routes for large amounts of aid to enter the enclave.
The heavy packages could also present a danger to civilians on the ground rushing toward the parachuting aid.
“It just hasn’t been part of the discussions,” said one U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal Trump administration deliberations.
A source familiar with the issue said: “It hasn’t been a serious consideration because it’s not really a serious option at this moment.”
Some U.S. officials war-gamed the option and found “it’s absolutely unrealistic,” said the source familiar with the matter. The source said it was unknown how “big a lift capacity” could be managed even if the Israelis approved U.S. use of the airspace.
A diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was unaware of any U.S. interest in participating in the air drop effort.
Another official in a U.S.-allied country which is taking part in the airdrops said there had been no conversations with the United States about Washington taking part in the effort.
The official added that the United States was not providing logistical support for the airdrops being carried out by other countries.
Asked for comment, a White House official said the administration was open to “creative solutions” to the issue.
“President Trump has called for creative solutions ‘to help the Palestinians’ in Gaza. We welcome any effective effort that delivers food to Gazans and keeps it out of the hands of Hamas,” the White House official said.
Israel began allowing food air drops in late July, as global concern mounted about the humanitarian toll in Gaza from the war. — Reuters
