2025-08-22T07:26:32+00:00
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Shafaq News – Gaza / West Bank (Updated at 12:49)
Israeli leaders pledged to intensify military action
in Gaza on Friday, hours after artillery fire killed at least 12 displaced
Palestinians at a Gaza City school, as a UN-backed panel prepared to officially
declare famine in the enclave.
Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on X that the
cabinet had approved a strategy to “defeat Hamas through heavy fire,
evacuations, and maneuvering,” warning that Gaza City could face the “same
devastation” as Rafah and Beit Hanoun unless hostages were freed and weapons
surrendered.
אישרנו אתמול את תוכניות צה”ל להכרעת החמאס בעזה – באש עצימה, בפינוי תושבים ובתמרון.בקרוב ייפתחו שערי הגיהנום על ראשם של מרצחי ואנסי החמאס בעזה – עד שיסכימו לתנאי ישראל לסיום המלחמה ובראשם שחרור כל החטופים והתפרקות מנשקם.אם לא יסכימו – עזה בירת החמאס תהפוך לרפיח ובית חאנון. בדיוק…
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) August 22, 2025
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier confirmed
the upcoming offensive, describing the capture of Gaza City as essential to
dismantling Hamas and recovering prisoners.
These developments came as Palestinian media reported
that Israeli artillery hit Amr Ibn al-As School in Sheikh Radwan, injuring
dozens, with emergency teams pulling more bodies from the rubble as tents for
displaced families burned around the courtyard. Since the war began on October
7, 2023, Israel’s military campaign has killed 62,192 Palestinians and wounded
157,114, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
الطفلة الرضيعة غدير بركة “5 أشهر”، ارتقت قبل قليل جراء سوء التغذية الناجمة عن المجاعة والحصار#غزه_تموت_جوعاً pic.twitter.com/WxlhRXPaZc
— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) August 22, 2025
The Telegraph also disclosed that the Integrated Food
Security Phase Classification (IPC), the UN-backed system for measuring hunger,
will declare famine in Gaza City and surrounding areas on Friday—the first such
designation in the Middle East since the system was established in 2004.
The warning projects that famine will spread to Deir
al-Balah and Khan Younis by late September, with over half a million people
already in “catastrophic conditions marked by starvation, destitution, and
death.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry confirmed 271 hunger-related
deaths, including 112 children, while human rights groups accused Israel of deliberately
manufacturing the crisis by sealing borders and targeting aid convoys, calling
designated evacuation zones “death traps.”
In response, Israel’s Foreign Ministry denounced, on X,
the IPC findings as “fabricated,” alleging the body had manipulated its
criteria to serve what it called Hamas’s “fake campaign.” The ministry claimed
that over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since October, arguing that
food prices have recently fallen due to increased supplies.
The IPC has just published a “tailor-made” fabricated report to fit Hamas’s fake campaign.Unbelievably, the IPC twisted its own rules and ignored its own criteria just to produce false accusations against Israel: the IPC changed its own global standard, cutting the 30% threshold…
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) August 22, 2025
Posting on X, UNRWA reported that nearly 90% of Gaza’s
territory is now militarized or under evacuation orders, warning that displaced
children are confined to shrinking areas and urgently need an immediate
ceasefire.
Many children have been repeatedly displaced across #Gaza since the war started.They are confined to ever-shrinking spaces with nearly 90% of the Gaza Strip within Israeli-militarised zones, under displacement orders, or both.Children urgently need a #CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/38gEIlvZTw
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 22, 2025
In the West Bank, Israeli forces launched sweeping
raids, triggering clashes across towns and refugee camps as troops fired tear
gas in Idhna, stormed Aqaba and Tubas, and advanced near Tayasir village.
جرافات الاحتلال تواصل عمليات الحفر واقتلاع أشجار الزيتون في قرية المغير شمال شرق رام الله. pic.twitter.com/HYTkL3x1vR
— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) August 22, 2025
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