Louisa Loveluck

Famine confirmed in Gaza City region, global hunger monitor says More than half a million people in and around Gaza City are facing catastrophic conditions “characterized by starvation, destitution and death,” the IPC said.

Famine has been officially confirmed in the Gaza City region and is projected to spread within weeks to two more population centers in the wider Gaza Strip, the global authority on hunger said Friday. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Gaza Looters Wreak Havoc as Aid Seekers Remain Empty Handed ***

'Women – especially single mothers and widows like herself – are all but absent from the scenes of aid drops. "We simply can't reach those areas. It's too violent, too chaotic and too dangerous. Only the strong or well-connected get through," she says.' www.haaretz.com/middle-east-...

Trump administration to vet all 55 million foreigners with U.S. visas The State Department plans to scour legal visa holders for “overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety ... or providing support to a terrorist organization.”

State Dept fired top press officer for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, after vetoing his use of the line: “We do not support forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza.” Also rejected his suggested condolences after Israel's killing of an Al Jazeera crew. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Revealed: Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war Figures from classified IDF database listed 8,900 named fighters as dead or probably dead in May, as overall death toll reached 53,000

Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Trump administration to vet all 55 million foreigners with U.S. visas The State Department plans to scour legal visa holders for “overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety ... or providing support to a terrorist organization.”

The Trump administration is planning to vet all 55 million foreigners who currently hold visas for travel to the United States. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

No attempt to elide culpability intended. Eyewitnesses say it's most commonly IDF forces opening fire, but whistleblowers have also described contractors doing so, and in some cases, doctors report that injuries are sustained from the crowd.

Staggering numbers of Palestinians now being shot in Gaza as they try to find food at GHF sites, or along UN convoy routes. More than 4,500 people treated in a single Red Cross clinic. Almost 1,400 across two MSF clinics. Total is more than 12,000, according to health ministry.

An aerial view of Gaza City taken from a Jordanian military aircraft by photojournalist Heidi Levine in July 2025. Massive destruction is visible, as are IDP tents.

An aerial photo taken from a drone photographer in 2019 showing Gaza City's Old Town facing east, providing a view similar to the aerial photo taken in July 2025.

For another comparison, there's also an aerial view from a similar perspective, though at lower altitude since it's from a drone photographer, here on Facebook from 2019: www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...

The drone photo is closer to 31.5057, 34.4619 whereas the plane photo is closer to the coast.

An aerial view of Gaza City taken from a Jordanian military aircraft by photojournalist Heidi Levine in July 2025. Massive destruction is visible, as are IDP tents. An area in the background has been annotated.

A July 27 2025 SkySat satellite image from Planet Labs showing Gaza City's eastern Shejaiya and Tuffah neighborhoods. There's a large amount of destruction visible, with thousands of homes that have been visible reduced to rubble. A large area is annotated showing the rough area that is visible in the background of the aerial photo.

An October 15 2023 SkySat satellite image from Planet Labs showing Gaza City's eastern Shejaiya and Tuffah neighborhoods. Some destruction is visible from airstrikes conducted at the start of the war but other than that thousands of buildings are visible with orchards and farmland on the periphery of the neighborhoods. A large area is annotated showing the rough area that is visible in the background of the July 2025 aerial photo.

Can just barely see it but the massive destruction in Gaza City's eastern neighborhoods such as Shejaiya and Tuffah is visible in the background of the photo. When compared with a satellite image taken a week after the war started, can see thousands of homes have been razed.

Thank you for sharing this, Jake.

An aerial view of what the Gaza City area looked like this week. Taken from a Jordanian military aircraft, by our colleague Heidi Levine.

More than 60,000 people killed in Gaza war, local health officials say The toll announced by the Gaza Health Ministry is likely to be an undercount as Israel pursues its war and starvation spreads.

The death toll in Gaza now stands, officially, at 60,000. Experts say this is a significant undercount. How many have gone unrecorded? www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Gazans are starving. Will aid get in? Podcast Episode · Post Reports · 28/07/2025 · 23m

I spoke to the @washingtonpost.com's podcast this week about our reporting on starvation across the Gaza Strip. The number of people killed by malnutrition or starvation after four months of Israeli blockade has now risen to 154. 89 are children. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...

Looting, chaos and Israeli gunfire prevent aid from reaching Gazans Israel said it would allow more food to enter Gaza and provide secure corridors for humanitarian aid. But U.N. officials say almost nothing has changed.

Almost a week after Israel promised to increase aid to Gaza, UN says situation on the ground is mostly unchanged. A former Israeli military official described a “total breakdown of order” caused by IDF campaign. washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

60,000 Gazans have been killed. 18,500 were children. These are their names. Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of more than one per hour since the war began.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed 60,000 people. 18,500 were children. Here are their names. www.washingtonpost.com/world/intera...

Medical Aid for Palestinians says that Baby Zainab, on the right, has now died. Her mother "couldn’t find the medical care Zainab needed here in Gaza, nor was she allowed medical evacuation, as her mother was hoping for. More children will die, one by one, as this madness continues”.

Mass starvation stalks Gaza as deaths from hunger rise Aid agencies warned for months that Israel’s harsh limits on food aid would bring acute malnutrition and widespread suffering to Gaza’s 2.1 million people.

After 4 months of a near-total Israeli siege, Gaza’s hospitals now have wards for the malnourished children whose tiny bodies are just the width of their bones. Aid groups had warned of this for more than a year. Now a worst case scenario is upon us. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Why powerful pro-Tehran militias in Iraq stayed quiet amid Iran conflict As the U.S. struck Iran, the prospect for retaliation was running high in neighboring Iraq, where American and Iranian interests exist in close proximity.

Iran-linked militias in Iraq are earning billions of dollars from state coffers, operating extensive business networks and holding more power than ever before. There is much at stake if these groups become a target. — @leloveluck.bsky.social & Mustafa Salim www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Gaza doctor’s death in Israeli strike devastates medical community Marwan al-Sultan, director of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, provided harrowing accounts of how the health care system collapsed over the course of the war.

“My dear sister, it’s hard, it’s really hard for me to describe to you all of these children’s injuries,” he said. “How can a child who weighs between 5 to 10kg bear a missile,” he asked.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

In one of Sultan’s final messages to Post reporters, on May 14, he had listed the names of 21 people brought dead to the hospital, most no older than nine years old. Some of them had arrived in pieces, he said.

Within weeks, the Indonesian Hospital itself was under siege and almost out of equipment, and Sultan issued the first of what would become a series of urgent appeals to the international community, urging the protection of his facility and team.

“An entire densely populated square was targeted at a time when people were sitting safely at home,” he said in a message. “People who work with us now have received their relatives who were killed or injured.”

By November, Gaza’s telecommunications network was on its knees and Sultan said that his staff had been forced to use loudspeakers to direct medics to the Jabalya refugee camp, where hundreds of civilians had been buried under rubble in one of the war’s deadliest Israeli strikes.

October: As Israeli troops readied a wide-scale ground invasion, Sultan described the shock of the moment inside Indonesian Hospital as like being “in a dream.” So heavy was the influx of casualties from Israeli bombing that he barely left the hospital — and already feared being killed if he did.

Gaza doctor’s death in Israeli strike devastates medical community Marwan al-Sultan, director of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, provided harrowing accounts of how the health care system collapsed over the course of the war.

From the nightmarish early months of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, Dr Marwan Sultan had narrated its horrors to the world. Here is what he told us: 🧵
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Prof. Maynard, who volunteers with @medicalaidpal.bsky.social, said colleagues he worked with a year ago had lost 20-30kg due to severe food shortages. "I have had patients die because they can’t get enough food to recover, it’s distressing to see that and know that it is preventable and treatable."

Volunteer surgeon Prof. Nick Maynard on the malnutrition he witnessed inside a Gaza neonatal unit: "'Skin and bones’ doesn't do it justice. I had tears in my eyes seeing how unbelievably thin these children are. A doctor who tried to bring formula feed in, had it confiscated by Israeli authorities."

The build-up to an innocent man's murder felt like a horror story on so many levels. It's brutal watching, but in the words of Jean's mother: "Everyone should watch it.”

Thank you for sharing the story!

The fall of Assad’s informant state leaves Syria riven by betrayals Neighbors and colleagues reported on each other everywhere. Now, Syrians are shadowed by the question of who among them had contributed to the regime’s tyranny.

On the fear and hatred left behind by Assad’s police state, as seen on a single street in Tadamon, Damascus.

Wonderful journalism on a tragic subject by @leloveluck.bsky.social, Zakaria Zakaria, and @salwangeorges.bsky.social, for @washingtonpost.com.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...