Around 2,400 Israeli artists and architects have signed two separate petitions demanding an immediate end to Israel’s starvation policy, forced displacement of Palestinians and war crimes in Gaza, Israeli media reported Sunday.
The Walla news outlet said that approximately 1,000 Israeli cultural figures including prominent names in music, theater, literature and film signed a petition calling for “an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.”
“We, the artists of Israel, refuse to be complicit — against our will — in the atrocities committed in Gaza: the killing of children and civilians, starvation, displacement and the senseless destruction of Gaza’s cities,” the petition said according to Anadolu.
“We appeal to decision-makers: Stop! Do not issue unlawful orders. Do not commit war crimes. Do not abandon ethical and humanitarian principles or the values of Judaism,” it added.
The petition concluded with a clear demand: “Stop the war. Bring the hostages home.”
A second petition, also reported by Walla, was signed by nearly 1,400 visual artists, designers and architects. It described the situation in Gaza as “horror on a historic scale” and warned of a deepening humanitarian catastrophe.
“The Israeli public bears responsibility for what is happening just a few kilometers away,” it stated.
Earlier Sunday, the Gaza Health Ministry said the number of Palestinians who have died from starvation caused by the Israeli blockade has reached 175, including 93 children, since Israel’s genocide began in October 2023.
The Israeli army, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 60,800 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
The military wing of Hamas, Al-Qassam Brigades, has released a new video showing an emaciated Israeli soldier prisoner, highlighting the devastating Israeli-made famine in Gaza. The video directly states that the Israeli government is imposing starvation on both Israeli prisoners and Palestinians, especially children.
https://t.me/TTT_TTn/5617?embed=1
The footage, titled “The Israeli Government Decided to Starve Them”, was published in Arabic, Hebrew, and English by Al-Qassam’s military media unit. It features a visibly frail Israeli soldier prisoner. His bones are prominent, and his body shows severe signs of malnutrition. The brigades said the prisoner was scheduled for release in a swap deal that Israel continues to delay.
In the same clip, heartbreaking scenes of starved Palestinian infants appear. Their bodies have withered into skeletal frames due to months of Israeli-enforced hunger. The video also includes statements by Israeli officials, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is heard saying, “What Gaza needs now is bombs.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also quoted: “We will allow only the bare minimum of aid.”
Al-Qassam states in the video: “They eat what we eat. They drink what we drink,” referring to the Israeli soldier prisoners held in Gaza.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, recently confirmed that “the famine in Gaza is entirely man-made.” The agency stressed the urgent need to let humanitarian workers operate freely. Over one million children now face hunger in Gaza.
Human Rights Watch also slammed Israel’s blockade. It described the Israeli aid distribution mechanism as a flawed military structure that has turned humanitarian aid into “a bloodbath and a death trap.”
The Al-Qassam video includes multiple angles of the Israeli prisoner, showing his extreme weight loss. Parallel shots of malnourished Palestinian children drive home the message that starvation in Gaza is widespread and deliberate.
The video also reminds viewers that the prisoner could have been released in a deal. But Israel continues to block progress, leaving both its soldiers and Palestinians to suffer under a policy of starvation.
Gaza today faces its worst humanitarian crisis in modern history. Famine is spreading fast. The population is trapped under relentless Israeli attacks, backed by the United States since October 7, 2023.
According to the Health Ministry, nearly 208,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured since the start of the genocide. At least 159 people, mostly children, have died from starvation and malnutrition alone. More than 2 million have been displaced. Around 90% of Gaza’s buildings lie in ruins according to the Quds News Network.
Israel’s military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir is considering resigning if stalled negotiations with the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, fail to resume, media reports said Friday.
The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that Zamir reached a critical crossroads in his relationship with political leaders and resignation may be his only option if the deadlock continues.
The dispute has gone beyond routine institutional friction, it said, with some Cabinet ministers allegedly making derogatory remarks about the army during Cabinet meetings.
Channel 12 television said Zamir is “fed up” with the political–military rift and has asked the government to take clear decisions on the continuation of the Gaza war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has avoided committing to firm policies, said the report, placing the entire burden of the situation in Gaza on the military.
The rift centers on the fate of Israeli captives in Gaza and the continuation of military operations without a clear political roadmap.
Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, Israel has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 60,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The relentless bombardment has destroyed the enclave and led to food shortages.
Those who have been exposed fully to the live-streamed genocide in Gaza are overwhelmingly the young people of the United States.
It is no secret that Israel’s stock amongst the global public has been plummeting since October 7, 2023. A top Israeli think-tank has now identified the trend as a “brewing crisis in bilateral relations”. However, reversing the damage done to Israel’s reputation is now impossible.
The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), an influential Israeli think tank, has expressed great concern over the growing partisan gap in the United States on the issue of Israel. It took note of polling data and the growing gap between Democratic versus Republican Party support for Israel.
Support for Israel has long been a bipartisan stance in the United States. Back in 2018, according to a Gallup Poll conducted that year, some 64% of Americans supported Israel and only 21% said they leant towards Palestine.
The next year, while support for Palestine remained the same, only 59% of respondents said they supported Israel, which sparked major concerns for the Israel Lobby.
Fast forward to 2025 and the latest Gallup poll shows that only 32% of the US public back Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, most of whom are Republicans, with only 8% of Democrats supporting the Israeli assault.
Perhaps the most notable takeaway from the Gallup Poll however, were the opinions of young Americans, which appear to cut across Party lines in opposition to Israel. Overall, only 9% of respondents aged 18 to 34, said they supported Israel’s military actions in Gaza, while only 6% said they had a favorable view of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Recently, the right-wing Zionist Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conducted a survey and claimed to have found that 46% of the global adult population had entrenched anti-Semitic beliefs, up from 26% of adults harboring those same attitudes in 2014.
It should be noted that the ADL has been shown to include pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel views as “anti-Semitism”, which is what led to recent reports in which it concluded exponential spikes in “anti-semitic incidents”. The ADL’s reports indicate that the Zionist movement is certainly in a state of crisis.
The key takeaways here are that Americans who are women, young people, Democrats or people of color are overwhelmingly opposed to Israel. This was, just years ago, unimaginable to be speaking about the majority of the US population now standing in opposition to Israel.
A recent Pew Poll from a few months back also indicated that despite the continued Republican Party voter support for Israel, when you look specifically at Republicans aged between 18 to 49, half of them viewed Israel unfavorably.
Although the Pew data didn’t reveal the Gallup age range of 18 to 34, the evidence supports the notion that this demographic holds the most unfavorable views of Israel.
In response however, the Israeli government appears to be only bothering to focus its efforts on winning over young Republicans, not caring so much for Democrats that appear as a lost cause. This indicates an admission that in the future, Palestine-Israel is going to be a partisan issue in the United States.
When we also put into consideration that younger Americans get their news from social media, new media and independent commentators/journalists, more so than they do the major news outlets, it indicates that what they have already seen will have made up their mind as to where they stand on the issue.
Those who have been exposed fully to the live-streamed genocide in Gaza are overwhelmingly the young people of the United States. For them, Palestine has become the issue of a generation.
The big fear now for the Israel Lobby is that they are fully exposed and the younger generations will eventually grow up, making the population overwhelmingly pro-Palestine if no seismic shift occurs.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
Despite Israel’s 27 July announcement of daily military pauses in western Gaza “to improve humanitarian responses,” Israeli forces continued attacks along food convoy routes and near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid sites, according to the UN human rights office in Palestine (OHCHR).
Between 30 and 31 July alone, 105 Palestinians were killed and at least 680 more injured along the convoy routes in the Zikim area in North Gaza, southern Khan Younis, and in the vicinity of the GHF sites in Middle Gaza and Rafah, the office (OHCHR) said in a press release issued on Friday
In total, since 27 May, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food; 859 in the vicinity of the GHF sites and 514 along the routes of food convoys.
OHCHR noted that most of the killings were committed by the Israeli military, and that while it is aware of the presence of other armed elements in the same areas, it does not have information indicating their involvement in the killings.
“[The office] has no information that these Palestinians were directly participating in hostilities or posed any threat to Israeli security forces or other individuals. Each person killed or injured had been desperately struggling for survival, not only for themselves, but also for their families and dependents,” it said.
Uphold international law
The office emphasized that intentionally directing attacks against civilians not taking direct part in hostilities and intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies, are war crimes.
“If part of a systematic or widespread attack on the civilian population, these may also constitute crimes against humanity,” OHCHR added, noting that the cumulative impact of these incidents and humanitarian access restrictions.
“Each of these killings must be promptly and independently investigated, and those responsible held to account. Urgent measures must be put in place to prevent recurrence,” it said.
Airdrops not effective
Meanwhile, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), underscored the need to open road crossings to supply aid at scale across the Gaza Strip.
“Airdrops are at least 100 times more costly than trucks. Trucks carry twice as much aid as planes,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said on social media.
“If there is political will to allow airdrops – which are highly costly, insufficient and inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings,” he stressed.
Mr. Lazzarini further noted that UNRWA has 6,000 trucks loaded with aid stuck outside Gaza waiting permission to enter.
During the ceasefire earlier this year, UNRWA and other UN agencies were able to bring in 500 to 600 trucks of aid each day.
“Aid reached the entire population of Gaza in safety and dignity. It succeeded to reverse the deepening starvation without any aid diversion,” the UNRWA head said.
“Let us go back to what works and let us do our job.”
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