• Amount of aid entering Gaza ‘very insufficient’, German govt notes
• Prisoners’ families tell Witkoff Israeli govt won’t end war ‘willingly’
• Israel’s top general denies widespread starvation

GAZA: As Palestinians across Gaza Strip struggled for food, Israeli bombardment in the territory continued on Saturday with at least 30 more deaths.

Among them were 13 aid seekers. The UN human rights office in the Palestinian territories said at least 1,373 Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza had been killed since May 27.

On the other hand, seven more people, including one child, have died due to “famine and malnutrition” in Gaza, the territory’s health ministry said, bringing the number of deaths from starvation to 169, including 93 children.

The amount of aid entering Gaza remains “very insufficient” despite a limited improvement, the German government said on Saturday after ministers discussed ways to heighten pressure on Israel.

The criticism came after Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul visited the region on Thursday and Friday and the German military staged its first food airdrops into Gaza, where aid agencies say that more than two million Palestinians are facing starvation.

Germany “notes limited initial progress in the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population of the Gaza Strip, which, however, remains very insufficient to alleviate the emergency situation,” government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said in a statement.

Israeli forces attacks have killed at least 60,430 people and wounded 148,722 since October 2023, besides displacing millions of Palestinians in Gaza. A total of 898 Israeli soldiers have also been killed, according to the military.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that Saturday’s bombings mostly targeted the areas near the southern city of Khan Yunis and Gaza City in the north. He said two people were killed and another 26 injured after an Israeli strike on a central Gaza area where Palestinians had gathered before a food distribution point run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

US envoy Steve Witkoff visited a GHF site for five hours on Friday, promising that Trump would come up with a plan to better feed civilians.

Israeli families want end to war

US envoy Steve Witkoff on Saturday met the anguished families of Israeli prisoners, as fears for their survival mounted amid the Israeli bombardment across Gaza.

Witkoff was greeted with some applause and pleas for assistance from hundreds of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv, before going into a closed meeting with the families.

Videos shared online showed Witkoff arriving as families chanted “Bring them home!” and “We need your help.”

Yotam Cohen, brother of 21-year-old Israeli prisoner Nimrod Cohen, told AFP in the square: “The war needs to end. The Israeli government will not end it willingly. It has refused to do so. The Israeli government must be stopped. For our sake, for our soldiers’ sake, for our prisoners’ sake, for our sons and for the future generations of everybody in the Middle East.”

But Israel’s top general warned that there would be no respite in fighting in Gaza if the prisoners were not released. “I estimate that in the coming days we will know whether we can reach an agreement” for the release of prisoners, said army chief of staff Lt-Gen Eyal Zamir, according to a military statement.

“If not, the combat will continue without rest,” he said, during remarks to officers inside Gaza.

The Israeli general denied that there was widespread starvation in Gaza. “The current campaign of false accusations of intentional starvation is a deliberate, timed, and deceitful attempt to accuse the IDF (Israeli military) … of war crimes,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2025