Bedouin fighters arrive on the outskirts of Sweida city, during clashes between the Bedouin clans and Druze militias in southern Syria on July 18, 2025.

More than a week of sectarian bloodshed in Syria has given way to a wary truce, pausing a fight that drew Israel into an unprecedented confrontation with Syria’s new authorities while raising fresh questions on whether those leaders can steer the country past the fractures of its 14-year civil war.

The fighting in Sweida, the southern province bordering Jordan and near Israel, began last week between militiamen from the Druze religious minority and Sunni Muslim tribes. It soon embroiled Syrian government forces and Israel in a chaotic battlefield that saw hundreds killed — some in sectarian-fueled revenge attacks — and more than 128,000 people displaced before a U.S.-backed ceasefire was announced Sunday.

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The violence underscores the challenges facing the government of President Ahmad al-Sharaa, a rebel-turned-politician whose armed faction spearheaded the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in December. Since then, Al-Sharaa’s Islamist-dominated government has struggled to win the trust of minority communities in the country and failed to persuade militias formed during the civil war to disarm or fall under Damascus’ authority.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening in Sweida and why many believe it could derail Syria’s delicate postwar recovery.

How did the clashes start?

Before the fighting erupted July 13, tensions were already high after a spate of kidnappings and robberies between Druze communities in Sweida and nearby Bedouin tribes.

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As the unrest grew into open conflict involving Druze militias and armed Bedouins, the government dispatched its forces to stop the fighting. But some Druze leaders said the government aided the Bedouins instead; they also accused government-aligned security personnel of committing sectarian-motivated rampages, looting and executions against Druze civilians.

World & Nation Sectarian violence erupts again in Syria, leaving at least 160 dead Sectarian violence erupted again in southern Syria as local Sunni Bedouin tribes fought armed factions for the Druze religious community. The Syrian government dispatched troops to restore order, and Israel launched airstrikes to protect the Druze.

Druze militias launched a counterattack and retaliated with a wave of killings and kidnappings against Bedouin fighters and civilians. Israel entered the fray with an airstrike campaign targeting Syria’s security forces and tanks, as well as the army headquarters and the presidential palace in Damascus, the capital.

The violence left roughly 1,260 dead, most of them Druze fighters and civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain. It also said government forces carried out summary executions. Included in the death toll are hundreds of state security personnel.

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Who are the Druze?

The Druze, who make up roughly 3% of Syria’s population, are members of a syncretic religion that emerged in the 11th century as an offshoot of Shiite Islam. There are roughly 1 million Druze worldwide, more than half of them in Syria, and most of the rest in Lebanon, Israel and the Golan Heights, which Israel has illegally occupied — according to international law — since 1967.

During the civil war, the Druze were largely unwilling to ally with Assad but were wary of the opposition, which was dominated by hard-line Sunni Islamist groups, some of whom viewed Druze as infidels. The Druze formed militias for protection.

When Assad fell, many Druze celebrated. But some spiritual and militia leaders — like other minority communities across the country — remained suspicious of Al-Sharaa and his Islamist past, which once included affiliation with the terrorist network Al Qaeda. They resisted his calls to disarm and insisted they would cede power only to a representative government.

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Waves of sectarian attacks have only reinforced their suspicions of Al-Sharaa: In March, government-linked factions massacred about 1,500 people, mostly from the Alawite sect, and in May, clashes in Druze-majority areas near the capital left 39 people dead.

How did Israel get involved?

Israel has entrenched itself in the neighboring country since Assad’s fall, with warplanes launching a wide-scale attack to destroy the Syrian army’s arsenal even as Israeli tanks and troops blitzed into Syria and commandeered villages near the border.

Since then, it has consolidated its presence and operated ever deeper in Syrian territory, justifying the moves as necessary for its security and to stop armed groups, government-aligned or otherwise, from launching attacks on Israel from Syrian territory.

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Israel has also imposed what is in effect a demilitarized zone over southern Syria, including Sweida, preventing the Syrian army from establishing its authority over the region.

Critics say Israel is engaging in a land grab aimed at keeping Syria a weak and fragmented neighbor.

Another reason for Israel’s intervention is its own Druze population, a vocal minority of about 145,000 people, some of whom serve in the Israeli military. Over the last few months, Israeli troops have offered assistance to Syrian Druze communities. And when the Sweida fighting began, Israeli Druze citizens demonstrated near the border, calling on the Israeli military to protect their fellow Druze in Syria.

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Despite those overtures, many Syrian Druze fear Israel’s growing presence in their areas and have sought a diplomatic resolution to their differences with the Syrian government. Others, such as Hikmat al-Hijri, an influential Druze spiritual leader opposed to Al-Sharaa, have repeatedly called for foreign protection.

What is happening with the ceasefire?

Hours after the ceasefire took effect late Sunday, the Syrian government evacuated about 1,500 Bedouin family members trapped in Sweida city. Druze civilians were to be evacuated at a later time. Other phases of the truce will see the release of detained Bedouin fighters and the bodies of Bedouins killed in the fighting.

Is the U.S. playing a role?

The U.S. was involved in brokering the ceasefire. More generally, Trump administration officials have thrown their support behind Al-Sharaa, lifting years-old sanctions that had all but choked the country’s economy and shepherding diplomatic contacts with Israel.

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Speaking to reporters Monday in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said Syrian authorities needed to be held accountable for violations but “they also need to be given the responsibility that” is theirs.

Earlier, in an interview with the Associated Press, he deplored the killings but said the Syrian government was acting “as best [it] can as a nascent government with very few resources to address the multiplicity of issues that arise in trying to bring a diverse society together.”

He also suggested Israel wasn’t interested in seeing a strong Syria.

“Strong nation-states are a threat. Especially, Arab states are viewed as a threat to Israel,” he said. But in Syria, he said, “I think all of the minority communities are smart enough to say, ‘We’re better off together, centralized.’”

Syria’s armed Bedouin clans announced Sunday that they had withdrawn from the Druze-majority city of Sweida after weeklong clashes and a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, as humanitarian aid convoys started to enter the battered southern city.

The clashes between militias of the Druze religious minority and the Sunni Muslim clans killed hundreds and threatened to unravel Syria’s fragile postwar transition. Israel also launched dozens of airstrikes in the Druze-majority Sweida province, targeting government forces who had essentially sided with the Bedouins.

The fighting also led to targeted sectarian attacks against the Druze community, followed by revenge attacks against the Bedouins.

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A series of tit-for-tat kidnappings sparked the violence in various towns and villages in the province, later spreading to Sweida city, the provincial capital. Government forces were redeployed to halt renewed fighting that erupted Thursday, before withdrawing again.

Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who has been perceived as more sympathetic to the Bedouins, had tried to appeal to the Druze community while remaining critical of the militias. He later urged the Bedouins to leave the city, saying they “cannot replace the role of the state in handling the country’s affairs and restoring security.”

“We thank the Bedouins for their heroic stances but demand they fully commit to the ceasefire and comply with the state’s orders,” he said in an address broadcast Saturday.

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Dozens of armed Bedouin fighters alongside other clans from around the country who came to support them remained on the outskirts of the city and were cordoned off by government security forces and military police. They blame the clashes on the Druze factions loyal to spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri and accuse them of harming Bedouin families.

“We will not leave until he turns himself in alongside those with him who tried to stir sedition. And only then will we go home,” Khaled al-Mohammad, who came to the southern province alongside other tribesman from the eastern Deir al-Zour province, told the Associated Press.

The Bedouins’ withdrawal brought a cautious calm to the area, with humanitarian convoys on their way. The Syrian Red Crescent said Sunday it sent 32 trucks loaded with food, medicine, water, fuel and other aid after the fighting left the province with power cuts and shortages.

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The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, known as SANA, reported that the convoy entered Sweida on Sunday, but accused Al-Hijri and his armed Druze supporters of turning back a government delegation that accompanied another convoy.

The Foreign Ministry in a statement said the convoy accompanying the delegation had two ambulances loaded with aid provided by local and international organizations.

Al-Hijri did not directly respond to the accusations but said in a statement that he welcomes any assistance for Sweida and decried what he claims were distorted campaigns against him.

“We reaffirm that we have no dispute with anyone on any religious or ethnic basis,” the statement read. “Shame and disgrace be upon all those who seek to sow discord and hatred in the minds of young people.”

The U.N. International Organization for Migration said 128,571 people were displaced during the clashes, including 43,000 on Saturday alone.

Washington’s special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, said the clashes and atrocities “overshadowed” an initial cautious optimism about the country’s postwar transition and the international community’s lifting of sanctions.

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“All factions must immediately lay down their arms, cease hostilities and abandon cycles of tribal vengeance,” Barrack said on X. “Syria stands at a critical juncture — peace and dialogue must prevail — and prevail now.”

Among those killed in the weeklong fighting were dozens of Druze civilians slain in a series of targeted attacks in Sweida city at the hands of Bedouin fighters and government forces.

Videos surfaced online of fighters destroying portraits of Druze religious officials and notables in homes, and shaving the mustaches of elderly Druze, seen as an insult to culture and tradition. Druze militias in return attacked Bedouin-majority areas on the outskirts of the province, forcing families to flee to neighboring Daraa province.

More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981.

Syria’s Druze largely celebrated the Assad family’s downfall, which ended decades of autocratic rule. While they had concerns about Al-Sharaa’s de facto Islamist rule, a large number wanted to approach matters diplomatically.

Al-Hijri and his supporters, though, have taken a more confrontational approach with the interim president, contrary to most other influential Druze figures. Critics also note Al-Hijri’s previous allegiance to ousted President Bashar Assad.

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But the recent clashes and sectarian attacks on the minority community have made a growing number of Druze in the area more skeptical about Damascus’ new leadership and more doubtful of peaceful coexistence.

Alsayed and Chehayeb write for the Associated Press and reported from Mazraa and Beirut, respectively.

Israel’s military strikes in Syria this week — launched in response to atrocities against the Druze minority — represent a strategic turning point in a deeper power struggle that now entangles Iran, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the U.S., according to regional analysts.

Just days ago, speculation swirled about a potential normalization agreement between Israel and Syria — a breakthrough quietly brokered by U.S. officials, but that fragile prospect has been swiftly overtaken by violence, as Israeli airstrikes this week struck near Damascus.

A ceasefire agreement between Druze factions and the Syrian government, announced July 16, was meant to calm days of deadly clashes, but it remains tenuous and largely unenforced, with sporadic fighting continuing and tensions running high.

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Members of the media photograph the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on Syria’s defense ministry headquarters on July 16, 2025 in Damascus, Syria.

“For the Druze in Israel, what’s happening in southern Syria feels like October 7 all over again,” said Avner Golov, vice president of the Israeli think tank Mind Israel. “Israel can no longer treat Syria as just a neighboring crisis. It’s now a domestic one.”

In a rare scene, Israeli Druze citizens crossed the border into Syria to support their embattled relatives — prompting a stern warning from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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“My Druze brothers, citizens of Israel… Do not cross the border,” Netanyahu said. “You are putting your lives at risk — you could be killed, you could be kidnapped — and you are harming the IDF’s efforts. Let the IDF do its job.”

In his first televised address since the Israeli strikes, Syrian transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa framed the Israeli intervention as a destabilizing act.

“Government forces deployed to Suweida succeeded in restoring stability and expelling outlawed factions despite the Israeli interventions,” he said, warning that the strikes led to “a significant complication of the situation” and “a large-scale escalation.” He insisted that protecting the country’s Druze minority was a top priority and declared that Syrians “are not afraid of war.”

Within Israel, the collapse of order in Syria has triggered sharp debate. Some policymakers argue for supporting Sharaa as an anti-Iranian strongman, while others advocate broader military action to create a buffer zone in southern Syria. Golov supports a middle course: conditional strikes paired with demands for Druze autonomy and accountability for war crimes.

“If Sharaa shows he’s willing to punish those responsible for the massacre and agree to Druze autonomy, then Israel can gradually work with him,” Golov told Fox News Digital.

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A woman waves a Syrian flag as people walk through the courtyard of the Umayyad mosque in the Old City in central Damascus on Jan. 16, 2025 in Damascus, Syria.

He also called for a regional diplomatic effort to stabilize Syria. “We need a regional summit — the U.S., Saudi Arabia, even Turkey, and Israel” he said. “Bring positive forces into Syria and use Israeli military power not just tactically, but to gain diplomatic leverage.”

“There’s a temptation to miss the victory lap,” said Behnam Taleblu, senior director of the Iran Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). “Rather than see Syria through the prism of competition with Turkey, Israel should first see it through the prism of diminished competition with Iran. That in itself is a huge achievement.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a joint statement to the media in Baghdad on Monday, April 22, 2024.

While Iran’s position has weakened, Turkey has quietly expanded its footprint in Syria by backing the al-Sharaa government.

Turkey’s strategic interest in Syria, Sinan Ciddi, a senior fellow at FDD and director of the Turkey program, explained, is to fill the vacuum left by Iran with its own political and economic influence — using al-Sharaa regime as a conduit. “Turkey has a lot riding on al-Sharaa success,” he said. “They’d like to see increased trade, the reconstruction of Syria through al-Sharaa. They want to use him as a means to influence the region politically.”

However, Israel’s military response has triggered alarm in Ankara.

“Turkey is not in a position to militarily challenge Israel — it would be a disaster,” said Ciddi. “They’re talking tough, but they’re deeply concerned.”

Ciddi emphasized that Turkey’s aging military hardware and lack of air defense leave it highly exposed. Yet, Turkey is deeply invested in al-Sharaa political survival, hoping to leverage him for influence and economic ties in post-war Syria.

A direct clash between Turkey and Israel, Ciddi warned, would “result in a diplomatic fiasco… and require the United States and European countries to step in as mediator.”

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Even as Israel dismantled key parts of Iran’s military infrastructure in Syria, Tehran remains a long-term threat. Taleblu said Iran is now lying in wait — ready to exploit missteps by others.

“This is a regime that capitalizes on the mistakes of others,” he said. “They don’t need to win outright — they just need everyone else to lose.”

Tehran is betting that the region’s rival powers — Turkey, Israel, the U.S. and the Gulf — will overplay their hands, allowing Iran to reenter through proxies, sectarian militias, or diplomatic manipulation.

Though President Trump recently said Syria’s internal affairs are “not our war,” his administration’s tone has shifted. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for de-escalation, and regional partners are urging a clearer U.S. role.

“Real success will come from creating contingencies,” Taleblu said. “What are the costs if Syria collapses? What if Turkey overreaches, or Israel overextends? What if Iran comes back? The states that prepare for these questions.”

Original article source: Regional powers clash after Israel targets Syrian territory in defense of vulnerable Druze civilians

After 50 years of Assad cruelty, Syrians search for dead loved ones – and closure

12 December 2024 Share Save Jeremy Bowen International editor Reporting from Damascus Share Save

BBC Syrians have come to the hospital in Damascus looking to find missing loved ones

On a painted wall outside Damascus’s Mustahed Hospital are photographs of the faces of dead men. A constantly changing crowd of people examine them, squinting against the low winter sun at men who look as if they died in great pain. Noses, mouths and eye sockets are twisted, damaged and squashed. Their bodies are in the hospital, brought to the city centre from another on the outskirts of Damascus. The medics say the dead were all prisoners. A stream of wives, brothers, sisters and fathers come to the hospital looking for information. They’re hoping most of all to find a body to bury. They get as close as possible to the photos looking hard for anything on the faces that they recognise. Some of them video each picture to take home for a second opinion. It is a brutal job. A few of the men had been dead for weeks judging by the way faces have decomposed. From the wall of photos, relatives go on to the mortuary.

A woman outside Mustahed Hospital shows us the man she is looking for

Mustahed Hospital received 35 bodies, so many that the mortuary is full and the overflow room packed with trolleys loaded with body bags. Inside the mortuary, bodies were laid out on a bare concrete floor under a line of refrigerated trays. Body bags had been opened as families peered inside and opened the refrigerators. Some corpses were wrapped loosely in shrouds that had fallen away to expose faces, or tattoos or scars that could identify someone. One of the dead men was wearing a diaper. Another had sticky tape across his chest, scrawled with a number. Even as they killed him, his jailors denied him the dignity of his own name. All the bodies were emaciated. The doctors who examined them said they had signs of beating including severe bruising and multiple fractures. Dr Raghad Attar, a forensic dentist, was checking dental records left by families to try to identify bodies. She spoke calmly about how she was assembling a bank of evidence that could be used for DNA tests, then broke down when I asked her how she was coping. “You hear always that prisoners are lost for a long time, but seeing it is very painful. “I came here yesterday. It was very difficult for me. We hope the future will be better but this is very hard. I am really sorry for these families. I am very sorry for them.” Tears rolled down her face when I asked her if Syria could recover from 50 years of the Assads. “I don’t know. I hope so. I have the feeling that good days are coming but I want to ask all countries to help us.” “Anything to help us. Anything, anything…” The families and friends coming in went silently from body to body, hoping to find some end to the pain that started when their loved ones were picked up at one of the regime’s checkpoints or in a raid on their homes and thrown into the Assads’ gulag. A woman called Noor, holding a facemask over her mouth and nose, said her brother was taken in 2012, when he was 28. All they had heard since was a mention in a Facebook post that he had been in the notorious Sednaya prison, where the regime left prisoners to rot for decades. “It is painful,” said Noor. “At the same time, we have hope. Even if we find him between the bodies. Anything so long as he’s not missing. We want to find something of him. We want to know what happened to him. We need an end to this.”

One couple told a doctor their son was hauled away for refusing to open his laptop for inspection. That was 12 years ago. He hasn’t been heard from since. During the years I have reported from Syria I have heard many similar stories. On my phone I have a photo of the haunted face of a woman I met in July 2018 at a camp for people displaced just after the rebel stronghold of Douma in the Damascus suburbs was forced to surrender. Her son, a young teenager, disappeared after he was taken at a checkpoint by one of the intelligence agencies. More than 50 years of the Assads means 50 years of disappearances, of incarceration, of killing. It means pitiless cruelty to the prisoners, to the families trying to find them and to the Syrian people who were outside the Assads’ circle of trust. At the photo wall and in the mortuary at Mustahed hospital they wanted to find what had happened, some information and if they were very lucky, a body. They needed a reckoning and many wanted revenge. Most of all, they dreamed and hoped for a life without fear.

The Palace

Jeremy Bowen: Assad’s palace, once a symbol of power, now an empty shell

A woman at the hospital said that even though she knew Bashar al-Assad was in Russia, the regime had drilled so much fear into her that she was still terrified of what it might do. Maybe every Syrian who feels like her should go to the crag overlooking Damascus where Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, ordered the construction of a presidential palace, to check that the monumental, marble edifice is empty. Our driver gathered his own video evidence. He took out his phone to start filming when the car turned into the palace’s long ceremonial driveway. During the years of the regime, ordinary Syrians made sure they did not slow down near the palace gates in case they were arrested and thrown into prison as a threat to the president. Mobile phones stopped working as you approached the palace’s security bubble. The palace looks down on Damascus, visible from most of the city. It told the people that the Assads were always present and always watching via the regime’s web of intelligence agencies. The system was designed by Hafez, the first Assad president. His secret police spied on each other and spied on the people. A businessman I knew in Homs told me once that one intelligence branch approached him when he was developing a hotel, asking for the designs early in the project so they could incorporate all the listening devices they needed into the rooms. They explained it was easier than retrofitting them after the building was finished.

The Assad family never lived at the palace. It was for ceremonial occasions, and upstairs there were some workaday offices. I went there a lot in 2015, to negotiate the terms of an interview with Bashar al-Assad. I had interviewed him twice before, some years before the uprising against him started in 2011. That was when he was still tantalising Syrians with talk of reform, which turned out to be lies. He was also encouraging western leaders to believe he might be separated from Iran and if not join the western camp exactly, then be persuaded that it was worth his while not to oppose it. The US, Israel and the UAE were still trying to persuade him to dump Iran in the weeks before he was forced to flee to Moscow. Now that Assad has gone, my target at the palace was an opulent villa in the grounds. I wanted to go there because it was where I met Assad for the interviews. The villa, much more luxurious than the state rooms at the palace, was built, I was told, as a private residence for the Assad family. Its floors and tables are marble, the wood is polished walnut and the chandeliers are crystal. The Assads did not like it, so it was used as a guest house and for Bashar’s rare interviews. I could see why they might have preferred their existing residence, a beautiful French colonial mansion that stands behind a screen of pine trees. It feels like an aristocrat’s retreat on the Riviera. Until less than two weeks ago in the souk in old Damascus you could buy fridge magnets of Bashar al-Assad and his siblings as children, playing on bikes in a garden as their indulgent parents looked on. Presumably the photo was taken on the villa’s spacious, immaculate lawns.

The presidential palace looks down on Damascus, visible from most of the city

The extended Assad family treated Syria as their own personal possession, enriching themselves and buying trust with their followers at the expense of Syrians who could be thrown into jail or killed if they stepped out of line, or even if they didn’t. A fighter called Ahmed, who had taken up arms against the regime in 2011, survived the rebel defeat in Damascus, and fought his way back from Idlib with the rebels of Hayat Tahrir al Sham was inspecting the way the Assads lived with his three brothers, all rebel fighters. “People were living in hell and he was in his palace,” Ahmed said calmly. “He didn’t care about what they were going through. He made them live in fear, hunger and humiliation. Even after we entered Damascus people would only whisper to us, because they were still afraid.” I found the marble guesthouse, and walked through the walnut-panelled, marble-floored library where I had interviewed Assad when the regime was fighting for survival in February 2015. The highlight of the interview were his denials that his forces were killing civilians. He even tried to joke about it. Now, rebel fighters were on the door and patrolling the corridors. Some of the books had fallen off the library shelves, but the building was intact. I walked across to an ante room where Assad would grant 10 or 15 minutes of private conversation before the interview. He was unfailingly polite, even solicitous, enquiring about my family, and the journey to Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s slightly awkward demeanour made some western observers believe he was a lightweight who might bend to pressure. In private I found him self-confident to the point of arrogance, convinced he was the all-knowing spider at the heart of the Middle East web, tracking his enemies’ malign intentions and ready to strike. His father Hafez al-Assad was a kingpin of the Middle East. He was a ruthless man who built the police state that lasted for over fifty years, using fear, guile and a willingness to destroy any threat to impose stability on Syria, a country that had been a byword for violent changes of government until he seized sole power in 1970. I had the impression that Bashar wanted to be his father’s son, perhaps even to outdo him. He killed many more Syrians than Hafez and broke the country to try to save the regime. But Bashar’s stubbornness, refusal to reform or negotiate and his willingness to kill sealed his fate and condemned him to a last terrified drive to the airport with his wife and children on their last flight out of Syria to Moscow.

The Reckoning

BBC sees crowd surge over rumoured execution of Assad henchman

Hashtag #GazaIsStarving is trending across social media as Palestinians face a worsening hunger crisis caused by Israel’s relentless bombardment of the enclave and allowing limited aid.

On Sunday, the Arabic version of the hashtag had appeared in more than 227,000 posts on X, where it recently topped the platform’s trending list. On Instagram, the hashtag has been used in more than 5,000 posts.

Most posts are attributing to a post from October 31, 2023, quoting Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah’s warning: “People have started going hungry.”

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Nearly two years later, the phrase has become a global rallying cry as Israeli forces kill dozens of starving Palestinians every day.

The social media trend also came amid warnings from the United Nations and other aid agencies that Israel is starving Palestinian civilians, including more than a million children, by blocking food and medicines from entering the enclave.

Since May, nearly 900 Palestinians have been killed near aid sites run by GHF, a notorious aid agency backed by Israel and the United States.

Under the hashtag #GazaIsStarving, social media platforms have been flooded with images and videos showing the extent of the humanitarian crisis, which many countries and rights groups have called a genocide.

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The following X post shows Palestinian children visibly suffering from malnutrition during medical examinations at a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) clinic in Gaza City. Israel has banned UNRWA from distributing aid in Gaza.

The following July 10, 2025 video, released on Saturday and verified by Al Jazeera, shows Israeli security forces using pepper spray on Palestinians seeking food at a GHF aid distribution hub in Shakoush area of southern Rafah.

The scene below illustrates the severity of Gaza’s food crisis and the level of desperation for aid, with children clashing over rations and scraping the bottoms of pots for food in the north of Gaza.

The following video, filmed on July 19 near a GHF distribution site in Rafah, captures civilians fleeing the scene as Israeli tanks and bulldozers are seen moving through the area.

The following verified photos taken on July 19 show Yazan Abu Foul, a two-year-old child suffering from severe malnutrition, amid restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid and essential supplies in Shati refugee camp to the west of Gaza City.

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