Tannis Kowalchuk, Artistic Director of the Farm Arts Collective, and

Doug Rogers, Composer, speaking about Dream On The Farm 2025:

“Paradise Lost Scavenger Hunt,” an original theater piece inspired

by the poetry of John Milton. The production will run from July 24

through August 3, with shows each evening at 6:30, at Willow Wisp

Organic Farm in Damascus in Wayne County.

www.farmartscollective.org/

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel’s military announced that airdrops of aid would begin Saturday night in Gaza, and humanitarian corridors will be established for United Nations convoys, after increasing accounts of starvation-related deaths.

The statement late Saturday followed months of experts’ warnings of famine amid Israeli restrictions on aid. International criticism, including by close allies, has grown as several hundred Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks while trying to reach food distribution sites.

The military statement did not say where the airdrops or humanitarian corridors would be. It also said the military is prepared to implement humanitarian pauses in densely populated areas. Israel’s foreign ministry said late Saturday the humanitarian pauses would start Sunday in “civilian centers” along with humanitarian corridors.

The military “emphasizes that combat operations have not ceased” in Gaza against Hamas, and it asserted there is “no starvation” in the territory, where most of the population of over 2 million has been displaced into a shrinking area with little infrastructure. The majority of people rely on aid.

Witness accounts from Gaza have been grim. Some health workers are so weakened by hunger that they put themselves on IV drips to keep treating the badly malnourished. Parents have shown their limp and emaciated children. Wounded men have described desperate dashes for aid under gunfire.

The military statement said airdrops would be conducted in coordination with international aid organizations. It was not clear where they would be carried out. And it wasn’t clear what role the recently created and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — meant as an alternate to the U.N. aid system — might play. GHF chair Johnnie Moore in a statement said the group stood ready to assist.

At least 53 killed

Israeli airstrikes and gunshots killed at least 53 people in Gaza overnight and into Saturday, most of them shot dead while seeking aid, according to Palestinian health officials and the local ambulance service.

Deadly Israeli gunfire was reported twice close to the Zikim crossing with Israel in the north. In the first incident, at least a dozen people waiting for aid trucks were killed, said staff at Shifa hospital, where bodies were taken. Israel’s military said it fired warning shots to distance a crowd “in response to an immediate threat.”

A witness, Sherif Abu Aisha, said people started running when they saw a light that they thought was from aid trucks, but as they got close, they realized it was Israel’s tanks. That’s when the army started firing, he told The Associated Press. He said his uncle was among those killed.

“We went because there is no food … and nothing was distributed,” he said.

On Saturday evening, Israeli forces killed at least 11 people and wounded 120 others when they fired toward crowds who tried to get food from an entering U.N. convoy, Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiyah, director of Shifa hospital, told the AP.

“We are expecting the numbers to surge in the next few hours,” he said. There was no immediate military comment.

AP video showed a group of weary Palestinian men carrying a body along with sacks of flour. They said he was hit by a truck but had no details. “You die to fetch some food for your children,” said one man, Fayez Abu Riyala, thin and sweating.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, Israeli forces shot dead at least nine people trying to get aid entering through the Morag corridor, according to the hospital’s morgue records. There was no immediate military comment.

Elsewhere, those killed in strikes included four people in an apartment building in Gaza City and at least eight, including four children, in the crowded tent camp of Muwasi in Khan Younis, hospitals said.

Turning to airdrops, with a warning

The airdrops were requested by neighboring Jordan, and a Jordanian official said they mainly will drop food and milk formula. The United Arab Emirates said airdrops would start “immediately.” Britain said it plans to work with partners to airdrop aid and evacuate children requiring medical assistance.

But the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, warned that airdrops are “expensive, inefficient and can even kill starving civilians” and won’t reverse the increasing starvation or prevent aid diversion.

While Israel’s army has said it allows aid into the enclave with no limit on the trucks that can enter, the U.N. says it is hampered by military restrictions on its movements and criminal looting. The Hamas-run police had provided security for aid delivery, but it has been unable to operate after being targeted by airstrikes.

Israel on Saturday said over 250 trucks carrying aid from the U.N. and other organizations entered Gaza this week. About 600 trucks entered per day during the latest ceasefire that Israel ended in March.

Israel faces growing international pressure. More than two dozen Western-aligned countries and over 100 charity and human rights groups have called for an end to the war, harshly criticizing Israel’s blockade and a new aid delivery model it has rolled out.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food, mostly near the new aid sites run by the GHF, an American contractor, the U.N. human rights office says.

The charities and rights groups said their own staff struggled to get enough food.

Inside Gaza, children with no preexisting conditions have begun to starve to death.

“We only want enough food to end our hunger,” said Wael Shaaban at a charity kitchen in Gaza City as he tried to feed his family of six.

Meanwhile, an activist boat trying to reach Gaza with aid, the Handala, livestreamed video showing Israeli forces boarding around midnight. There was no immediate Israeli comment.

Stalled ceasefire talks

Ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas were at a standstill after the U.S. and Israel recalled negotiating teams on Thursday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday his government was considering “alternative options” to talks. A Hamas official, however, said negotiations were expected to resume next week and called the delegations’ recall a pressure tactic.

Egypt and Qatar, which mediate alongside the United States, said talks would resume but did not say when.

“Our loved ones do not have time for another round of negotiations, and they will not survive another partial deal,” said Zahiro Shahar Mor, nephew of hostage Avraham Munder, one of 50 still in Gaza from Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war. Mor spoke at a weekly rally in Tel Aviv.

More than 59,700 Palestinians have been killed during the war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says that more than half of the dead are women and children. The ministry operates under the Hamas government. The U.N. and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.

Copyright 2025 NPR

NYC shooter who killed 4 identified. And, Gaza faces dire levels of hunger

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.

Today’s top stories

A gunman opened fire yesterday evening in a Midtown Manhattan office building, killing four people — including a police officer — before killing himself, city officials say. Police identified the shooter as 27-year-old Shane Tamura, who had a Nevada address. Tamura appears to have driven across the country, entering New York City just hours before the attack, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

toggle caption Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

🎧 Police found a handgun, more ammunition and prescription medication during a search of the gunman’s vehicle, NPR’s Sarah Ventre tells Up First. Tamura had a “documented mental health history,” according to authorities. He was a star high school football player, and the building where the shooting took place houses NFL offices. At this point in the investigation, it’s not known if the shooting happened there because of the football connection, Ventre says. The police officer who was killed, 36-year-old Didarul Islam, is the only victim publicly identified at this time.

The people of Gaza are facing increasingly desperate conditions of hunger, and the consequences of this starvation could endure for generations. Israel is facilitating the delivery of some food aid into Gaza during 10-hour pauses of its war against Hamas. But aid organizations say the amount of aid is a “drop in the ocean” compared to what Palestinians need to address malnutrition, according to NPR’s Emily Feng. Yesterday, President Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer discussed trying to do more to feed the starving population in the Gaza Strip. This is at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim on Sunday that “there is no starvation in Gaza.”

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🎧 The group of U.N.-backed experts tasked with making famine assessments issued an alert this morning, saying the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.” They didn’t outright declare a famine, but Feng says the fact that they felt the alert was necessary shows how dire the situation is. NPR’s producer in Gaza, Anas Baba, says aid deliveries come at irregular hours — and there’s relatively little of it. Baba says nearly all the trucks are immediately looted by the strongest before the food can reach the weakest people who need it. Aid organizations are calling for all land crossings into Gaza to open for food deliveries, not just one, to make it safer to deliver food.

A coalition of 21 states and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit yesterday against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The move comes after the federal agency instructed states to provide detailed personal information about food assistance applicants and their household members. The USDA has mandated that states must submit data on all applicants, including their names and Social Security numbers, to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from the past five years by July 30.

Deep dive

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Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, greenlighting a history-making overhaul of the federal student loan system. The massive change will affect the lives of nearly 43 million student loan borrowers. House Republicans conceived the overhaul in May. Since then, the Senate has made some changes, and that compromise was signed into law. Here are some details:

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🎓 Graduate students’ borrowing will be capped at $20,500 a year with a lifetime graduate school loan limit of $100,000. The limit is a drop from the previous cap of $138,500. A lifetime limit for undergrad and grad loans combined is $257,500 per person.

🎓 Parents and caregivers using parent PLUS loans to help students will be capped at $20,000 yearly and, in aggregate, $65,000 per child.

🎓 Borrowers using the Biden-era Saving on a Valuable Education plan will have to change plans by July 1, 2028, when SAVE officially shuts down. The two new plans from the law won’t be ready for a year. The Education Department’s Loan Simulator, which helps borrowers navigate repayment options, has not been updated to reflect the legislative changes.

Republicans have reduced the current seven plans to two new ones. Check out the breakdown of the plans by clicking here.

Picture show

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What is it like to be a teenager today? “The Teen Experience,” an exhibit in Washington, D.C., addresses this question by allowing teen artists to showcase honest portrayals of their lives. However, four artists who worked on a mural were unable to complete their project. Smithsonian officials covered up a mural created by 17-year-old Jewish artist Flair Doherty and three others. One official stated that she believed the mural, which depicted a protester holding a “Free Palestine” sign, was “antisemitic and hateful.” As a result, the artwork remains unfinished in the Smithsonian storage.

📷 Read more about Doherty’s experience with the exhibit and see photos of some of the pieces featured, including the unfinished mural.

3 things to know before you go

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This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.

Barbara Sonies, violinist with the Philadelphia Trio and

co-director of Music in the Mountains with cellist

Deborah Reeder, speaking about the history of the

summer chamber music workshop in Eagles Mere, PA,

and about the Eagles Mere Chamber Players, alumnae

of Music in the Mountains. The Chamber Players will

present a concert on Friday, August 1, 2025, at the

David Dewire Center at 8 pm, as part of the 50th

Anniversary Season of the Eagles Mere Friends

of the Arts.

The performance will include pieces by Haydn,

Mozart, Dvorak, Piazzola, Barber and more.

For information: www.emfoa.org/

A group of journalists at the Agence France-Presse news agency is sounding the alarm about conditions faced by colleagues working in Gaza, saying that “without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die.”

In a war-torn territory where Israel generally forbids outside journalists to enter, international news organizations like AFP, The Associated Press and Reuters rely on local teams to get out the news. They’ve been hampered by safety concerns and hunger in Gaza, where an estimated 59,000 people have died in the 21-month conflict, according to local health authorities.

The Society of Journalists at AFP, an association of professionals at the news agency, detailed what their Gaza colleagues are facing. AFP’s management said Tuesday that it shares concerns about the “appalling” situation and is working to evacuate its freelancers and their families.

“For months, we have watched helplessly as their living conditions deteriorated dramatically,” AFP said in a statement. “Their situation is now untenable, despite their exemplary courage, professional commitment, and resilience.”

One of AFP’s photographers, identified as Bashar, sent a message on social media over the weekend that “I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work anymore.”

Bashar has been working for AFP since 2010. Since February, he’s been living in the ruins of his home in Gaza City with his mother and other family members, and said one of his brothers had died of hunger, according to the journalists’ group.

The journalists receive a monthly salary from AFP, but exorbitant prices leave them unable to purchase much food.

Another AFP worker, Ahlam, said that every time she leaves her shelter to cover an event or do an interview, “I don’t know if I’ll come back alive.” Her biggest issue is the lack of food and water, she said.

Since AFP was founded in 1944, the Society of Journalists said that “we have lost journalists in conflicts, some have been injured, others taken prisoner. But none of us can ever remember seeing colleagues die of hunger.”

“We refuse to watch them die,” the society said.

AFP has been working with one freelance writer, three photographers, and six freelance videographers in Gaza since its staff journalists left in 2024. Representatives for the AP and Reuters also expressed concern for their teams there, but would not say how many people are working for them.

“We are deeply concerned about our staff in Gaza and are doing everything in our power to support them,” said Lauren Easton, a spokeswoman for The Associated Press. “We are very proud of the work our team continues to do under dire circumstances to keep the world informed about what is happening on the ground.”

Reuters said that it is in daily contact with its freelance journalists, and that “the extreme difficulty sourcing food is leading to their and all Gaza residents experiencing greater levels of hunger and illness.”

The agency said it is providing extra money to help them. “Should they with to leave the territory, we will provide any assistance to help get them out,” Reuters said.

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.