CIVICUS discusses the military use of artificial intelligence (AI) in Gaza with Dima Samaro, a Palestinian lawyer and researcher, and director of Skyline International for Human Rights, a civil society organisation (CSO) that defends digital freedoms and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa.
Gaza has become a testing ground for AI-powered warfare. Israel deploys systems such as Gospel and Lavender that produce thousands of strike recommendations based on alleged links to Hamas.
Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territory, 21 July 2025 – In the shadow of broken concrete and twisted steel, Salem has pitched a tent on the remnants of his former home.
It may look like nothing more than a heap of rubble, but to Salem, these ruins hold a lifetime: the house he built for his family, the memories etched into every corner, and the dignity that once came with having a place to call his own.
(UN News)* —Worrying alerts from United Nations staff in the Gaza Strip who have been fainting from hunger and exhaustion over the past 48 hours have increased fears for people’s survival in the devastated enclave, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday [.
“Doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them UNRWA staff, are hungry…fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties,” said Juliette Touma, Director of Communications with the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA.
Speaking from Amman, she stressed that seeking food “has become as deadly as the bombardments”.
With relentless attacks on healthcare since the war began in October 2023, only around half of Gaza’s hospitals are even partially functioning, depriving women and girls of access to critical care as well as the essentials to survive – food, water, shelter and protection from violence.
(UN News)* — After another deadly weekend in Gaza in which at least 67 Palestinians were reportedly killed seeking food, UN aid teams on Monday [] described “mayhem” and starvation in the enclave as the Israeli military pushed into Deir Al-Balah for the first time.
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UNRWA | Families evacuate from Deir Al -Balah in the Gaza Strip
In an alert, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, relayed desperate testimonies from its colleagues who are also struggling to survive in the war-torn enclave.
“We’re in the death phase,” one UNRWA worker said.
“Everything around people at the moment is death, whether it’s bombs or strikes, children wasting awayin front of their eyes from malnourishment, from dehydration, and dying.”
(UN News)* —The continued onslaught and mass deprivation of people in the Gaza Strip is becoming normalised, the UN aid coordination office OCHA warned on Friday .
“Every day brings more preventable deaths, displacement and desperation,” the agency said in a humanitarian update.
On Friday, Israeli authorities issued another displacement order, this time for parts of North Gaza.
(UN News)* —Mohammed Saad sits with others inside a homemade cart pulled by a car carrying several passengers, waiting to travel to Gaza City in one of the “uncomfortable and extremely expensive” means of transportation used to get around the Strip.
UN News | Umm Haytham Al-Kulak sits in a three-wheeled motorcycle trailer on her way back to her family.
Moving around Gaza has become ever more difficult amid the ongoing 21-month-long war.
Mr. Saad, who was displaced from the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, was waiting for the vehicle pulling the cart he was sitting in to move.
15 July 2025 — In response to the EU’s foreign affairs ministers meeting to discuss the list of options for political action against Israel, Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s Policy Lead in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Gaza, said:
A father plays with his 3-year-daughter in the middle of his tent in Rafah which he took refuge after losing his house and factory. (Photo: Alef Multimedia/Oxfam)
“Every day that passes without real action means more death and destruction. Yet, once again, Europe is kicking the can down the road.
“The recent aid deal may have been a step, but, in reality, it is mere breadcrumbs. Aid alone cannot stop this catastrophe.
(UN News)* — In Gaza, illness, poverty, mass displacement and depleted services are leading to soaring stress levels and causing an increase in domestic violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, according to the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA).
In the past three months, a third of Gaza’s population (714,000 people) have been forced to move once again, separating families and dismantling local support systems.
Women and girls are bearing a heavy burden, fearing for their lives on the streets – at delivery points, and in overcrowded, makeshift shelters that lack privacy and security – as many sleep in the open.
(UN News)* — Conditions in Gaza have reached an unspeakable level of devastation with children paying the highest price, top UN officials told the Security Council on Wednesday [], warning of soaring child deaths, starvation and a shattered health system amid continuing bombardment and displacement.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 