Overview

• Foreign ministers from 25 countries and the EU commissioner issued an urgent joint call for an immediate ceasefire, condemning Israel’s aid distribution methods and the killing of over 800 Palestinians seeking assistance.
• Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected the demand, blaming Hamas for prolonging the war and insisting that hostages’ release is the sole pathway to a truce.
• On July 21, Israeli tanks entered Deir al-Balah for the first time in a bid to locate hostages taken during Hamas’s October 2023 attacks, intensifying ground operations in central Gaza.
• Gaza’s health ministry warned that severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine under Israel’s blockade threaten mass fatalities from escalating famine.
• Indirect ceasefire talks in Doha, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and backed by the United States, remain deadlocked with no breakthrough on a hostage-for-truce agreement.