Israeli strikes kill 48 at Gaza shelters for displaced Palestinians, hospitals say, as military operation intensifies
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/06/middleeast/israel-gaza-airstrike-school-compound-intl
Forty-eight people were killed, including at least seven children, in Israeli airstrikes on school compounds sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza, hospital officials said. Dozens more were injured in the strike, they said.
At the site of one attack in the Al Bureij camp in central Gaza on Tuesday, video from the scene showed a large crater where people searched through the rubble of the school for survivors, the remnants of tents and belongings littering the ground.
According to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, 33 people were killed in the strike, including women and children.
A strike on a school in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City on Wednesday killed at least 15 people sheltering inside and wounded 10 more, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense.
A pair of Israeli strikes near the Palmyra market in Gaza City killed 33 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and wounded at least 85 others. Video from the crowded market in the aftermath of the bombing showed a scene of chaos, with bodies slumped on the ground in what remained of a restaurant, clothing smeared in blood. Palestinians rushed to the scene, searching for survivors and rushing the injured into ambulances.
Among the dead was also journalist Yehya Sobeih, according to Sabaq 24, the outlet he worked for. Sobeih had just celebrated the birth of his daughter a day earlier, according to his Instagram account.
October 7 families demand to know the number of Gaza hostages still alive, after Trump said 3 more have died
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/07/middleeast/gaza-hostages-trump
Families of October 7 hostages held in Gaza demanded any new information from the Israeli government after US President Donald Trump said three more captives had died.
“As of today, it’s 21. Three have died. So, this is a terrible situation,” Trump said on Tuesday.
The remark was a shock to the families of the hostages. “We demand once again from the Israeli government - if there is new information that has been hidden from us, pass it on to us immediately,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said on Wednesday.
“The headquarters once again calls on the Prime Minister to stop the war until the last abductee is returned. This is the most urgent and important national task.”
Israel’s public and official position, reiterated on Tuesday by Israel’s Coordinator for the Captives and the Missing Gal Hirsch, is that 24 hostages are alive. “The Hamas terror organization is currently holding 59 hostages,” Hirsch said on social media several hours after Trump’s comments. “24 of them are on the list of living hostages.”
But there have been clear indications that Israel has reason to believe the true number is fewer, even beyond Trump’s comments. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a video statement in which he made the clearest acknowledgement, yet that Israel believes not all 24 are alive.
“We know for certain that there are 21 alive. There’s no argument about this. There’s three where there is doubt about whether they are alive,” he said in the prerecorded video. “We’re not giving up on anyone.”
Netanyahu chooses war – and his political survival – as Israelis demand hostage deal
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/06/middleeast/analysis-netanyahu-war-over-hostage-deal-latam-intl
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kept up appearances for nearly 19 months: Freeing the hostages and defeating Hamas, he insisted, stood equally atop the pyramid of Israel’s war goals.
Even as members of his right-wing governing coalition threatened to topple his government if he agreed to a ceasefire and hostage release deal. Even as he himself threw up eleventh-hour obstacles to reaching such a deal. And even as evidence mounted that Israel’s military operations had both directly and indirectly led to the killing of Israeli hostages. Amid all those contradictions, Netanyahu insisted both objectives were just as important.
But not anymore. Now, Netanyahu is unabashedly prioritizing war – and the survival of his government – over the fate of 59 hostages still in Gaza and the will of most Israelis.
