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SvennoJ on 17 May 2025
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Main events on May 17th

    • Israeli forces have bombed the so-called “safe zone” of al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, killing at least 24 people.
    • The intensified attacks come as Israel mobilises for a new and expanded ground assault on Gaza, and as it resumes ceasefire talks with Hamas in Qatar.
    • UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini says Israel’s stepped-up bombing campaign has killed at least 250 Palestinians in Gaza over the last two days alone.
    • Arab leaders in Baghdad have urged the international community to “exert pressure to end the bloodshed and ensure that urgent humanitarian aid can enter without obstacles all areas in need in Gaza”.
    • Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused Donald Trump of lying after the US president said during his Gulf tour this week that he wanted peace in the region.
    • The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says that if news reports of the Trump administration’s plan to transfer 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya are true, then it “would represent an unprecedented act of ethnic cleansing unseen in modern history”.

    Death toll in Israeli attacks on al-Mawasi rises to 36

    We are getting reports from our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic that the death toll in the attacks on the tent camp sheltering displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza has risen to 36. Earlier, we reported that at least 24 people were killed in the attacks.

    The dead and wounded were taken to the Kuwaiti field hospital and to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

    US Embassy in Tripoli denies report of plan to relocate Palestinians to Libya

    The US Embassy in Libya denied NBC News’s report that the Trump administration is working on a plan to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya.

    In a brief post on X, the embassy said: “The report of alleged plans to relocate Gazans to Libya is untrue.”

    On Thursday, NBC News said the Trump administration was working on a plan to permanently relocate as many as 1 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya. NBC News cited five people with knowledge of the matter, including two with direct knowledge and a former US official.

    The Tripoli-based internationally recognised Government of National Unity has yet to issue a comment on the report.

    It’s worth noting that Trump has previously said he would like the US to take over the Gaza Strip and resettle its Palestinian population elsewhere. Palestinians vehemently reject any plan involving them leaving Gaza, comparing such ideas with the 1948 Nakba, or “catastrophe”, when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed of their homes in the war that led to the creation of Israel.