Main events on June 1st
- Israel continued its relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip, killing at least 54 people, while maintaining a strict blockade as a famine looms.
- Israeli tanks and drones opened fire on Palestinians gathered at aid distribution sites run by a Israel-and-US-backed group, killing more than 30 people as they searched desperately for food.
- Israeli forces completely destroyed the Noura al-Kaabi Dialysis Hospital, the only facility for dialysis patients in northern Gaza, which served more than 160 people after having been renovated and reopened just weeks ago.
- The United Nations said more than 632,000 Palestinians have been displaced since Israel broke the nearly two-month-old ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza on March 18.
- Mediators Qatar and Egypt announced renewed efforts to secure a ceasefire deal based on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce and the entry of humanitarian aid.
- Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for a ballistic missile attack on Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel. The missile was intercepted, authorities said.
Medical NGO blames new US aid group for deadly Gaza chaos
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says survivors it treated at a Gaza aid site run by a new US-backed organisation reported being “shot from all sides” by Israeli forces.
It blamed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation‘s aid distribution system for chaos at the scene in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
“Patients told MSF they were shot from all sides by drones, helicopters, boats, tanks and Israeli soldiers on the ground,” MSF said in a statement.
Communications officer Nour Alsaqa reported hospital corridors filled with patients, mostly men, with “visible gunshot wounds in their limbs”.
MSF quoted one wounded man, Mansour Sami Abdi, as describing people fighting over just five pallets of aid. “They told us to take food – then they fired from every direction,” he said.
US rights group denounces Israel’s aid ‘killing zones’
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has denounced the killing of dozens of hungry Palestinians who gathered at Israel-run distribution sites in Gaza.
“These ‘aid’ concentration sites – in which a handful of desperate people are given starvation rations as a cruel publicity stunt designed to deflect attention from Israel’s forced starvation campaign – are in reality ‘killing zones’ for that state’s machine of death and destruction,” CAIR said in a statement.
“This is pure evil operating with impunity and with the world’s silence. The genocide must stop and the Palestinian people must be recognized as human beings deserving freedom and justice on their own land.”
Not just the world's silence, the Western world is actively covering up Israel's crimes while supporting them.
