Health minister says deaths of 29 children and elderly people were ‘starvation related’

Palestine’s Health Minister Majid Abu Ramadan said 29 “starvation-related deaths” were registered in children and the elderly in Gaza in recent days and thousands more were at risk.

“In the last couple of days, we lost 29 children,” he told reporters. He later clarified that the figure included elderly people as well.

Asked to react to earlier comments by the UN aid chief that 14,000 babies could die without aid, he said: “The number 14,000 is very realistic – maybe even underestimating.”

_{Palestinian children wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen in Gaza City}

‘No place is safe in Gaza’: UNRWA

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in a post on X stated that a health centre that provided care for thousands of people “is no longer operational” due to Israel’s bombardment of the facility.

This UNRWA Health Centre in #Gaza used to provide care for thousands of people. Bombardment has caused significant damage to the centre, which is no longer operational.

Over 19 months of war have shattered homes and infrastructure in Gaza. UN buildings have not been spared, the… pic.twitter.com/68f9ePiAeY

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) May 22, 2025

Gaza’s main hospital is overwhelmed with children in pain from malnutrition

Gaza ambulance fleet down to a third: PCRS

The head of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says its operations in Gaza may stop within days due to a lack of fresh supplies, and its ambulance fleet is running at only a third of capacity due to fuel shortages.

Flour and other aid began reaching some of Gaza’s most vulnerable areas today after Israel let some trucks through, but nowhere near enough to make up for shortages caused by an 11-week Israeli blockade, Palestinian officials said.

Asked how long his organisation could continue operating in Gaza, Palestine Red Crescent Society President Younis al-Khatib told reporters in Geneva: “It’s a matter of time. It could be days.

“We are running out of fuel. The capacity of ambulances we work with now is one-third,” he added, saying its petrol-powered ambulances had already halted, but it had some that were running on solar power provided by the United Nations.

Al-Khatib criticised the small amount of aid Israel has allowed into Gaza so far, warning of the risk of mob attacks. “I think that is an invitation for killing. These people are starving,” he said.

Palestinians displaced for 10th time in Gaza fail to access scant aid


_{Palestinians are seen moving south along al-Rashid Street on foot, in vehicles, and on donkey carts amid intensified Israeli attacks on northern Gaza on May 22}

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said Israeli forces have allowed 87 trucks containing aid to enter the Strip in the last 24 hours, most containing flour for bread.

But he said that before the war, Gaza needed some 500 trucks to enter on a daily basis with water, food, medical supplies, and other essentials, but now, the humanitarian needs are far greater, as much of the population is on the brink of famine.

“Allowing this small amount of aid, just a few trucks daily, into a disaster zone like Gaza is not humanitarian relief, it’s performative,” Mahmoud said.

“We’re not seeing any of this coming to [heavily populated] parts of the Gaza Strip – including Gaza City or the northern part of the Strip that is now experiencing mass waves of evacuation orders.”

Mahmoud said Israel’s latest forced evacuation orders include large parts of Beit Hanoon, Beit Lahiya and Jabalia in northern Gaza, and that people are often fleeing these areas under heavy artillery fire.

“We’ve talked to people in the past couple of days who have been on the move for 10th time now, constantly displaced with evacuation orders herding them from one place to another,” he said. “The moment they arrive to an area, they set up their makeshift tents and within a short period of time, they are on the move once again. People are tired, they are exhausted.”

He said that many people in Gaza City have moved to the coastal road area, especially around the seaport. “An area that used to be an attraction site has now been turned largely into a displacement camp, with lots of people sleeping on cardboard inside makeshift tents or simply sleeping on sidewalks,” he said.


_{Mobile home?}

Lack of healthcare a huge cause of ‘silent death’ in Gaza, IFRC says

The few dozen trucks of aid that Israeli has allowed to enter Gaza in recent days is “less than a drop in the ocean” as the Strip needs some 1,000 to 1,200 trucks a day to address the “immense” needs of the population, the spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has told Al Jazeera.

“It is just a nightmare that is continuing to worsen day after day,” Tommaso Della Longa said, speaking from Geneva in Switzerland.

“The president of the Palestinian Red Crescent today said that a couple of trucks entering is an invitation for killing. People are desperate – we need much more humanitarian aid, we need food, we need water, we need commercial items, we need medicines, formula for babies.”

He said a lack of healthcare is a huge cause of “silent death” in Gaza, as people with chronic conditions, such as cancer or kidney disease, cannot access treatments like chemotherapy and dialysis because medical facilities are closing due to Israeli attacks or a lack of medicine and equipment due to the Israeli blockade.

“This is simply unacceptable,” he said. “Thinking about this [happening] in 2025 is shocking.”

Death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza since dawn rises to 61

At least 61 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air attacks across the Gaza Strip since dawn today, medical sources have told Al Jazeera.

"Nothing Can Justify It": Journalist Gideon Levy Reacts to Killing of Israeli Embassy Staffers

We speak with Israeli journalist Gideon Levy after a young Israeli couple was shot dead in Washington, D.C. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim both worked at the Israeli Embassy and were killed by a gunman after leaving the Capital Jewish Museum Wednesday night. The couple were dating and about to get engaged, the embassy said. Police identified Elias Rodriguez of Chicago as the suspect in custody. Video shows Rodriguez shouting "Free Palestine" during his arrest, and authorities are investigating the incident as a potential hate crime.

"This incident can be only condemned. Nothing that Israel is doing can justify such a murder," says Levy. He adds that incidents like the Washington killings are adding to a growing sense inside Israel that "because of the war in Gaza, Israel is turning into a pariah state."

'Televised Slaughter': UK Doctor on How Devastating It Is in Gaza

“We all are sick and tired of having to recount stories of utter horror, of what is going on here, the extent of the suffering that is going on there. And all we hear are words, basically… History will judge what is going on here, and it will not judge us kindly for having ignored it.”

As Israel unrelentingly attacks Gaza, British surgeon Dr. Tom Potokar joins Mehdi Hasan from the heart of the bombardment, at a hospital in Khan Younis. Deadly Israeli strikes forced Dr. Potokar to relocate from hospital to hospital. He describes the devastation to Mehdi: displacement, starvation, entire families being wiped out, and severely injured children.



Israeli opposition MP forcefully removed from podium after blasting Gaza war

Ayman Odeh, a member of the Arab-Jewish Hadash party, was forcefully removed from the podium in the Israeli parliament as he criticised Israel's war on Gaza and the rising death toll.

Lebanese PM condemns Israeli attacks

Nawaf Salam denounces the Israeli attacks in south Lebanon, noting that they come at a “dangerous” time ahead of the municipal elections in southern Lebanese districts.

“Prime Minister Salam stresses that these violations will not thwart the state’s commitment to holding the elections and protecting Lebanon and the Lebanese,” his office said in a statement.

The elections are set for Saturday and are expected to be dominated by Hezbollah and its allies. There have been growing concerns about the safety of voters, especially in border towns, amid the continued Israeli occupation of parts of South Lebanon.

Salam called on the international community to pressure Israel to end its violations of the ceasefire and fully withdraw from Lebanon.


_{Smoke billows from the Nabatieh district following Israeli strikes, May 8}

Hezbollah calls for ‘resounding’ win in local vote amid Israeli attacks

The group’s chief Naim Qassem has released a message to supporters urging them to participate in the upcoming municipal elections in south Lebanon on Saturday to ensure a “resounding” victory and assert defiance against Israel.

“We will not give up a grain of soil in our generous South, and we will not accept Israeli occupation in any inch of our homeland,” Qassem said. “Your participation in the local elections is part of the reconstruction that we will oversee through the elected local governments, and the Lebanese state must live up to its responsibility.”

Yesterday, Netanyahu boasted about the destruction of what he called “terrorist villages” in south Lebanon, suggesting that the widespread bombing and demolition of homes in the Lebanese border towns was a deliberate tactic.

_{Israel has renewed its bombardment of Lebanon, striking a building in the southern town of Toul after issuing an evacuation warning for the area.}

Another wave of Israeli strikes reported in Lebanon

The Israeli military has launched several attacks in south Lebanon, several Lebanese news outlets report. Al Mayadeen said strikes targeted Wadi al-Aziya in the Tyre region and Deir Antar near the southeastern Lebanese border with Israel.

Israel also bombed two mobile homes in Shamaa, south of the city of Tyre.

France condemns Israeli minister’s accusations of inciting hatred

France has dismissed claims by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar that European governments were inciting hatred against his country.

“These are completely outrageous and completely unjustified remarks,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said. “France has condemned, France condemns and France will continue to condemn, always and unequivocally, any act of anti-Semitism.”

Thursday’s death toll in Gaza rises to 80

Medical sources tell Al Jazeera that Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 80 Palestinians since dawn.

Medic survived Israeli attack by pleading in Hebrew, PRCS says

The head of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said that a paramedic who survived an Israeli attack that killed 15 aid workers was spared because he asked soldiers for mercy in Hebrew, adding that he hoped the man’s testimony would help win justice.

Assaad al-Nassasra, a Red Crescent paramedic, survived Israeli shootings that killed 15 emergency and aid workers on March 23 in southern Gaza in an incident that drew international condemnation. Their bodies were found buried in a shallow grave a week later.

Al-Nassasra went missing and then was freed from Israeli detention on April 29 and has not yet publicly commented.

PRCS President Younis Al-Khatib told reporters in Geneva that al-Nassasra was spared after he pleaded in Hebrew and said his mother was a Palestinian citizen of Israel.

“What does Assaad say in Hebrew? ‘Don’t shoot. I am Israeli.’ And the soldier got a bit confused,” he told reporters. “That confusion … made him survive.”

“Assaad will be a witness that can put all the Israeli stories in shambles,” he added.

 
‘Massacre’ reported in northern Gaza

The Palestinian Civil Defence says Israel has bombed a four-storey home, committing a “massacre” in Jabalia.

The agency’s spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said at least four people were killed and around 50 others remain missing under the rubble. He added rescue efforts are unable to proceed without heavy equipments.

Desperate crowds scramble for bread in Gaza

Gaza bakeries are making freshly baked bread in weeks after limited amounts of aid entered the territory.

Israeli strike kills four in Deir el-Balah

The Palestinian death toll in Gaza continues to mount amid relentless Israeli attacks. Al Jazeera Arabic reports that an Israeli strike in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza has killed four Palestinians and injured several others.

Gaza authorities say six officers guarding aid killed by Israel

The Gaza Government Media Office says an Israeli attack, consisting of eight strikes, has killed at least six security officers guarding humanitarian aid from looting.

Throughout the war, Israel has been targeting security officers around assistance convoys in what critics say is a deliberate policy to spread chaos and deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“It has become clear that the [Israeli] occupation army is operating in a systematic way to enable looting the aid and medicine trucks to ensure that they do not reach those who need them,” the office said in a statement.

Settler attacks force Palestinians to abandon occupied West Bank village

Palestinian residents of Maghayer al-Deir in the occupied West Bank have told the AFP news agency that they had begun packing their belongings and preparing to leave the village following repeated attacks by Israeli settlers.

“No one provides us with protection at all,” Yusef Malihat, a resident of the tiny village east of Ramallah, told AFP, a keffiyeh scarf protecting his head from the sun as he loaded a pickup truck with chain-link fencing previously used to pen up sheep and goats.

“They demolished the houses and threatened us with expulsion and killing,” he said, as a group of settlers looked on from a new illegal outpost a few hundred metres away.

“It’s very sad, what’s happening now … even for an outpost,” said Itamar Greenberg, an Israeli peace activist present at Maghayer al-Deir on Thursday.

“It’s a new outpost 60 metres [200 feet] from the last house of the community, and on Sunday, one settler told me that in one month, the Bedouins will not be here, but it [happened much] more quickly,” he told AFP.

The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission denounced Maghayer al-Deir’s displacement, describing it as being the result of the “terrorism of the settler militias”.

Netanyahu sets implementation of Trump’s Gaza relocation plan as new condition for ending war

At rare press conference, PM insists Qatari funds sent to Hamas at Israel’s request did not enable Oct. 7, seems to downplay terror group’s capabilities: ‘Attacked in flip-flops’; falsely claims Kibbutz Ein HaShlosha was not invaded.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-implementation-of-trumps-gaza-relocation-plan-is-condition-for-ending-war/

During his first press conference in five months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday named the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s “revolutionary” plan to relocate Gaza’s civilians as a condition for ending the conflict, the first time he has made such a demand. He called Trump’s plan “brilliant,” and said it had the potential to change the face of the Middle East.

The fledgling Operation Gideon’s Chariots — the IDF’s expanded ground operation in Gaza that began over the weekend— is meant to “complete the war, the work” in the enclave, the premier told reporters and live TV cameras at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.


Israel has a “very organized” plan to achieve its war aims in Gaza, he insisted, saying its aims are “To defeat Hamas, which carried out the atrocities of October 7; to bring back all of our hostages; and to ensure that Gaza does not present a threat to Israel.”

“Our forces are landing powerful blows that will get stronger against Hamas strongholds that still exist in Gaza,” he explained, promising that by the end of the operation, “all the territory of Gaza will be under Israeli security control, and Hamas will be totally defeated.”

While “ready to end the war,” Netanyahu said he would only agree to do so “under clear conditions that will ensure the safety of Israel: All the hostages come home, Hamas lays down its arms, steps down from power, its leadership is exiled from the Strip… Gaza is totally disarmed; and we carry out the Trump plan. A plan that is so correct and so revolutionary.”


The US and Israel share a determination to ensure that Iran cannot get the bomb and that Hamas is booted out of Gaza, he said. And “we want to ensure that Trump’s plan” for Gaza comes to fruition, he added. “It’s a brilliant plan,” he said, “that truly can bring change not only here… but can change the face of the Middle East. Change once and for all what we have been through from Gaza for decades.”

“We will win — and it won’t take another year and a half. I don’t want to reveal the plans, but it will happen. We will reach a decisive outcome and a different future for Gaza,” said Netanyahu.

Europe ‘will not influence us’

Addressing Jerusalem’s relations with Europe, Netanyahu said that harsh rhetoric and punitive actions, including sanctions, from European nations demanding an end to the war in Gaza “will not influence” Israel’s national security policies.

“European countries will not influence us and they will not cause us to abandon our core objectives — ensuring the security of Israel and the future of Israel,” said Netanyahu in response to a question on how he plans to respond to severe condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza by European allies.


And it goes on with more Israeli propaganda. What's more telling is that the Western media again ignores this part of his press conference.

Is this Benjamin Netanyahu’s most INSANE speech to date?

Benjamin Netanyahu has issued his non negotiable red line to end the Gaza genocide & it proves he can't be negotiated with.

Right, so the internationally wanted war criminal that is Benjamin Netanyahu has I think just given the speech, made the announcement that will come to define not necessarily how he will be remembered, but how every other government, human rights organisation, NGO and anyone else with a platform will frankly be remembered in the history books when it comes to the question of what did you do to stand against Israel as it commits genocide in Gaza, because there’s no longer an option anymore as to negotiating a ceasefire, no more is there any reasoning with him, for as much as diplomacy should always be the first port of call in any conflict to resolve it, diplomacy only works when both sides can be reasoned with.

Benjamin Netanyahu has now declared that this is not him. Sure, many of us will have been of this opinion for a while, but he’s now made explicitly clear, so for anyone still seeking diplomacy, when the time now is for action - sanctions – tough ones on the actual people in power, not just for a handful of settlers, is where we need to start.

But the humanitarian military intervention seems now the only course to stop the IDF in their tracks from wiping out the population of Gaza, because you see Benjamin Netanyahu has handed it out his red line to end the genocide and that red line, that demand is the entire ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The implementation of the Trump Plan, the removal of everyone in Gaza is now his clear condition to stop. A war crime, a genocide and he expects the world to deliver, making anyone doing so complicit in his crimes.

So the world now has a choice – stop him, or never again, say the words never again, because this is it.

Main events on May 22nd

• The Israeli military relentlessly bombarded Gaza, killing at least 80 and wounding dozens of people across the territory.
• The Palestinian Civil Defence said about 50 people remain trapped under the rubble after an Israeli strike that killed at least four others in Jabalia in northern Gaza.
• UN agencies and rights groups warned that the limited aid that entered Gaza over the past days is not sufficient, calling for the lifting of the blockade on the enclave.
• The Israeli military launched a wave of strikes across Lebanon, including an attack in the centre of the southern town of Toul.
• According to several Palestinian sources, Amr Hatem Odeh, who was abducted from Gaza in December 2023, died in Israel’s Sde Teiman military base, where rights groups have documented rampant torture and sexual violence against detainees.
• Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third-holiest site, in occupied East Jerusalem under the protection of Israeli police.

Words won’t save Gaza – The West must stop enabling Israel’s war

The recent statements from the UK government regarding Israel’s horrific crimes in Gaza are a welcome realisation that Israel, their trusted ally, is engaged in heinous brutality against the people of Gaza.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy stood in the House of Commons yesterday (May 20) and denounced Israel’s blockade of Gaza as “morally wrong” and “an affront to the values of the British people”, and in doing so, also paused the free-trade agreement negotiations with Israel and imposed a handful of select, and relatively minor sanctions in protest. A day earlier, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, President Emmanuel Macron, and Prime Minister Mark Carney jointly warned of “concrete actions” if Israel did not halt its renewed military offensive and allow aid to flow into Gaza.

These statements mark the most explicit criticism of Israel by Western allies in recent memory, yet they came only after more than a year and a half of relentless civilian casualties – more than 50,000 Gazans killed since 2023, including tens of thousands of women and children. How many innocent lives, including those of children, could have been spared if such criticism of atrocities committed by Israel had been made more than a year ago by Western allies?

The question now is whether this belated moral clarity will be backed by the meaningful measures required to effect change, with meaningful being the operative word.

Israel’s Gaza Trap: Starve, Lure, Kill—Jeremy Scahill Exposes “Final Phase” of Genocide

Abby Martin speaks with investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill about Israel's new offensive into Gaza that Netanyahu is calling the "final phase" of the genocide.

Petition: Urgent International Military Protection for Palestinians

https://secure.avaaz.org/community_petitions/en/leaders_of_governments_worldwide_petition_for_urgent_international_military_protection_for_palestinians/

‘Escalating’ Israeli attacks on hospitals, homes and destruction of ‘entire neighbourhoods’ in Gaza: UN

An estimated 81 percent of Gaza’s entire territory is now within Israeli-declared “militarised zones” or is subject to forced displacement orders by Israeli forces, according to the latest UN situation report on the war-torn territory.

The UN human rights office has also identified an “escalating pattern” of Israeli strikes on crowded hospitals, residential buildings and tent shelters in Gaza, as well as the “methodical destruction of entire neighbourhoods” in the territory.

According to the situation report, the intensified Israeli assault on Gaza – since the recent launch of the “Gideon’s Chariots” military campaign – has been carried out with “little, if any, care … to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza”.

“The use of weapons with wide area effects suggest deliberate, indiscriminate attack,” according to the UN human rights office.


_{A view from the ruins of a mosque shows tents used by Palestinians forcibly displaced by the Israeli military offensive, near Gaza’s seaport, in Gaza City, on Thursday}


Gaza is a ‘nightmare’ and aid needs to be scaled up to match magnitude of crisis: IFRC 

Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), spoke to Al Jazeera earlier about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Here’s more of what Della Longa said:

_{Hundreds of displaced Palestinians jostle to get bags of bread distributed through a bakery window in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza after limited flour supplies entered the Strip on Thursday}

Israeli attacks push forcibly displaced Palestinians into ‘death trap’ evacuation zone

The majority of the people evacuated from the northern part of the Strip are being pushed into displacement sites on the coastal road on the western side of Gaza City, particularly in the sea port area. And from the eastern part of Khan Younis all the way to al-Mawasi evacuation zone that has not been largely safe for displaced people.

We’ve seen many people killed inside this particular evacuation zone that has evolved in the past months into more of a death trap for many displaced families from different parts of the Gaza Strip.

Also, the Israeli military did not stop its air strikes.

We are talking about an air strike in the northern part of the Strip where major residential blocks have been flattened and turned into fields of rubble, as well as three people reported killed in the city of Deir el-Balah as a drone strike targeted a residential flat in the heart of the city.

_{Palestinians inspect the damaged after an Israeli air strike targeted tents sheltering displaced civilians in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, southern Gaza on April 17}