US-made guided bombs used in Israeli attack on Fahmi al-Jarjawi School in Gaza City

Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking unit has obtained exclusive images of the remains of the weaponry used by the Israeli army in the bombing of the Fahmi al-Jarjawi School in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City on Sunday.

The fragments belonged to US-made GBU-39 SDB guided bombs, which have been identified in repeated attacks on Gaza. Trevor Ball, an American expert and researcher in munitions, confirmed Sanad’s results.

Israel imports these bombs from the US company Boeing, and multiple investigations have documented their use in targeting displacement camps in central and southern Gaza.

Once launched from an aircraft, the bomb deploys its wings and uses a GPS guidance system to precisely correct its trajectory towards its target. It is also equipped with a warhead designed to penetrate hard targets, such as reinforced concrete or fortifications, before detonation.

Analysed images from the site of the attack show the bomb broke through the school’s roof and first floor before detonating on the ground floor, killing at least 36 people.

The same type of bomb was used in a strike that hit the al-Tabin School in Gaza City in August, killing 100 people, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.

In February, the US approved the sale of 2,166 GBU-39 SDB bombs to Israel in a deal valued at $6.75bn, according to the official website of the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency.


_{The fragments of US-made GBU-39 SDB guided bombs used in an Israeli attack on a school in Gaza City}

Girl tells Al Jazeera how she escaped school inferno

Ward al-Sheikh Khalil, a young Palestinian girl, spoke to Al Jazeera after surviving an Israeli air attack on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City. Video showed her walking among the flames of the fires that broke out.

The attack killed more than 36 Palestinians, including her mother and siblings.

More than 90,000 tonnes of military equipment brought to Israel since war began

Israel’s Defence Ministry has announced the 800th flight bringing in military equipment and ammunition since the start of the war on Gaza has landed in the country.

In a statement, it said the military equipment and weapons airlift is being carried out in collaboration with the ministry’s mission to the US, Israel’s top ally, and other parts of the Israeli military.

“Throughout this operation, over 90,000 tons of military equipment have been delivered to Israel via 800 flights and approximately 140 maritime shipments,” it said. “The procured and transported equipment includes munitions, armored vehicles, individual protective equipment, and medical supplies.”

As we’ve been reporting, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians and wounded tens of thousands more. The Democratic and Republican administrations of former US President Joe Biden and his successor, Donald Trump, have faced criticism over their policies of arming Israel, which critics say violate US laws prohibiting military aid and weapons sales to countries engaged in rights abuses.

Death traps’: PFLP warns people in Gaza against approaching GHF aid centres

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has warned that aid distribution centres set up by the US and Israel in the Gaza Strip represent “collective death traps”, and warned citizens not to approach them.

The leftist group said these centres are being used to arrest people and are “part of the ongoing war of genocide” against Palestinians.

It also said the centres, set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), are being used as tools of displacement, forcing Palestinians southwards.

The GHF has faced criticism, including from the UN, that it is using humanitarian relief as a political tool.

Israeli army highlights ‘gradual opening’ of Gaza aid centres

The Israeli army says it has set up four aid distribution centres “in recent weeks” in Gaza. Two began operations today “as part of the gradual opening of the distribution centers”, it said in a statement. The sites are giving out food packages, it added, without specifying how many were distributed.

The centres were set up “in coordination” with the US government, a private US security company and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has been labelled “a distraction” by the United Nations.

The army’s statement comes as the UN announced it has no information on whether the GHF has actually distributed any aid in Gaza as famine looms.

Footage shows desperate Palestinian storming new Gaza aid site

Thousands of desperate Palestinians have swarmed an aid distribution site in Rafah, southern Gaza, as security contractors lose control of the crowds and open fire with live ammunition.

The incident comes after the Israeli-backed plan to disperse humanitarian assistance opened the centre earlier.

Shots fired at aid distribution point as controversial Gaza relief plan kicks off

Israeli media are reporting that shots have been fired at an aid distribution point in southern Gaza, hours after a US-backed aid mechanism became operational.

Videos of the scene showed large crowds running past a broken fence and rushing to receive some of the first parcels delivered in Israeli-controlled areas in coordination with the US government, a private US security company and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

It is not yet clear who fired the shots and no injuries have so far been reported.

‘Complete chaos’

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, says there was “complete chaos” as Palestinians in southern Gaza rushed to receive some of the first aid that entered the besieged territory in months.

Khoudary said that after the first Palestinians returned back to their shelters with some food parcels, more people started heading towards the aid distribution point in the south.

“The forces that were present in that area were shooting live ammunition to disperse the Palestinians who were going to receive the food,” Khoudary said.

She added that what needs be underlined is that after months of a total blockade, Palestinians are “very desperate”.

“They are not having any food and this is the only way to feed their children.”

‘Not the way to do it’: Israel’s new Gaza aid system criticised

Hardin Lang from Refugees International says it’s incomprehensible why Israel has set up its own Gaza aid distribution system when the UN and other international groups have decades of experience.

“Mounting the kind of operation to keep famine at bay is very complex and logistics-intensive. It is not something you turn the keys over to an operation that is just finding its feet. So if you’re trying to meet humanitarian needs, this is not the way to do it,” Lang told Al Jazeera.

He noted Jake Wood, executive director of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), announced his resignation because the organisation could not adhere “to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence”.

While the long-established UN-led distribution process had 400 sites throughout Gaza, the GHF has only four “mega” ones for its 2.3 million people, Lang said.

“If the point of the project is to meet the humanitarian need, then you go with distribution sites throughout the Gaza Strip – much like what the United Nations and international humanitarian community have established.”

Chaotic scenes proof of Israel’s failure to manage crisis it created: Gaza Government Media Office

The Government Media Office in Gaza has issued a statement about the scenes at the aid distribution point in southern Gaza, saying Israel’s project to distribute supplies “in the so-called ‘buffer zones’ has failed disastrously”.

“Thousands of starving civilians – besieged and cut off from food and medicine by the occupation for nearly 90 days – rushed to these areas in a heartbreaking scene that ended with the storming of distribution centres and the seizing of food under the crushing weight of hunger,” it said.

It added that Israeli forced had responded “by opening fire and injuring several citizens, which clearly reflects the total collapse of the so-called humanitarian track that the occupation claims to uphold”.

The office said the scenes was evidence of Israel’s failure to manage the humanitarian crisis “it deliberately created through a policy of starvation, siege, and bombing”.

It added the establishment of “buffer ghettos” for distributing limited aid “under the threat of death, bullets, and starvation does not indicate a genuine intention to address the crisis”.

“Rather, it represents a calculated political strategy to perpetuate starvation, dismantle Palestinian society, and impose politicised humanitarian tracks that serve the occupation’s security and military agenda.”

Gaza aid distributor admits losing control of aid site in Rafah

The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says the volume of people seeking aid at its distribution site was so great its team had to pull back to allow people to “take aid safely and dissipate” and to avoid casualties.

It added “Gazans experienced several hour delays in accessing the site due to blockades imposed by Hamas”. The foundation said it has so far distributed about 8,000 food boxes, totaling 462,000 meals. The claim could not be independently verified.

Chaotic scenes erupted as thousands of desperate people rushed the site after nearly a three-month total aid blockade by Israel and mass hunger.


_{Palestinians seeking aid gather near aid distribution site in Rafah}

If anything goes wrong, blame it on Hamas. There was no issue with delays, total bullshit statement.

Contractors in charge of aid distribution sites ‘completely lost control'

Security sources who’ve been speaking to the Israeli army radio said that the US contract workers who are in charge for securing the aid distribution sites completely lost control after people rushed to the area to try and get the much-needed food they have been deprived of for several months.

The contractors had reportedly fired shots in the air to try and disperse the crowds, which caused a lot of chaos. The Israeli army was then sent in to try and evacuate these contractors, according to the reports.

We’re also hearing reports of military helicopters that were firing in the vicinity to try and also get the crowds to disperse.

But it’s worth noting how we got here in the first place: This was an incredibly controversial plan for humanitarian assistance after the Israeli government had blockaded any type of aid for nearly three months. Throughout the war, there was very little aid going into Gaza to begin with, so people had been hungry and there has been malnutrition among women and children.

Israeli tank and gunfire reported from aid distribution site

A reporter from The Associated Press says Israeli tank and gunfire could be heard as large crowds of Palestinians tried to reach an aid centre in southern Gaza.

There was no immediate word on whether there were any casualties.

The firing came as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians walked through Israeli military lines to reach the distribution hub set up on the outskirts of Rafah by a US-backed group that Israel has slated to take over food distribution in Gaza. It was the second day of operations at the hub.

Palestinians in the war-battered territory are starving after Israel blockaded the Strip of all humanitarian relief for nearly three months.

‘These are the scenes we have been warning about’

We have spoken to Ahmed Bayram, of the Norwegian Refugee Council, about the chaotic scenes at the aid distribution site in Rafah, southern Gaza, and the prior warnings by aid agencies.

“What we’re seeing is indeed a summary of the tragedy that the people of Gaza are living.

“To be honest, I have been describing this plan as a non-starter and today we see it’s a literal non-starter. You have been starving the entire population for almost three months, and then you’re asking them to walk miles and miles in order to get hold of a bag of lentils and a bag of flour.

“This is not how aid is done, this is not how aid should be distributed, not least obviously an occupied doing that – a country that has destroyed and flattened Rafah asking people to come back to Rafah, that has displaced people out of Rafah and now tells them to come back and receive whatever they can get hold of.

“These are the scenes we have literally been warning about all month now. “It spread chaos, it spread confusion and this is the result.

“I think the best thing that can be done now is for this plan to be cancelled, to be reversed and for us professional humanitarians in the UN and NGOs to do our job – there are tons and tons of aid waiting across the border, very simple decision, open the gates and keep them open.”

GHF parcels contain un-nutritious, meagre amount of food: AJ correspondent

While the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) says it has handed out some 8,000 food boxes today, supposedly amounting to 462,000 meals, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary says that the parcels she’s seen contain only a meagre amount of food that will not feed a family for long and is not nutritious enough.

She said had seen a food box that contained 4kg of flour, a couple of bags of pasta, two cans of fava beans, a pack of tea bags and some biscuits, while other food parcels contained lentils and soup in very small quantities.

“This is definitely not enough, and it is not enough for all the humiliation that Palestinians are going through to receive these food parcels,” she said, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

“We’re talking about nearly three months without chicken, without meat, without nutritious food, and that’s why most people coming to the hospital now are malnourished Palestinian children.”

Khoudary said that while these GHF food parcels might last a family a day or two, Palestinians used to receive packages from United Nations agencies that would last one to two weeks – until Israel imposed its total blockade on aid almost three months ago, and people increasingly became so hungry they could often not even cobble together one meal a day.

“[The GHF says] 8,000 Palestinians received parcels today. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of Palestinians squeezed into the area very close to Rafah [in southern Gaza], and all of these people said they were forced to go to these distribution points after weeks of not having even one meal a day,” she said.

_{Palestinians open a box delivered by the GHF in Rafah}

WTF is that, tea biscuits...

Aid points Israel’s ‘last card’ in expelling Palestinians from Gaza

The chaos at the aid centre is the result of the refusal to listen to people who have 80 years of experience at organisations such as UNRWA.

They are dealing with two million starved people. The civilians of Gaza are obviously trying to get just any piece of food for their children.

And how logical is this claim they are doing this aid distribution to separate civilians from Hamas?

Critics say Israel established these distribution points only in the south to encourage people – or even to force them – to flee from the north. This is a clear plan for the complete expulsion of the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip.

It didn’t work before. No amount of starvation, no amount of killing, no amount of bombing has convinced them or forced them to move from northern Gaza where their homes are.

Now this is the last card that Israel has, which is to force them by starvation to the south where the distribution is taking place. If Israel gets its way, we will end up with a real concentration camp in the south.

Israeli settlers burn Palestinian vehicles, attack homes near West Bank’s Nablus

Israeli settlers have burned vehicles and attacked homes in the village of Qaryut, south of Nablus, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency. Residents said the settlers targeted Palestinian homes with stones and torched and destroyed seven vehicles.

Settler attacks on Palestinians have been on the rise since the war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, and new settlement building has accelerated under the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent Hamdah Salhout said Palestinians are “essentially left defenceless whenever there are settler attacks because the military is watching and not protecting them”.

They believe these attacks are aimed at “kicking them out of their lands to try and take [them] permanently”, she added.

Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law.


Journalist injured in Israeli settler attack near West Bank’s Ramallah

Issam al-Rimawi, a photojournalist with Turkiye’s Anadolu news agency, has been injured by Israeli settlers attacking the village of al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah in the central West Bank, according to his employer.

Muatasim Saqf Al-Hait, a colleague who witnessed the incident, told Al Jazeera that the settlers were emboldened by the arrival of the Israeli military and intensified their attacks, including hitting al-Rimawi.

“They started attacking him with rocks. They beat him on his head. It was clear that he was a journalist doing his job, but we know that journalists are attacked as well,” Al-Hait said.

Anadolu reported that the photojournalist lost consciousness and was transferred to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah.

Ex-Israeli PM says Israel ‘committing war crimes’

Ehud Olmert, who was prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, has written an op-ed in which he says that Israel “is committing war crimes”.

“The government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning and with no chances of success,” the Netanyahu critic said in the piece that was published by the Israeli news outlet Haaretz.

“Never since its establishment has the State of Israel waged such a war. The criminal gang headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has set a precedent without equal in Israel’s history in this area, too.”

GHF is ‘armchair humanitarianism at its worst’, ex-UNRWA spokesperson says

Chris Gunness, former spokesperson for UNRWA, tells Al Jazeera that the chaos at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) food distribution point in Rafah “speaks to the extraordinary naivety, amateurishness and inexperience” of the joint Israel-US initiative, calling it “armchair humanitarianism at its worst”.

He said the lack of planning stands out to him, particularly a failure to consult with the community – something known in the humanitarian sector as “the principle of no harm”.

“This was not done. This was imposed by the two powers in the world that are committing a genocide against these people,” he said.

He said UNRWA is the only organisation that has the infrastructure, aid warehouses, food distribution centres, vehicles and workers to effectively distribute aid to Gaza but international donors have allowed UNRWA to be sidelined based on a campaign of “lies, misinformation and propaganda” by Israel.

“We need to re-establish UNRWA. We need to get the international UNRWA staff back into Gaza. We need order restored, and we need proper, orderly food distribution. Only UNRWA can do that,” he said, adding that otherwise there will likely be more mass killings, such as a massacre in February last year when more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces while they waited for aid.

Only sanctioning Israel and re-empowering UNRWA are “going to see us pull back from this absolute catastrophe, which is a stain on the conscience of the world”, he said.

Chaos at Gaza aid site ‘endangers’ Israeli soldiers: Politician

The chaos at the humanitarian aid distribution site in southern Gaza “is a direct result of a failed government that promises ‘order in the distribution’ and once again endangers our heroic soldiers”, according to Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman.

“Israel needs real leadership,” he said in a social media post.



‘A lot of frustration’ at the UN as Israel blocks aid efforts

The chaos in Gaza today – this is exactly what the United Nations has been warning about. The UN has refused to take part in the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid operation that has been organised with Israel and the United States.

The UN says it does not adhere to the basic rules of humanitarian laws, including rules that involve neutrality. The criticism from the United Nations is this organisation doesn’t have the reach or experience that it does.

We know how desperate the situation is. The UN had 400 trucks of aid immediately ready to go, but because of the difficulties on the ground – 80 percent of the Gaza Strip is an Israeli-militarised zone – distributing that aid once it gets in is a real challenge.

The UN has hundreds of locations for aid pickup and distribution compared to the four now being used by this new organisation. The UN has a five-point plan it says would do a better job but it’s not being allowed to do so. So there’s a lot of frustration here.

Israel-US aid initiative driven by military rather than humanitarian logic, says NGO VP

Hardin Lang, the vice president for programmes and policy at Refugees International, said it’s no surprise that the Israeli-US-backed initiative has descended into chaos as the humanitarian community has been warning policymakers that a desperate population would overwhelm a couple of aid distribution sites.

“This is not the way in which you try to feed a population, much less a population that is on the verge of famine,” he told Al Jazeera, speaking from Washington, DC in the US.

“The kind of operation that is required to prevent famine, or stop it if it’s already ongoing, is a tremendously large and complex logistical operation. And it’s not just food. You have to have access to medical facilities, access to acute malnutrition centres … which have not been factored into this plan.”

He said that only the UN and some international NGOs have the necessary infrastructure, experience and community acceptance to do this kind of work, and stressed that if the Israeli-US initiative is intended to use aid to forcibly transfer Gaza’s population, it would be a violation of international humanitarian law.

“The way in which this is being done feels as though it has much more of a military and securitised logic to it, than it does a humanitarian logic,” Lang said.