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Forums - Politics - Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

SvennoJ on 28 May 2025

Israel kills 6 more Palestinians trying to reach Gaza aid distribution point

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Government Media Office in Gaza, has confirmed to Al Jazeera that at least six people were shot and killed by Israeli forces today while trying to reach an aid distribution point west of Rafah in the south of the enclave.

Al-Thawabta identified the six people killed today, a day after the killing of three others yesterday as:

  • Salem Ata Salem Abu Mousa
  • Kifah Odeh Suleiman al-Sawarka
  • Mohammed Imad Ramadan Abdel Hadi
  • Khalil Ashraf Khalil Mousa
  • Ashraf Anwar Khalil Mousa
  • Khalil Anwar Khalil Abu Mousa


Palestinians shot, killed trying to recover food from their homes

People have been killed and shot at not only at [aid] distribution points but in other areas as they try to get food.

For example, in the past couple of hours, two people were reported killed in the Shujayea neighbourhood [of Gaza City]. They were killed trying to get to their homes.

They were forced to evacuate in the past few weeks. They left everything behind. All of their belongings, all of their food supplies that they managed to get … [were] inside the house. As they were trying to get back to the house to pick up two bags of flour, as one family member who was waiting for them told us, … they were shot and killed.

So whether it’s a distribution point or inside their homes that they left, Palestinians are shot at and killed as they try to get food.


Israel kills 10 aid seekers in two days in Rafah: Gaza’s Government Media Office

Gaza’s Government Media Office says 10 Palestinians have been killed and 62 injured in two days as they rushed to get aid from a distribution centre run under a US and Israeli mechanism.

Israeli forces “opened direct fire on hungry Palestinian civilians who had gathered to receive aid”, the office said in a statement. “This heinous crime occurred during peaceful gatherings of citizens driven by desperate need and extreme hunger to head to locations supposedly providing aid.”

“This crime was part of a dubious engineering project run by the American organization called Gaza Humanitarian Relief (GHF),” which “denies the principles of humanitarian action, namely humanity, neutrality, integrity, and independence”.

The government added that aid distribution centres set up under the scheme were “nothing but a false humanitarian cover for racist security schemes aimed at humiliating, starving, and, if necessary, killing Palestinians”.

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 28 May 2025

Around the Network
SvennoJ on 28 May 2025

Three dead in Israeli attack on southern Gaza

Our colleagues are reporting that three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli bombing of a tent housing displaced people in the al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis, once deemed a “safe zone” for Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli military.

Earlier, we reported that two people were wounded by Israeli drone fire in the al-Mawasi area.


Dozens of people killed in Gaza today

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that at least 36 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip in Israeli attacks today, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.


Netanyahu says Hamas leader Mohammad Sinwar killed

There has been no immediate comment from Hamas on the Israeli prime minister’s claim. Mohammad Sinwar became the group’s Gaza chief after his brother Yahya was killed by the Israeli military last year.


Today’s death toll in Gaza rises again

The enclave’s Health Ministry reports that at least 43 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the early hours of this morning.


Red Cross field hospital comes under fire in al-Mawasi: Ministry

The Red Cross field hospital in southern Gaza’s al-Mawasi area has come under Israeli fire, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It said in a statement published on Telegram that the incident sowed panic among patients and visitors, resulting in several injuries.

Gaza’s healthcare facilities have been targeted repeatedly. Targeting of health facilities, medical personnel and patients is considered a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.



SvennoJ on 28 May 2025

Special coordinator tells UN aid in Gaza is ‘not negotiable’

The UN Security Council is holding its monthly open briefing and closed consultations on the situation in the Middle East, including the situation in Gaza.

Sigrid Kaag, special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process ad interim, said “aid cannot be negotiable and there cannot be a question of forced displacement”.

“Humanitarian aid and assistance need to urgently reach all people in Gaza,” she said. “Forced displacement of civilians must be rejected and prevented as per international law. Palestinians should be supported to stay on their land.”

Kaag warned that the international community needs to pivot “from declarations to decisions”.

“Peace cannot be a transaction or a partial temporary arrangement,” she added. “Durable security cannot be achieved solely through force. It must be built on mutual recognition, justice and rights for all.”


US representative calls on UN to work with GHF in Gaza

John Kelley, the alternate US representative at the UN, has called on the international body to work with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which he says is an “independent” institution established to “provide a secure mechanism for the delivery of aid to those in need”.

“We call on the UN to work with the GHF and Israel to reach an agreement on how to operationalise this system in a way that works for all,” he said. “One that provides the opportunity to deliver aid directly to civilians without diversions to Hamas and other terrorist and criminal groups.”

“The council should apply pressure to free Palestinians of Hamas’s tyranny,” he told the UN Security Council. “The United States fully stands behind Israel and its right to defend itself. In order to move forward, Hamas must be defeated.”

The comments come after a second day of chaotic scenes in southern Gaza as desperate Palestinians try to access aid through the US-backed model. Several Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire as they rushed to get aid today.

Nothing but bullshit. The ethnic cleansing plan by starvation is as clear as day. Lure people into concentration camps in the South while bombing remaining food kitchens and supplies, as well as targeting people looking for food.

And then? There is nothing in the areas where the GHF distribution points are set up. The IDF flattened the entire area. No water, no shelter, no sanitation, it's worse than a concentration camp.

The only reason to lure people there it to either deport them or slowly kill them.



SvennoJ on 28 May 2025

UN hears ‘dramatic testimony’ from experts on crisis in Gaza

This hearing is happening against a backdrop of utter despair in Gaza and the sidelining of the United Nations in its efforts to bring aid to Gaza. The longest-standing aid operations in Gaza, of course, have been from the UN.

We’ve heard from Sigrid Kaag – the special coordinator for Middle East peace – about the need to allow the UN back into Gaza, to have unfettered access to the people there, to do the job that they are uniquely qualified to do.

We also heard from Feroze Sidhwa, a surgeon who does emergency procedures. … The message from both of these experts was again calling for a ceasefire and the full resumption of aid into the Gaza Strip.

We are [also] hearing from countries about the need for more aid to get in. Denmark was interesting, speaking … [about] representing the overwhelming majority of voices in the Security Council when it comes to humanitarian aid being allowed to flow freely and at scale in Gaza.

The ambassador talked about the need for medical access as well, again highlighting the unbearable conditions of people on the ground and the growing concern among the international community that this could not be allowed to go on.

‘How many more must die before action is taken?’

Here’s some of what’s been said during the UN Security Council debate:

  • Algeria: “How many more must die before action is taken by the Security Council? How many orphans must roam the ruins of Gaza? How much more blood must be spilled before this council acknowledges that enough is enough? … The time for indecision is over.”
  • France: “The highly limited [aid] quantities of recent days are insufficient when it comes to meeting the needs of the populations, especially after 12 long weeks of total blockade. The images of desperate, starving people throwing themselves on trucks and aid distribution points are a tragic illustration of this.”
  • Guyana: “The judgement of future generations will be justifiably harsh towards us, we who saw the attempts at obliterating an entire people but did not act. This council has the opportunity to act now. Enough is enough.”
  • United Kingdom: “The UN warned of the risks from the Israeli government’s plan for aid delivery. In Rafah yesterday, we saw this warning become a reality. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation lost control of its distribution centre with multiple casualties reported and great distress for those desperately seeking aid. In contrast, the UN has a clear plan to deliver life-saving aid at scale. It contains robust mitigations against aid diversion. Brave humanitarians stand ready to do their jobs. Nine thousand trucks wait at the border.”





SvennoJ on 28 May 2025

Two dead after people break into WFP warehouse in search of food

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says its warehouse in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah has been broken into by hungry people “in search of food supplies” that were going to be distributed.

WFP said preliminary reports indicate that at least two people died and several others were injured in the incident, but that it is still confirming the details of what happened.

“Humanitarian needs have spiralled out of control after 80 days of complete blockade of all food assistance and other aid into Gaza,” the agency said, adding that it has warned of “the risks imposed by limiting humanitarian aid to hungry people in desperate need of assistance”.

WFP called for an immediate increase in assistance. “This is the only way to reassure people that they will not starve,” it said.



Desperation fuelling chaos in Gaza as families face deepening hunger

The deadly incident in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah occurred at a WFP warehouse believed to have been holding bags of flour, according to Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City.

“What happened today just echoes the scene yesterday at the distribution point” in Rafah in southern Gaza, where at least three Palestinians were killed as they tried to get assistance, Mahmoud reported.

“People are hungry. They’re driven by desperation,” he said. “Desperation fuels chaos, and hunger creates the acts of violence that we’ve been seeing.”


Gaza healthcare ‘on death row’, NGOs warn

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), Oxfam, and other non-profit groups are calling for “full, independent and international investigations into the attacks on healthcare in Gaza as violations of international humanitarian law”.

In the open letter, the organisations also urged the international community to “take meaningful steps to ensure those responsible are held legally to account”.

They added that a number of Gaza health facilities have been hit in Israeli attacks over the past two weeks, which they said “amount to Israel effectively placing Gaza’s health care – and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians – on death row”.

The targeted facilities include:

  • Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which was struck by Israeli fire on May 13 and 19
  • European Hospital, also in Khan Younis, hit on May 13 and is now not functioning
  • Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals in northern Gaza
  • Al-Awda Hospital, also in northern Gaza


Around the Network
SvennoJ on 28 May 2025

Israel using ‘aid as a weapon of war’: Palestinian UN envoy

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, has been speaking at the Security Council session on the situation in the Middle East.

Here are some of his remarks:

  • “There is cruelty in the bombardments, cruelty in the wanton destruction, cruelty in the blockade, and even cruelty in the distribution of very limited aid.”
  • “We will be asked, ‘How can you complain about food finally being delivered after having complained about starvation and famine? Isn’t any aid better than no aid at all?'”
  • “Who said these should be our choices? A full blockade against an entire civilian population, including 1 million children, depriving them of food, water, medicine, shelter – or a system of aid that is degrading, discriminatory, limited to food and limited in quantity, and which aims at the forcible displacement of the population and at facilitating the unlawful seizing of land.”
  • “Do you know how we know this is the objective? Israeli officials are openly telling the world that this is their intention – statement after statement, threat after threat. After seeing starvation being used as a weapon of war, now we see aid being used as a weapon of war. Should we remain silent because the alternative is worse? Or should we stand up for the humanity of Palestinians, of all civilians in any situation of armed conflict?”
  • “The images of hungry, desperate people storming out of the cages they were forced into, in order to get aid, is gut-wrenching and heartbreaking. These are people, human beings, deprived of water, food, medicine for so long, and hanging to life by a thread.”

Israeli envoy slams UN aid chief for genocide accusation

Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, has opened his address before the Security Council by denouncing last week’s shooting in Washington, DC, that killed two Israeli embassy workers.

Danon said every person in the world who has described Israel as “a genocidal regime” since it began its war on Gaza in October 2023 shares responsibility for the killings.

He attacked Tom Fletcher, the UN’s humanitarian chief, for accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. “I have demanded the [retraction] of this baseless and vile accusation, but he has not so far,” Danon told the council.

Israeli officials have routinely lambasted the UN as well as the world’s top human rights groups and other experts for their criticism of Israel’s bombardment, ground operations and blockade of Gaza.

If you have not a single ounce of defense or credibility left, blame everything on others.



SvennoJ on 28 May 2025

Israel ‘lashing out’ in face of global condemnation

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara says the attacks levied by Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, at the Security Council should come as no surprise.

“I see the rhetorical escalation on the part of Israel as coming in parallel with the desperation in Israel,” Bishara explained.

“They are on the defensive, knowing all too well that they lost their public relations campaign and that their reputation around the world is in the mud” amid the country’s deadly bombardment and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, he said.

“And hence, they are lashing out,” Bishara added. “None of this is unexpected.”


Trump says US ‘dealing with the whole situation in Gaza’

US President Donald Trump has been asked whether he has any frustrations with the way Netanyahu has pursued the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

“No, we’re dealing with the whole situation in Gaza, we’re getting food to the people of Gaza,” Trump responded in an apparent reference to a US-backed Gaza aid distribution scheme that has spurred chaos and the killings of at least 10 Palestinian aid seekers this week.

The US president called his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to the podium in the Oval Office to provide an update on efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire agreement.

“I think that we are on the precipice of sending out a new term sheet that, hopefully, will be delivered later on today,” Witkoff told reporters.

“The president is going to review it, and I have some very good feelings about getting to a long-term resolution – temporary ceasefire and a long-term resolution, a peaceful resolution of that conflict.”

It's all going according to plan, Trump's riviera of the Middle East. Right on track to get the Palestinians out of the way.



SvennoJ on 28 May 2025

Death toll reaches 4 in WFP warehouse incident

We have reported earlier that two people died after Palestinians burst into the UN’s World Food Programme warehouse in the central Gaza Strip, pushing each other in the shadow of the cavernous facility’s main door.

We now know from officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital that two people were fatally crushed in the crowd, while two others died of gunshot wounds.

Many aid seekers could be seen carrying large bags of flour as they fought their way back out into the sunlight through throngs of people pressing to get inside. Each bag of flour weighs about 25kg (55 pounds).


Palestinians carry bags of flour after storming a UN World Food Programme warehouse in Zawaida in central Gaza on May 28

Gaza government rejects Israel’s ‘blatant lie’ of Hamas stockpiling flour

Gaza’s Government Media Office has accused Israel of spreading misinformation after a video circulated showing hungry Palestinians storming a UN World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse in central Gaza.

In a statement, the office said the incident was the result of the “catastrophic humanitarian reality” caused by Israel’s aid blockade and systematic starvation of Palestinians. It rejected Israeli army claims that the Hamas-run government in Gaza was stockpiling flour and deliberately withholding aid.

“This is a blatant lie and part of a deliberate campaign to evade international accountability for using hunger as a weapon of war – a crime that amounts to genocide under international law,” the statement read, adding that the warehouse in question was under full UN control.

It also said Israeli forces had prevented the WFP from distributing flour and food aid to Palestinian families. Instead, it ordered them to be distributed exclusively to bakeries, the office said, calling it part of a wider strategy of “engineered starvation”.

It also noted that thousands of aid trucks have been stranded at the crossings into Gaza for nearly 90 days as Israel maintains a crippling blockade on the bombarded territory, where a famine looms.



SvennoJ on 28 May 2025

Israel seeking to ‘deliberately starve, relentlessly bomb’ Gaza: Advocate

Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), says the Israeli military’s management of aid distribution in Gaza is “very humiliating and degrading”.

He accused Israel of seeking to “undermine the human dignity of the Palestinian people, especially those who have suffered throughout 20 months of an Israeli deliberate and systematic starvation policy – one of the most heinous crimes in our time”.

“Those committing genocide, including starving civilians, amongst them women, children, the sick and the wounded, will never care about feeding them or offering them food aid, especially when their goal of the genocidal war is to exterminate the Palestinian people and eradicate their presence,” Sourani said in a statement.

“How would a hand that kills and starves suddenly turn into a helping hand that feeds its victims? No logic, morals or laws can justify this. What Israel is doing today is trying to dominate the population’s sustenance and deliberately starve them while relentlessly bombing them.”

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/28/middleeast/gaza-starving-wfp-warehouse-famine-intl-latam


Israeli aid scheme ‘a way to pick who gets to live, who gets to die’

Khaled Elgindy, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University in the US, says it was striking to see the “difference in priorities” between the US and Israel on one hand, and the rest of the world on the other, earlier today at the UN Security Council.

Elgindy noted that during the council debate in New York City, “the UK and France and Denmark and others were very clear in their rejection of Israel’s very cynical humanitarian mechanism to replace the existing one in Gaza”.

“The US, on the other hand, offered unconditional support for what Israel was doing on the ground, whether it was the humanitarian aid mechanism or its military actions,” he told Al Jazeera.

Elgindy added that the purpose of Israel’s humanitarian aid scheme is not to appease Western criticism or alleviate humanitarian suffering, but rather to further its goals in Gaza, including clearing out the north and eventually forcing Palestinians out of the Strip.

“Even if [the Israeli scheme] were working at maximum capacity, it would only ever serve 60 percent of the population of Gaza. So what happens to the other 40 percent? We’re talking about almost a million people,” Elgindy said.

“It is a Hobbesian choice for Gazans. But it’s also a way for Israel to get to pick and choose who gets to live and who gets to die, or leave. So really there is no choice here at all.”



SvennoJ on 28 May 2025

Journalist among nine killed in latest Israeli strikes on Gaza

At least nine Palestinians have been killed in new Israeli air raids targeting multiple areas across the Gaza Strip, including a journalist, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.

The journalist was identified as Moataz Mohammed Rajab, who worked for the Al-Quds al-Youm TV. He was killed alongside several others when Israeli forces struck a vehicle on al-Nafaq street in Gaza City.

A teenage boy was also killed in a separate strike on Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood.

Two others were killed in Bani Suheila, a town near the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, while another person was killed in air raids that struck several neighbourhoods in Khan Younis.

Journalist death toll in Gaza rises to 221

Gaza’s Government Media Office says the number of journalists killed since October 2023 has risen to 221, following the death of Moataz Mohammed Rajab, a cameraman and editor for Al-Quds al-Youm TV channel.

Rajab was killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City earlier today, alongside several others.

In a statement, the Media Office condemned what it called the “systematic targeting and assassination” of Palestinian journalists by Israeli forces, urging international journalist unions and media organisations to denounce the killings and take legal action to hold Israel accountable.

It accused the US and other Western countries of being complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide and said it holds them “fully responsible for these heinous and brutal crimes”.

“We demand urgent international intervention to stop the killing of journalists in Gaza and to ensure their protection,” the statement read.


Gaza death toll rises

At least 63 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since dawn, according to medical sources speaking to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

UNRWA chief describes ‘summary execution’ of Gaza staff member

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has provided new details about the killing of an UNRWA staff member in March.

In a post on X, Lazzarini said the man named Kamal left his home in Rafah on March 23 wearing a UN vest and driving a UN-marked vehicle. “Within an hour, UNRWA lost contact with him. His whereabouts unknown for a week,” he said.

“On 30 March, Kamal’s body was discovered near a mass grave, alongside the human remains of the PRCS humanitarian workers killed by the Israeli Forces. Kamal was killed through one or multiple blows to the back of his skull. He was then buried next to the other @PalestineRCS team members.”

Israel faced widespread condemnation after its forces opened fire on Gaza health workers who were travelling in a convoy of ambulances to try to help injured people in Rafah. Fifteen first responders were killed in what the Palestine Red Crescent Society described as a “massacre”.

Lazzarini said that despite several requests for information from the Israeli government on what happened to Kamal, it did not receive a response.

“Kamal worked with UNRWA for over 20 years. He left his wife and children behind. He is one case too many. UNRWA teams are not a target. Impunity opens the door to more atrocities,” Lazzarini said, urging an independent probe into the killings of Kamal and other UNRWA staff members.