[🇧🇩] Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?

[Saif]

Gaza rescuers say more than 50 killed as Israel orders evacuations

Plumes of smoke rose Thursday over the northern Gaza Strip, where Israel's military urged civilians to evacuate, as rescuers said Israeli strikes across the territory killed more than 50 people.

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Gaza rescuers say more than 50 killed as Israel orders evacuations
AFP Gaza City, Palestine
Published: 23 May 2025, 09: 38

A picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing in the background above Gaza during Israeli bombardment in the besieged Palestinian territory on 22 May, 2025. AFP

Plumes of smoke rose Thursday over the northern Gaza Strip, where Israel's military urged civilians to evacuate, as rescuers said Israeli strikes across the territory killed more than 50 people.

The latest evacuation warning for parts of Gaza City and neighbouring areas came hours after the United Nations said it had begun distributing around 90 truckloads of aid in Gaza -- the first such delivery since Israel imposed a total blockade on 2 March.

The World Food Programme (WFP) later said a "handful of bakeries" had resumed making and distributing bread, while the United Nations said some trucks were "intercepted" by residents.

Under global pressure to lift the blockade and halt a newly expanded offensive, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was open to a "temporary ceasefire", but reaffirmed the military aimed to bring all of Gaza under its control.

In an Arabic-language statement on Thursday, the military said it was acting "with intense force" in 14 areas of the northern Gaza Strip, including parts of Gaza City and the Jabalia refugee camp.

A map posted alongside the warning showed a swath of territory marked in red, with the army accusing "terrorist organisations" of operating there and urging civilians to move south.

The vast majority of Gaza's 2.4 million have been displaced at least once during the war.

After Israel announced it would allow in limited aid, Netanyahu said it was necessary to "avoid a humanitarian crisis in order to preserve our freedom of operational action".

In Gaza, the Hamas government media office reported the arrival of 87 aid trucks.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that "a small number of trucks carrying flour were intercepted by residents and their contents removed".

Dujarric said it "was not a criminal act with armed men", but "what I've been referring to sometimes as self-distribution, which I think only reflects the very high level of anxiety that people in Gaza are feeling not knowing when the next humanitarian delivery will take place".

Palestinian children wait in front of a hot meal distribution truck at a displacement camp near Gaza City's port on 22 May, 2025. AFP

'Hunger and disease'
Palestinians have been scrambling for basic supplies, with Israel's blockade leading to critical food and medicine shortages.

UN agencies have said that the amount of aid entering Gaza falls far short of what is required to ease the crisis.

Hossam Abu Aida, a 38-year-old displaced Palestinian in Gaza City said: "I am tormented for my children".

"For them, I fear hunger and disease more than I do Israeli bombardment," he told AFP.

AFP footage showed bags of recently delivered flour at a bakery in the central city of Deir el-Balah, where workers and a host of machines began kneading, shaping, baking and packaging stack after stack of pita bread.

"Some aid is finally reaching Gazans in desperate need, but it's moving far too slowly," said WFP executive director Cindy McCain.

"A handful of bakeries in south and central Gaza... have resumed bread production after dozens of trucks were finally able to collect cargo from the Kerem Shalom border crossing and deliver it overnight," the WFP said in a statement.

Israel stepped up its offensive at the weekend, vowing to defeat Gaza's Hamas rulers, whose October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war.

Gaza's civil defence agency reported "52 martyrs" in Israeli air strikes across the territory on Thursday.

AFP footage of northern Gaza showed numerous plumes of smoke rising from the area over the course of the afternoon.

There was no comment from the Israeli military on any strikes on Thursday.

'Emboldening Hamas'

The intensified Israeli offensive has drawn criticism, with EU foreign ministers agreeing on Tuesday to review the bloc's cooperation accord with Israel.

Sweden said it would press the 27-nation European Union to impose sanctions on Israeli ministers, while Britain suspended free-trade negotiations with Israel.

In a joint statement, the leaders of Britain, Canada and France slammed the escalation and the "wholly inadequate" resumption of aid, warning of the possibility of "concrete actions in response".

Netanyahu hit back on Thursday, saying the three leaders "may think that they're advancing peace. They're not. They're emboldening Hamas to continue fighting forever."

Hamas's October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Gaza's health ministry says at least 3,613 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes on 18 March, taking the war's overall toll to 53,762, mostly civilians.

During the Hamas attack, militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israel military says are dead.

Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel would be ready "if there is an option for a temporary ceasefire to free hostages", noting that at least 20 captives held by Hamas and its allies were still believed to be alive.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 16 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 16 people on Friday across the Palestinian territory, where Israel has ramped up its military offensive in recent days.

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Israeli strikes kill 16 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 24 May, 2025, 00:41

People pack items in a room in a damaged building following Israeli bombardment in the Bureij camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip on Friday. | AFP photo

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 16 people on Friday across the Palestinian territory, where Israel has ramped up its military offensive in recent days.

The toll from ‘Israeli strikes in various areas across the Gaza Strip since midnight’ totalled 16 dead, agency official Mohammed al-Mughayyir said.

He said there were also dozens of people wounded in the attacks, which mainly hit the centre and south of the territory.

In Gaza’s north, Al-Awda hospital reported Friday that three of its staff were injured ‘after Israeli quadcopter drones dropped bombs’ on the facility.

The Israeli army said that over the past day, its forces had attacked ‘military compounds, weapons storage facilities and sniper posts’ in Gaza.

‘In addition, the air force struck over 75 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip,’ it added.

Aid began trickling into the Gaza Strip on Monday for the first time in more than two months, amid mounting condemnation of an Israeli blockade that has sparked severe shortages of food and medicine.

COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said that on Thursday 107 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza.

The UN’s World Food Programme said the following day that 15 of its trucks ‘were looted late last night in southern Gaza, while en route to WFP-supported bakeries’.

WFP executive director Cindy McCain had previously said some aid was finally reaching Gazans, ‘but it’s moving far too slowly’.

Israel resumed major operations in Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire.

On Friday, Gaza’s health ministry said at least 3,673 people had been killed in the territory since then, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,822, mostly civilians.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Meanwhile, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Friday said ‘Palestinians in Gaza are enduring what may be the cruelest phase of this cruel conflict’ as Israel ramps up its military offensive.

‘For nearly 80 days, Israel blocked the entry of life-saving international aid,’ he said in a statement. ‘The entire population of Gaza is facing the risk of famine.

‘The Israeli military offensive is intensifying with atrocious levels of death and destruction.

‘Today, 80 per cent of Gaza has been either designated an Israeli-militarised zone or an area where people have been ordered to leave.’

Israel resumed major operations in Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire.

Aid also began trickling into the Gaza Strip on Monday for the first time in more than two months, amid condemnation of the Israeli blockade that sparked severe shortages of food and medicine.

‘Israel has clear obligations under international humanitarian law,’ Guterres said. ‘As the occupying power, it must agree to allow and facilitate the aid that is needed.’​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 15 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 15 people on Saturday across the Palestinian territory, where Israel has ramped up its military offensive in recent days.

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Israeli strikes kill 15 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 25 May, 2025, 00:10

A child cries as Palestinians gather to receive a hot meal at a food distribution point in the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday. | AFP photo

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 15 people on Saturday across the Palestinian territory, where Israel has ramped up its military offensive in recent days.

Civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP the dead included a couple who were killed with their two young children in a pre-dawn strike on a house in the Amal quarter of the southern city of Khan Yunis.

To the west of the city, at least five people were killed by a drone strike on a crowd of people that had gathered to wait for aid trucks, he said.

At Khan Yunis’s Nasser Hospital, tearful mourners gathered around white-shrouded bodies outside.

‘Suddenly, a missile from an F-16 destroyed the entire house, and all of them were civilians—my sister, her husband and their children,’

said Wissam Al-Madhoun. ‘We found them lying in the street. What did this child do to Netanyahu?’

The Israeli military said it was unable to comment on individual strikes without their ‘precise geographical coordinates’.

In a statement, the military said that over the past day the air force had struck more than 100 targets across the territory, including members of ‘terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip, military structures, underground routes and additional terrorist infrastructure’.

Israel resumed operations in Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire.

Gaza’s health ministry said Saturday that at least 3,747 people had been killed in the territory since then, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,901, mostly civilians.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said on Friday that Palestinians were enduring ‘the cruellest phase’ of the war in Gaza, where a lengthy Israeli blockade has led to widespread shortages of food and medicine.

Limited aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip restarted on Monday for the first time since March 2, amid mounting condemnation of the Israeli blockade.

The World Food Programme said 15 of its trucks were looted late Thursday night, calling on Israel ‘to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster’.

‘Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity,’ it said.

The Gaza City municipality, meanwhile, warned Saturday of ‘a potential large-scale water crisis’ due to a lack of supplies needed for urgent repairs.

It said damage from the war had ‘affected the majority of Gaza’s water infrastructure, leaving large portions of the population vulnerable to severe water shortages’.

It added that temperatures were rising and demand was expected to increase.​

 

[Saif]

UN says more food needed in Gaza as looting hampers deliveries

Israeli airstrikes killed at least six Palestinians guarding aid trucks against looters, Hamas officials said on Friday, as the head of the United Nations warned that only a "teaspoon" of aid was getting in following Israel's 11-week-long blockade. The Israeli military said 107 trucks carrying flo

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UN says more food needed in Gaza as looting hampers deliveries

REUTERS
Published :
May 25, 2025 20:58
Updated :
May 25, 2025 20:58

Palestinians wait to receive aid, in Gaza City, May 25, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Stringer

Israeli airstrikes killed at least six Palestinians guarding aid trucks against looters, Hamas officials said on Friday, as the head of the United Nations warned that only a "teaspoon" of aid was getting in following Israel's 11-week-long blockade.

The Israeli military said 107 trucks carrying flour and other foodstuffs as well as medical supplies entered the Gaza Strip from the Kerem Shalom crossing point on Thursday, for a total of 305 since Monday when the blockade was relaxed.

But getting the supplies to people sheltering in tents and other makeshift accommodation has been fitful and UN officials say at least 500 to 600 trucks of aid are needed every day.

So far, an umbrella network of Palestinian aid groups said, 119 aid trucks have got past the Kerem Shalom crossing point and into Gaza since Israel eased its blockade on Monday in the face of an international outcry.

Despite the relaxation of the blockade, distribution has been hampered by looting by groups of men, some of them armed, near the city of Khan Younis, an umbrella network representing Palestinian aid groups said.

"They stole food meant for children and families suffering from severe hunger," the network said in a statement, which also condemned Israeli airstrikes on security teams protecting the trucks.

The U.N. World Food Programme said 15 trucks carrying flour to WFP-supported bakeries had been looted, which it said reflected the dire conditions facing Gazans.

"Hunger, desperation and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming is contributing to rising insecurity," it said in a statement.

A Hamas official said six members of a security team tasked with guarding the shipments were killed.

Israel imposed the blockade in early March, accusing Hamas of stealing aid meant for civilians. Hamas rejects the charge, saying a number of its own fighters have been killed protecting the trucks from armed looters.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which generally considers all armed Palestinians as militants.

"Hamas constantly calls the looters 'guards' or protectors' to mask the fact that they're disturbing the aid process," a military official said.

'DESPERATION'

With most of Gaza's 2 million population squeezed into an ever narrowing zone on the coast and in the area around the southern city of Khan Younis by Israel's military operation, international pressure to get aid in quickly has ratcheted up.

"Without rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access, more people will die – and the long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound," said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

A German government spokesperson said the aid was "far too little, too late and too slow," adding that delivery of supplies had to be increased significantly.

Israel has announced that a new system, sponsored by the United States and run by private contractors, will soon begin operations from four distribution centres in the south of Gaza, but many details of how the system will work remain unclear.

The UN has already said it will not work with the new system, which it says will leave aid distribution conditional on Israel's political and military aims.

Israel says its forces will only provide security for the centres and will not distribute aid themselves.

As the aid has begun to trickle in, the Israeli military has continued the intensified ground and air operation launched last week, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would end with Israel taking full control of the Gaza Strip.

The military said it had conducted more strikes in Gaza overnight, hitting 75 targets, including weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers. Palestinian medical services said at least 25 people had been killed in the strikes.

Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas militants' cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed some 1,200 people by Israeli tallies and saw 251 hostages abducted into Gaza.

The Israeli campaign has since killed more than 53,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the coastal strip. Aid groups say signs of severe malnutrition are widespread.​

 

[Saif]

Father in intensive care after nine children killed in Israeli strike on Gaza

The father of nine children killed in an Israeli military strike in Gaza over the weekend remains in intensive care, said a doctor on Sunday at the hospital treating him. Hamdi Al-Najjar, himself a doctor, was at home in Khan Younis with his 10 children when an Israeli air strike occurred, killing

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Father in intensive care after nine children killed in Israeli strike on Gaza

REUTERS
Published :
May 25, 2025 22:03
Updated :
May 25, 2025 22:03

Hamdi Al-Najjar, a wounded Palestinian father and doctor who, according to medics, lost nine of his children in an Israeli strike on Friday, lies in a hospital bed in the Intensive Care Unit at Nasser Hospital after being injured in the same strike, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 25, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

The father of nine children killed in an Israeli military strike in Gaza over the weekend remains in intensive care, said a doctor on Sunday at the hospital treating him.

Hamdi Al-Najjar, himself a doctor, was at home in Khan Younis with his 10 children when an Israeli air strike occurred, killing all but one of them. He was rushed to the nearby Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza where he is being treated for his injuries.

Abdul Aziz Al-Farra, a thoracic surgeon, said Najjar had undergone two operations to stop bleeding in his abdomen and chest and that he sustained other wounds including to his head.

"May God heal him and help him," Farra said, speaking by the bedside of an intubated and heavily bandaged Najjar.

The Israeli military has confirmed it conducted an air strike on Khan Younis on Friday but said it was targeting suspects in a structure that was close to Israeli soldiers.

The military is looking into claims that "uninvolved civilians" were killed, it said, adding that the military had evacuated civilians from the area before the operation began.

According to medical officials in Gaza, the nine children were aged between one and 12 years old. The child that survived, a boy, is in a serious but stable condition, the hospital has said.

Najjar's wife, Alaa, also a doctor, was not at home at the time of the strike. She was treating Palestinians injured in Israel's more than 20-month war in Gaza against Hamas in the same hospital where her husband and son are receiving care.

"She went to her house and saw her children burned, may God help her," said Tahani Yahya Al-Najjar of her sister-in-law.

"With everything we are going through only God gives us strength."

Tahani visited her brother in hospital on Sunday, whispering to him that she was there: "You are okay, this will pass."

On Saturday, Ali Al-Najjar said that he rushed to his brother’s house after the strike, which had sparked a fire that threatened to collapse the home, and searched through the rubble. "We started pulling out charred bodies," he said.

In its statement about the air strike, the Israeli military said Khan Younis was a "dangerous war zone".

Practically all of Gaza's more than 2 million Palestinians have been displaced after more than 20 months of war.

The war erupted when Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, killing around 1,200, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 more.

The retaliatory campaign, that Israel has said is aimed at uprooting Hamas and securing the release of the hostages, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, Gazan health officials say.

Most of them are civilians, including more than 16,500 children under the age of 18, according to Gaza's health ministry.​

 

[Saif]

Gaza rescuers say 22 killed in Israeli strikes

Rescuers in Gaza said 22 people were killed and dozens more wounded in Israeli air strikes across the Palestinian territory on Sunday. Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said seven people were killed in a strike on a home in Jabalia, in the north.

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Gaza rescuers say 22 killed in Israeli strikes
AFP Gaza City, Palestinian Territories
Published: 25 May 2025, 20: 15

Children play around waste in front of the closed UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, on 20 May 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. AFP

Rescuers in Gaza said 22 people were killed and dozens more wounded in Israeli air strikes across the Palestinian territory on Sunday.

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said seven people were killed in a strike on a home in Jabalia, in the north.

Some people were still under the debris, he added, as "the civil defence does not have search equipment or heavy equipment to lift the rubble to rescue the wounded and recover the martyrs".

Two more people, including a woman who was seven months pregnant, were killed in an attack targeting tents sheltering displaced people around Nuseirat in central Gaza, he said, adding doctors were unable to save the unborn child.

Also included in the toll were the civil defence's director of operations Ashraf Abu Nar and his wife, who were killed in a strike on their home in Nuseirat, according to Bassal.

Fatal strikes were also recorded around Deir el-Balah in the centre of the territory, Beit Lahia in the north, and the main southern city of Khan Yunis.

In all, civil defence teams recovered "at least 22 martyrs, including a number of children, and dozens of injured" on Sunday, with a number of people still missing, Bassal said.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strikes.

The military has stepped up its Gaza operations in recent days in what it has described as a renewed push to destroy Hamas.

On Saturday afternoon, the military said it had carried out strikes on more than 100 targets throughout Gaza over the past day.

Gaza's health ministry said Sunday that at least 3,785 people had been killed in the territory since a ceasefire collapsed on 18 March, taking the war's overall toll to 53,939, mostly civilians.

Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas agrees to US proposal on Gaza ceasefire, Palestinian official says

Hamas has agreed to a proposal by US special envoy Steve Witkoff for a Gaza ceasefire, a Palestinian official close to the group told Reuters on Monday, paving the way for a possible end to the war with Israel. The new proposal, which sees the release of ten hostages and 70 days of truce, was rece

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Hamas agrees to US proposal on Gaza ceasefire, Palestinian official says
REUTERS
Published :
May 26, 2025 20:54
Updated :
May 26, 2025 20:55

A drone view shows displaced Palestinians sheltering in tents set up near the rubble of buildings destroyed during the Israeli offensive, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City February 17, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas/Files

Hamas has agreed to a proposal by US special envoy Steve Witkoff for a Gaza ceasefire, a Palestinian official close to the group told Reuters on Monday, paving the way for a possible end to the war with Israel.

The new proposal, which sees the release of ten hostages and 70 days of truce, was received by Hamas through mediators.

"The proposal includes the release of ten living Israeli hostages held by Hamas in two groups in return for a 70-day ceasefire and a partial withdrawal from the Gaza Strip," the source said.

The proposal also sees the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners by Israel, including hundreds serving lengthy prison terms.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

On March 18, Israel effectively ended a January ceasefire agreement with Hamas and renewed its military campaign in Gaza. Hamas and allied factions began firing rockets and attacks two days later.

Hamas has said it is willing to free all remaining hostages seized by its gunmen in attacks on communities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and agree to a permanent ceasefire if Israel pulls out completely from Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel would only be willing to agree to a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of hostages, vowing that war can only end once Hamas is eradicated.

Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas militants' cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people by Israeli tallies with 251 hostages abducted into Gaza.

The conflict has killed nearly 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the coastal strip. Aid groups say signs of severe malnutrition are widespread.​

 

[Saif]

Head of US-backed Gaza aid foundation quits as further Israeli airstrikes kill dozens

The head of a U.S.-backed foundation set to begin aid deliveries in Gaza resigned unexpectedly, saying it could not uphold humanitarian principles amidst war, as an Israeli airstrike on a school building killed dozens of Palestinians sheltering inside. Reflecting growing international pressure on

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Head of US-backed Gaza aid foundation quits as further Israeli airstrikes kill dozens

REUTERS
Published :
May 26, 2025 19:43
Updated :
May 26, 2025 19:43

Palestinians inspect the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, May 26, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas/Files

The head of a U.S.-backed foundation set to begin aid deliveries in Gaza resigned unexpectedly, saying it could not uphold humanitarian principles amidst war, as an Israeli airstrike on a school building killed dozens of Palestinians sheltering inside.

Reflecting growing international pressure on Israel, close ally Germany said its recent attacks in Gaza were inflicting a toll on civilians that could no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas - the Palestinian militant group which ignited the war with its cross-border Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Israel has faced a mounting Western outcry this month as its military launched a new offensive in Gaza, already largely destroyed by Israeli bombardment during 19 months of conflict and where the population of 2 million is at risk of famine.

After nearly three months of blockade, Israeli authorities last week allowed a trickle of aid into the Palestinian enclave. But the few hundred trucks carried only a tiny fraction of the food needed.

Jake Wood, executive director of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for the past two months, said he resigned as it could not adhere “to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence”.

Wood’s exit on Sunday underscores the confusion surrounding the foundation, which has been boycotted by the United Nations and the aid groups supplying aid to Gaza before Israel imposed a total blockade on the enclave in March.

The groups say the new system will undermine the principle that aid should be overseen by a neutral party. Israel, which floated a similar plan earlier this year, says it will not be involved in distributing aid but it had endorsed the plan and would provide security for it.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which would use private contractors working under a broad Israeli security umbrella, said it would begin deliveries on Monday, with the aim of reaching one million Palestinians by the end of the week.

“We plan to scale up rapidly to serve the full population in the weeks ahead,” it said in a statement.

The Switzerland-registered foundation has been heavily criticised by the United Nations, whose officials have said the private company’s aid distribution plans are insufficient for reaching the more than two million Gazans.

The new operation will rely on four major distribution centres in southern Gaza that will screen families for involvement with Hamas militants, potentially using facial recognition or biometric technology, according to aid officials.

But many details of how the operation will work remain unexplained, and it was not immediately clear whether aid groups that have refused to cooperate with the foundation would still be able to send in trucks.

Hamas condemned the new system, saying it would “replace order with chaos, enforce a policy of engineered starvation of Palestinian civilians, and use food as a weapon during wartime”.

Israel says the system is aimed at separating aid from Hamas, which it accuses of stealing and using food to impose control over the population, a charge rejected by Hamas, which says it protects aid convoys from gangs of armed looters.

CONTINUED AIRSTRIKES

While the aid system is worked out, Israel has continued to carry out strikes across densely populated Gaza, killing at least 45 people on Monday, local health authorities said.

In Gaza City, medics said, 30 Palestinians, including displaced women and children who were seeking shelter in a Gaza City school, were killed in an airstrike. Images shared widely on social media showed what appeared to be badly burned bodies being pulled from the rubble.

Israel’s military confirmed that it had targeted the school. It said that the building was being used as a centre by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants to plan and organise attacks.

Farah Nussair, a survivor of the attack, said “just the tired ones” who needed food and water were in the school.

She added, a child in her lap: “We fled to the south, they bombed us in the south. We returned to the north, they bombed us in the north. We came to schools .... There is no security or safety, neither at schools, nor hospitals - not anywhere.”

Israel’s military said numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians. It did not provide evidence that the school was being used by militants.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, speaking to broadcaster WDR, said he planned to hold a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week to tell him “to not overdo it,” though for “historical reasons”, Germany would always be more guarded in its criticism than some European partners.

“Harming the civilian population to such an extent, as has increasingly been the case in recent days, can no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas terrorism,” Merz said.

Another strike on a house in Jabalia, adjacent to Gaza City, killed at least 15 other people, medics said.

Israel stepped up military operations in the enclave in early May, saying it is seeking to eliminate Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and bring back remaining hostages.

The campaign, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said will end with Israel in complete control of Gaza, has squeezed the population into an ever-narrowing zone in coastal areas and around the southern city of Khan Younis.

The Israeli campaign, triggered after Hamas-led Islamist militants stormed Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, has devastated Gaza and pushed nearly all of its residents from their homes.

The offensive has killed more than 53,000 people in Gaza, many of them civilians, according to its health authorities.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas-led groups execute four for looting aid trucks amid some Gaza dissent

Hamas has executed four men for looting some of the aid trucks that have begun entering Gaza, sources familiar with the incident said on Monday, as a clan leader in southern Gaza issued a challenge to the militant group over guarding the convoys. One source said the four were involved in an incide

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Hamas-led groups execute four for looting aid trucks amid some Gaza dissent

REUTERS
Published :
May 26, 2025 19:02
Updated :
May 26, 2025 19:02

A truck carries humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Israel, November 11, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Amir Cohen/Files

Hamas has executed four men for looting some of the aid trucks that have begun entering Gaza, sources familiar with the incident said on Monday, as a clan leader in southern Gaza issued a challenge to the militant group over guarding the convoys.

One source said the four were involved in an incident last week when six security officials were killed by an Israeli airstrike as they were working to prevent gang members from hijacking aid trucks.

"The four criminals, who were executed, were involved in the crimes of looting and causing the death of members of a force tasked with securing aid trucks," one of the sources told Reuters.

Seven other suspects were being pursued, according to a statement issued by an umbrella group identifying itself as the "Palestinian Resistance".

Humanitarian assistance began trickling into Gaza last week after Israel yielded to international pressure and lifted a blockade it imposed in early March that has left half a million people facing starvation, according to a global hunger monitor.

Aid groups have said that deliveries have been hampered by looting, but they have blamed Israel for creating a situation in which hundreds of thousands of people have been driven to desperation by the blockade.

Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies, and the issue of control over the aid trucks has been hotly disputed.

Israeli military officials say the security teams put in place by Hamas are there to take delivery of the supplies not to protect them, but it has provided no evidence of Hamas looting since it eased its blockade last week.

Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007, has long cracked down hard on signs of dissent among Palestinians in Gaza but it has faced sizeable protests in recent months over the war and faced challenges to its control by armed groups of looters, some of whom it has punished by shooting them in the legs in public.

Yasser Abu Shabab, a leader of a large clan in the Rafah area, now under full Israeli army control, said he was building up a force to secure aid deliveries into some parts of the enclave. He published images of his armed men receiving and organising the traffic of aid trucks.

Hamas, which is unable to operate in the Rafah area where Abu Shabab has some controls, has accused him of looting international aid trucks in previous months and maintaining connections with Israel.

On a Facebook page in his name Abu Shabab denies that he has acted as an alternative to the government or other institutions and rejects accusations of looting.

On the page Abu Shabab is described as a "grassroots leader who stood up against corruption and looting" and who protected aid convoys.

But a Hamas security official called Abu Shabab a "tool used by the Israeli occupation to fragment the Palestinian internal front".

Asked if the UN was working with Abu Shabab, a spokesperson for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said it did not pay anyone to guard aid trucks.

"What we do is talk to communities regularly, build trust and engage with the authorities on the urgent need for more aid to come in through more routes and more crossings," the spokesperson said.​