Israeli bombs kill 132 in Gaza, hospitals in north ‘out of service’
Israeli forces continue bombarding Gaza, killing at least 132 Palestinians, including 36 in the so-called “safe zone” of al-Mawasi.
The intensified Israeli attacks have killed 464 people in the past week and rendered all the public hospitals in northern Gaza out of service, says the Health Ministry. Israel’s goal is to make Gaza unlivable, says analyst
Daniel Levy is a Middle East analyst and the president of the US Middle East Project. He says as the bombardment of Gaza continues, the Israeli intent for the Palestinian enclave is becoming clearer.If you’re just joining us
Here’s the latest:
Fierce Israeli bombardment continues across Gaza, with at least 125 Palestinians killed today, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
At least four journalists are among the dead, our colleagues on the ground report, bringing the number of media workers killed during the war to more than 230.
The Indonesian Hospital – northern Gaza’s last functional public hospital – has been knocked out of service in the latest attacks, the Health Ministry says.
Israeli quadcopters are hovering around the facility, threatening hospital staff and patients, reports Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud from Gaza City.
Netanyahu’s office says Israeli negotiators in Qatar are “working to exhaust every possibility for a deal”. Any arrangement, it insists, must include the release of all Israeli captives and Hamas’s disarmament and exile.Five Palestinian journalists among recent victims
Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that five journalists have now been confirmed killed in recent Israeli attacks, up from the previously reported three.
Among them are husband and wife Khaled Abu Seif and Nour Qandil, several of whose relatives were also killed by Israel, they reported.‘Race against time to avoid famine’: WFP
The UN’s World Food Programme has issued another urgent call for aid to enter Gaza, where more than half a million people face starvation.
“We’re in a race against time to avoid famine,” the WFP said in a post on X. “If we wait until after a famine is confirmed, it will already be too late for too many.”NRC slams US-backed Gaza aid plan as ‘deliberate stalling tactic’
Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, has criticised the plan to use a US-backed group for aid deliveries in the Gaza Strip.
“The perverse idea that private security companies should take over humanitarian work is a deliberate stalling tactic,” he wrote on X, noting that Israel “has never given any evidence that the system that worked well and saved lives had any major flaws”.
Egeland added: “Gaza’s children, women, families are deliberately starved. We are prevented from saving lives.”US company can start Gaza aid distribution on May 24: Israeli minister
Israel Army Radio has quoted Defence Minister Israel Katz as saying a US company will soon begin delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, which has been completely cut off from assistance for 11 weeks.
Katz said the company “can start distributing humanitarian aid on May 24”.
As we’ve reported, Israel’s plan to take over the aid delivery process and distribute it independently, excluding existing aid networks, has drawn backlash from the UN, which says the system would not be safe or impartial.
“I emphasise the UN will not participate in any so-called aid operation that does not adhere to international law and humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told an Arab League summit yesterday in Baghdad, Iraq.
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher has described the plan as a “fig leaf for further violence and displacement” of Palestinians in Gaza.
