- 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.
- The strikes come as Israel mobilises for a new ground assault on Gaza and resumes ceasefire talks with Hamas in Qatar.
- Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 53,339 Palestinians and wounded 121,034, according to the Health Ministry. The Government Media Office updated the death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.
- An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Gaza ‘conditions on the ground are dangerous’: US envoy Witkoff
US President Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East says he believes “everyone is concerned about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza”.
“That said, it is a very complicated situation there,” he said in an interview with ABC News. “I think the issue now is how do we logistically get all of those [aid] trucks into Gaza? How do we set up the aid stations?”
Washington has been working on many initiatives including mobile kitchens that are going to be sent into the Palestinian enclave, said Witkoff.
Israel has said it will begin to allow more aid trucks to enter the Strip, he added.
“But it is complicated. It is logistically complicated. And the conditions on the ground are dangerous. There are still many unexploded shells all over the place. So we have to be mindful of that.”
Hospitals in Gaza’s north reeling from constant Israeli attacks: Doctor
Israeli attacks in Gaza’s hospitals are intensifying, says Dr Mohammed Abu Silmiyeh, director of Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza.
The Indonesian Hospital, also in the north, has been attacked by Israeli drones since Saturday, he told Al Jazeera.
“The medical teams are really suffering, and we have few numbers of medical teams and staff … and a lot of people are in need [of] more medical care,” Silmiyeh said by phone from the hospital.
The Indonesian Hospital is one of the main medical facilities in the north and now it’s largely out of service it is severely impacting chances for survival, said the doctor.
Thousands of sick and wounded people could die, he warned. Blood donations are urgently needed.
Israeli military announces beginning of widescale ground offensive in Gaza
The operation involves forces from the military’s Southern Command, operating on the ground in both northern and southern Gaza, according to a statement.
The ground forces are supported by Israel’s air force.
As we’ve been reporting, Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed at least 135 people today.
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.
Truce talks in Doha include ‘unacceptable’ ideas: Hamas
Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas leader, says some “unacceptable” proposals have been put forward during ceasefire talks in Qatar.
“We are still negotiating, and ideas that are unacceptable to us are being put forward, and we are also putting forward ideas,” Hamdan told Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency.
No final agreement has been reached, he added.
The release of an American-Israeli captive last week was an initiative by Hamas to accelerate the establishment of a ceasefire, he said.
The Palestinian people will decide who their leaders will be, and the only way to achieve this is through elections, Hamdan added.
Four babies among the dead in relentless Israeli attacks
Reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza
The Israeli air strikes in Gaza are still escalating as drones and fighter jets hover in the sky.
There has been a series of Israeli attacks in different parts of the Gaza Strip. These include the northern part, Gaza City and the central area as well as Rafah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
At least 135 people have been killed in recent hours as the Israeli army continues targeting residential homes or camps hosting Palestinians seeking refuge.
Dozens of Palestinians have been wounded, and doctors say they’re facing numerous challenges in treating injuries because of a lack of medical supplies.
The Civil Defence agency says many Palestinians are trapped under the rubble. In the last couple of hours, at least four infants have been killed.
More from Israeli military on start of Gaza ground assault
Israel’s army says it has initiated a major ground offensive from Gaza’s north to its south against Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.
“Over the past day, regular and reserve forces launched a large-scale ground operation throughout the northern and southern Gaza Strip as part of the opening salvo of Operation Gideon,” an Israeli army statement said.
The air force launched attacks on “more than 670 Hamas terrorist targets” in Gaza, it added.
“To date, the forces have eliminated dozens of terrorists, destroyed above and underground terrorist infrastructure, and captured controlled areas throughout the Gaza Strip.”
What we know about Israel’s ‘extensive’ military attack on Gaza
The Israeli military has expanded its assault on Gaza. Here’s more about the plan:
- The plan includes a widescale ground offensive in Gaza involving forces from the military’s Southern Command, operating in both northern and southern Gaza.
- PM Netanyahu has said the new assault is aimed at defeating Hamas and Israeli forces won’t “enter and then exit” Gaza, suggesting an indefinite military occupation.
- Under the plan, Netanyahu has also said Gaza’s population “will be moved, for its own protection”.
- Unnamed Israeli officials told news agencies the plan includes the “conquest” of the entire Gaza Strip.
- The Israeli plan also envisions the establishment of a new “humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza that will serve as a base for aid, which would no longer be overseen by independent humanitarian organisations.
- The Israeli plan has been widely condemned, with UN chief Guterres saying it will “inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza”.
Tens of thousands protest against Israel’s war at The Hague
The organisers are saying more than 100,000 people are marching through the city of The Hague. We haven’t seen anything like this since the start of the war. There are people from all walks of life. They have come from cities all over the Netherlands.
The protesters are wearing red clothes and are forming a red line. They want the government to draw a red line in its stance against Israel, meaning to end support through trade and the import and export of weapons.
Last week, the government sent a letter to Brussels requesting a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which means free trade. They want that to be reviewed because they say Israel is seen as breaking international law. But according to these protesters here, this is all far too late, and the government should just stop the association treaty immediately.
On Tuesday, there will be a meeting in Brussels to discuss all this. This protest will definitely exert pressure ahead of the meeting.
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.
Gaza’s children ‘stronger than adults, but can’t fight hunger’
While children in Gaza have shown enormous strength throughout the horrors of the war, the pain they endure, including from hunger, has become “overwhelming”, says Afeef Nessouli, a volunteer with medical group Glia International who often visits the Strip’s orphanages.
“They are suffering in a way they don’t understand and maybe have never had a full explanation as to why they are living in such an unfair, unjust manner,” he told Al Jazeera.
Netanyahu ‘taking impunity for a test ride’ every time Israel doubles down
Daniel Levy, a Middle East analyst and the president of the US Middle East Project, has commented on the reports and images coming out of Gaza today, including attacks on hospitals and the killing of more than 100 Palestinians.
“Where is humanity? Where is leadership? Is this a post-shame world, and how do we not slip into anger and rage that cannot be channelled?” he told Al Jazeera.
“We can ask these questions, but we know the answers. Israel has been clear in what it’s doing, and this is being documented in real time by medical workers, by journalists,” Levy said.
“It has been repeated by the Israeli leadership itself so many times: to use starvation, to make Gaza unliveable, to ethnically cleanse Gaza,” he argued, adding that this will carry on unless Israel is held accountable.
“The only way you change that equation is if Prime Minister Netanyahu, next time he goes out to test the water, he puts his finger in the air and says, ‘Is the impunity still in place?’ because every time Israel is doubling-down on their actions.
“That’s what he does – he takes impunity for a test drive, and he sees that the results come back as ‘Yes, impunity is still in place.’ Maybe there’s a rhetoric, maybe the Arab League summit says this or that, but in practice, Israel can get away with it. That’s what has to change.”
Levy added: “What will change this equation isn’t what more horrors they can visit upon the Palestinian population, but what may eventually change this equation is whether they are shown the stop sign.”
Photos: ‘Nakba Day’ protests across the world
Tens of thousands of people have rallied across the world in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and to mark the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Jewish militias, remembered as the Nakba, or catastrophe.
The Nakba resulted in the permanent mass displacement of Palestinians after the creation of Israel in 1948. Activists say that history is repeating itself today in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
More photos here.