LIVE UPDATES: Israeli attacks kill 85 in Gaza as ‘starvation-related deaths’ hit 29

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• Israeli strikes have killed at least 85 people in Gaza since the early hours of Thursday, medical sources tell Al Jazeera, and casualties are continuing to mount amid unrelenting bombardments.
• Gaza’s Health Ministry says 29 children and elderly people who died in recent days in Gaza have been registered as “starvation-related deaths”, and thousands more are at risk of starving.
• Israel has bombed towns in southern and eastern Lebanon, killing at least one person, in what has been described as some of the heaviest attacks since a ceasefire with Hezbollah was reached in November.
• Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 53,762 Palestinians and wounded 122,197, according to Gaza’s 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.

Some bakeries resume operations, WFP chief says

A number of bakeries supported by the World Food Programme (WFP) are up and running again in Gaza, says the UN organisation’s chief, Cindy McCain.

“But we need more wheat flour, more fuel, more safe access – so more ovens can fire back up to feed families desperately in need,” McCain said in a post on X.

Israeli army bombs house near Khan Younis, killing at least 3

Israeli forces have bombed a house in Abasan al-Jadida, east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing at least three people and wounding more.

We have been reporting on the Israeli army’s continued assault on Gaza, which has seen at least 16 people killed in attacks across the besieged enclave since midnight (21:00 GMT Thursday).

Josh Paul resigned over Gaza. What comes next?

Former US State Department staffer Josh Paul was the first US official to resign over Israel’s war on Gaza.

Paul joins Al Jazeera’s The Take to explain why he stepped down, his new efforts lobbying in Washington, and why he believes that US support for Israel’s war fuels conflict abroad and makes Americans less safe at home.

Gaza woman tells Al Jazeera she’s stopped thinking of the future

“We cannot think of our future, because somebody else is controlling it,” said Gaza resident Reem Zidiah.

The displaced Palestinian woman told Al Jazeera what life is like for her family trying to survive in Gaza City, as the UN warns there’s no safe place left from Israeli attacks.

Gaza becomes focus of UN meeting on civilians caught in conflict

While the meeting was about civilians caught in armed conflict globally, a lot of the focus turned to Gaza.

During the meeting, the UN said they estimate 28,000 women and girls have been killed in Gaza since October 2023.

That averages to one killed every hour. Denmark’s ambassador focused on the issue of impunity.

Next week the UN Security Council is expected to hold a meeting where they will focus solely on the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Israeli army prepares to demolish homes of Palestinians allegedly implicated in attack

The Israeli military has said it is preparing to demolish the occupied West Bank homes of two Palestinian men it has accused of assisting in the killing of an Israeli settler earlier this month.

“Engineering forces and fighters from the Ephraim Brigade operated in the village of [Burqin] to map the homes of terrorists Maher Samara and Jamil Samara, who helped terrorist Nael Samara carry out the shooting attack … in which the late Tzeela Gez was murdered and another Israeli citizen was injured,” it said in a post on X.

Tzeela Gez, a pregnant Israeli settler, was fatally wounded on May 14 when shots were fired at her vehicle as she travelled to hospital to give birth.

As we previously reported, Israeli settlers also attacked Burqin on Thursday night, setting fire to several houses and vehicles and wounding several people.

Israeli attacks kill 16 since dawn in Gaza

At least 16 people have been killed in early morning attacks by Israel on the Gaza Strip, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report.

The dead add to at least 85 people killed since the early hours of Thursday morning.

We will bring you more specific information on the rising daily death toll in Gaza as more information emerges.

If you’re just joining us

Let’s bring you up to speed:

• The Israeli military’s relentless assault on Gaza has continued in the early hours of Friday morning, with at least three people killed after fighter jets bombed a house in northern Gaza City.
• At least four people have also been killed after an Israeli drone bombed a crowd of Palestinians in the central city of Deir el-Balah.
• An estimated 81 percent of Gaza’s entire territory is now within Israeli-declared “militarised zones” or is subject to forced displacement orders by Israeli forces, according to the UN’s latest situation report.
• French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has said Israel’s accusations that Western countries are inciting hatred against it are “absurd and slanderous”.
• Nonprofit group the Movement for Quality Government in Israel has said it will file a legal challenge opposing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “brazen” appointment of a new head to the domestic security agency, Shin Bet.

Starvation-related deaths in Gaza

A limited number of trucks carrying aid has started to enter Gaza, 11 weeks into Israel’s total blockade of the Strip.

Aid agencies are warning that most of those minimal supplies have not reached soup kitchens, markets or hospitals, and at least 29 people, including children, have now died of starvation-related causes in Gaza in recent days.

Israeli drone strike kills 4 in central Gaza

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that four people have been killed in an Israeli drone attack on a group of people in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah this morning.

This is a breaking news story.

We will bring you more details as information emerges.

Desperate crowds scramble for Gaza’s first freshly baked bread in weeks

Desperately hungry Palestinians scrambled to try and get their share of Gaza’s first freshly baked bread in weeks, after Israel partially eased its total blockade of the Strip.

UN agencies have said the meagre amounts of aid getting into Gaza are nowhere near the levels needed to meet the needs of starving Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

Microsoft fires employee for pro-Palestine protest at Build conference

As we previously reported, pro-Palestine protesters interrupted Microsoft’s annual Build developer conference in Seattle this week over the company’s provision of Artificial Intelligence (AI) services to the Israeli military.

The tech giant has now confirmed that it has fired one employee, named as Joe Lopez, who shouted at Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during a speech he was giving on Monday.

Security escorted the software engineer out of the room as he shouted that he refused “to be complicit in this genocide”.

Lopez later sent an email to colleagues challenging Microsoft’s claims about how its Azure cloud computing platform is being used during Israel’s war on Gaza.

The Israeli military has been assisted by AI programs designed to produce targets with little human oversight. It is not clear to what extent foreign tech giants are directly involved.

Photos: Protests in Paris, Athens and Chicago against Israel’s war on Gaza

Police urge London’s Jewish community to be vigilant after attack

London’s Metropolitan Police have warned Jewish people in London of the “ever-present need” to be on guard following Wednesday night’s attack in Washington, DC, which saw two Israeli embassy staff shot and killed.

“We understand why the awful attack on the Jewish community in Washington, DC, on Wednesday evening will undoubtedly have increased concerns among Jewish Londoners,” a Met Police spokesman told The Telegraph newspaper.

“There is nothing to indicate that events in Washington have specifically increased the risk or threat here in London, but they are a reminder of the ever-present need to be vigilant. Our message to Jewish Londoners remains the same – please be alert, but do not be alarmed,” the spokesman added.

Israeli civil society group to challenge Israeli PM’s ‘brazen’ appointment of new spy chief

An Israeli non-profit said that it would file a legal petition to prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from appointing a new head of the Shin Bet domestic security agency.

Calling the appointment of Major General David Zini a “brazen and defiant” move, after the attorney general had said the government must hold off on the appointment of a new Shin Bet chief, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel – a civil society group – said it will submit another petition to the High Court of Justice “against this invalid appointment”.

Israel’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara said earlier that Netanyahu’s announcement naming a new domestic security chief was “flawed”, and which came a day after she said the government must hold off on the appointment.

“The prime minister acted contrary to legal guidance. There is serious concern that he acted while in a conflict of interest, and the appointment process is flawed,” Baharav-Miara said in a statement following an announcement from Netanyahu’s office that he had picked Zini to be the next Shin Bet chief.

On Wednesday, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the government’s decision to fire the previous domestic security chief Ronen Bar was “unlawful”.

The court said Netanyahu had a conflict of interest in moving to fire Bar, as the Shin Bet was conducting a probe into alleged ties between the prime minister’s close aides and Qatar.

Bar announced his resignation in April, saying he would step down after Netanyahu tried to remove him.

Head of activist group says Israeli police showed up at his door in middle of night

Alon-Lee Green, the co-director of Jewish-Palestinian grassroots activist group Standing Together, has said Israeli police showed up at his door in the early hours of this morning “to ask me questions and demand that I identify myself”.

“That’s it, just to threaten in the middle of the night. And thanks to Ben-Gvir,” he said, referring to Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

As we previously reported, Green was among 10 protesters detained by Israeli police on Sunday while trying to march from the southern city of Sderot to Gaza to protest Israel’s war on the Palestinian enclave.

The activists spent two days in detention before being released to house arrest. Standing Together said the arrests were an “outrageous attempt to silence opposition at the exact moment the government is expanding the war”.

Netanyahu faces growing criticism as Palestinian lawmaker removed from Knesset

Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing mounting criticism after a Palestinian member of the Knesset was removed during a speech in which he accused Israel’s leader of prolonging the war in Gaza for political gain.

‘Escalating’ Israeli attacks on hospitals, homes and destruction of ‘entire neighbourhoods’ in Gaza: UN

An estimated 81 percent of Gaza’s entire territory is now within Israeli-declared “militarised zones” or is subject to forced displacement orders by Israeli forces, according to the latest UN situation report on the war-torn territory.

The UN human rights office has also identified an “escalating pattern” of Israeli strikes on crowded hospitals, residential buildings and tent shelters in Gaza, as well as the “methodical destruction of entire neighbourhoods” in the territory.

According to the situation report, the intensified Israeli assault on Gaza – since the recent launch of the “Gideon’s Chariots” military campaign – has been carried out with “little, if any, care … to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza”.

“The use of weapons with wide area effects suggest deliberate, indiscriminate attack,” according to the UN human rights office.

Israeli forces wound Palestinians during West Bank raid

Israeli forces have wounded two Palestinians during a raid on the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues report. The severity of their condition is not currently known.

Israeli military raids have also been reported elsewhere in the occupied West Bank over recent hours, including:

• The city of Nablus, where Palestinian fighters have opened fire on Israeli forces
• The town of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem
• The Shuweika suburb, north of Tulkarem, where several Palestinian men have been arrested.

Suspect charged in Israeli embassy shooting

A 30-year-old suspect has been charged with the murder of foreign officials over the killing of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington, DC.

Elias Rodriguez has also been charged with causing death with a firearm and discharging a firearm in a crime of violence. The US attorney for Washington, DC, says her office is pursuing the case as a hate crime and a crime of “terrorism”.

Former Israeli PM says only Trump can stop Netanyahu’s ‘political’ war on Gaza

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has again criticised Israel’s war on Gaza, which he said was without “purpose”, and that only US President Donald Trump could make Netanyahu stop attacking the Palestinian territory.

A day after Olmert said that Netanyahu was waging a “political war” and that Israeli forces had committed “war crimes” in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, the former premier said there was no outcome from the war “that is worth the cost”.

Olmert told The Associated Press news agency that he understood why the EU and countries such as Britain, Canada and France had sent strong warnings to Israel this week, including threatening sanctions, after Israeli forces fired in the direction of foreign diplomats in the occupied West Bank.

But, Trump is key, he said.

“If at some point the president of the United States, President Trump, will take part and perhaps will summon the Israeli prime minister and say to him in no unclear terms that ‘enough is enough’ – that may be very useful,” Olmert said.

“I am against the expansion of the military operations in Gaza. I think that they bring us close to crimes because if there is no purpose and there is not a possible outcome that is worth the cost, then why should we continue?” he said.

French foreign minister calls Israel’s accusations of anti-Semitism ‘absurd’

Jean-Noel Barrot has responded to Israel’s accusation that European countries are inciting hatred by saying France is “indefectibly attached to the security of Israel”.

“Accusing of encouraging anti-Semitism or [supporting] Hamas whoever defends the two-state solution is absurd and slanderous,” Barrot said in a statement posted on X.

Barrot also said France supports Hamas being “disarmed and permanently excluded from the political future of Gaza”.

Following the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers on Wednesday, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused European governments of inciting anti-Semitic violence through their criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Israeli military intercepts missile fired from Yemen

Israel’s Home Front Command has sounded air raid sirens in several areas of the country after a missile was fired towards Israel from Yemen.

The Israeli military said it successfully intercepted the missile. No casualties or damage have been reported.

Gaza is a ‘nightmare’ and aid needs to be scaled up to match magnitude of crisis: IFRC  

Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), spoke to Al Jazeera earlier about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Here’s more of what Della Longa said:

• Colleagues are telling us that the situation is simply a nightmare for people. Of course, the news of aid re-entering the Gaza Strip is positive news. But it is really less than a drop in the ocean. Earlier today, here in Geneva, we had the president of the Palestine Red Crescent, and he was telling us that even if some trucks have entered, this doesn’t mean that aid was delivered to the people. So, until now, people did not get, basically, anything.
• Still, we need to have a humanitarian operation at scale, which means that if before the conflict started, we are talking about 500 or 600 trucks a day, now, probably we need a number that is double that because the needs remain. People are starving, there are issues to find clean water and to get aid support. It’s just a nightmare that is continuing to worsen day after day.
• People are desperate. We need much more humanitarian aid. We need food. We need water. We need commercial items. We need medicines. We need formula for babies. But at scale.

At least 29 Palestinians, including children, have died of starvation in Gaza

The World Health Organization has said two million Palestinians are going hungry across Gaza, with at least 29 people, including children, dying from starvation-related causes.

The Nasser Hospital, the Gaza Strip’s main functioning health facility, located in Khan Younis, has also said it is overwhelmed with children suffering from malnutrition.

Netanyahu says Trump expressed support for Israel’s war plan on call

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office said he spoke with President Trump following the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, on Wednesday night.

On that call, which comes amid rumours of a growing schism between the leaders over Netanyahu’s failure to end Israel’s war on Gaza, President Trump reportedly backed Israel’s war goals in the Palestinian enclave.

“President Trump expressed his support for the objectives set by Prime Minister Netanyahu for releasing the hostages, bringing about the elimination of Hamas and advancing the Trump plan,” Netanyahu’s office said in a post on X.

At least 3 dead after Israeli military bombs Gaza City home

The Israeli military’s relentless assault on Gaza continues into the early hours of Friday morning.

An Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent in the besieged enclave now reports that at least three people have been killed after Israeli fighter jets bombed a house on al-Jalaa Street in northern Gaza City.

We will bring you more information when we have it.

Israeli attacks push forcibly displaced Palestinians into ‘death trap’ evacuation zone

The majority of the people evacuated from the northern part of the Strip are being pushed into displacement sites on the coastal road on the western side of Gaza City, particularly in the sea port area. And from the eastern part of Khan Younis all the way to al-Mawasi evacuation zone that has not been largely safe for displaced people.

We’ve seen many people killed inside this particular evacuation zone that has evolved in the past months into more of a death trap for many displaced families from different parts of the Gaza Strip.

Also, the Israeli military did not stop its air strikes.

We are talking about an air strike in the northern part of the Strip where major residential blocks have been flattened and turned into fields of rubble, as well as three people reported killed in the city of Deir el-Balah as a drone strike targeted a residential flat in the heart of the city.

A recap of recent developments

• The Israeli military has continued its relentless bombardment of Gaza, killing at least 85 and wounding dozens of people across the territory since midnight on Thursday.
• At least four people are dead and approximately 50 are trapped under the rubble after Israeli fighter jets bombed a four-storey home in Jabalia, northern Gaza.
• A series of Israeli air strikes has also killed at least six security officers guarding humanitarian aid from looters, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.
• Israel has begun allowing small amounts of aid to enter Gaza, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the first aid distribution zones will be completed in the coming days.
• But UN agencies have warned the supplies entering Gaza are far below the level needed in the besieged enclave, as they call for the complete lifting of Israel’s blockade.
• A Chicago-born man arrested as the lone suspect in the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy workers in Washington, DC has been charged in federal court with two counts of first-degree murder.

Welcome to our live coverage

Hello, and thank you for joining our live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as its attacks on the occupied West Bank and the wider region.

Follow this page for round-the-clock updates and analyses on the latest developments.

You can read about key events from Thursday, May 22, here.