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Here is where things stand on Friday, 23 May 2025:
- UN chief Guterres says the aid Israel allowed into Gaza amounts to a “teaspoon”, says Israel continues to delay aid distribution.
- More than 50 Palestinians were killed or remain missing after an Israeli air strike on a residential building in northern Gaza.
- 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’s war on Gaza has killed at least 53,822 Palestinians and wounded 122,382, 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.
More from Palestinian envoy to the UN
Bamya, the Palestinian UN ambassador, has also urged the international community to ask questions of itself as Israel’s war on Gaza continues unabated.
“What are we going to say?” Bamya asked the Security Council.
“That the whole world was opposed to mass indiscriminate killing, but it continued anyways? The whole world was opposed to wanton destruction, but stayed until all of Gaza was flattened? The whole world was outraged by the use of starvation as a method of war and the declared blockade, but could not lift it?
“That is ultimately for Israel to decide who lives and who dies? If that’s our plan, God have mercy over the 2 million people in Gaza.”
Seventy percent of Gaza’s water, sanitation system damaged or destroyed: UNICEF
Ted Chaiban, UNICEF’s deputy executive director, says more than 70 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed since Israel’s war began.
Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on water in armed conflict, Chaiban said that “repeated blockades have prohibited the entry into the Gaza Strip of fuel and critical components to run water facilities.”
“Currently, the desalination plant in southern Gaza is working at reduced capacity on backup generators,” he said.
“We urgently need the power supply to the desalination plant to be switched back on to provide at least 600,000 internally displaced Gazans in the south of the Strip with access to safe water.”
Israeli strike rocks Jabalia even as aid to Gaza resumes
Palestinians searched for bodies after an Israeli air attack levelled a building in Jabalia, as Israel ramped up its Gaza offensive.
Several people were killed on Friday as aid trickled in for the first time in two months. Al-Awda Hospital was hit and aid trucks were looted.
Palestine’s UN envoy says ‘tears, outrage’ not enough for Gaza
It’s been a busy day at the UN in New York, with the Security Council also holding an open debate earlier on the protection of civilians in armed conflict.
The meeting’s focus often shifted to Gaza, with the Palestinian ambassador to the UN delivering a powerful call to action to end Israel’s war on the enclave.
“The whole world chants for Gaza, weeps for Gaza, aches for Gaza, is outraged by what is happening in Gaza,” Majed Bamya said.
“But the people in Gaza, the children of Gaza, have no use for our chants, for our tears and for our outrage – if they are not accompanied by actions that could actually stop the killing, feed the hungry, heal the wounded, save those who can still be saved.”
Palestinians collapsing from hunger as limited aid fails to meet Gaza’s needs
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reiterates that the limited humanitarian aid that has been allowed into the enclave so far falls far short of what’s needed to meet the needs of residents.
“This amount might only meaningfully help just a fraction of Gaza’s population,” he said.
Abu Azzoum explained that Palestinians have been gathering outside bakeries in hopes of getting some bread to feed their families. But these “bakeries can’t cover the entire population and cannot stop the spread of famine”, he said.
“People are collapsing because they are unable to get any sort of food,” he added.
Canada’s opposition NDP urges PM to sanction Netanyahu
The left-wing New Democratic Party is also calling on Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to immediately suspend a free trade agreement with Israel over its abuses against Palestinians.
“The current humanitarian blockade and forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza violates every moral code and relevant international legal norms. Bombings, shootings, starvation, dehumanization – Netanyahu and his cabinet are war criminals who must be brought to justice,” NDP MP Heather McPherson said in a statement.
Canada joined France and the UK this week in condemning Israel’s blockade on Gaza and settlement expansion in the West Bank. The countries warned they “will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions”, against Israel.
But McPherson said such threats “ring hollow as thousands more Palestinians are slaughtered indiscriminately and thousands more risk starving to death”.
“The EU and the UK are now revisiting their trade relationships with Israel. Canada must do the same and suspend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement,” she said.
Does criticising Israel amount to anti-Semitism?
Israel was quick to label the killing of two of its embassy staff in Washington, DC, this week as anti-Semitic. Other countries, including the US, have followed suit.
But is that description accurate?
“If the allegations are true about what the alleged gunman said, they were targeted because of what Israel has done, because of Israeli actions,” said Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
That “does not make [the attack] acceptable, but that is very different than targeting Jews because of their faith”, Bennis told Al Jazeera.
Now, as Israel’s war on Gaza expands, does criticising Israel amount to anti-Semitism? And does this narrative serve a political purpose?
‘No soldiers, no occupation’: Israel’s antiwar protests small, but growing
“One of the guards came up to me and asked if I was there to save Gaza’s children, then he punched me in the stomach,” Alon-Lee Green said, recounting his experience in an Israeli prison this week.
Green and eight others were arrested on Sunday for protesting with about 600 others along Israel’s border with Gaza, spending two nights and almost three days in prison before being placed under house arrest. Together, they represent part of a small but increasingly visible groundswell of resistance in Israel to a war that, for a variety of reasons, many Israelis are turning their backs on.
“Some people are protesting because they see it as a political war,” Green, who also serves as national co-director of the activist group Standing Together, said of the growing sense in Israel that the war on Gaza only serves to sustain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition.
“Some are tired of fighting, some want the hostages [to be released from Gaza] , and some [are protesting against] what we’re doing to Palestinians. All are welcome,” he continued. “You want to resist the government? You’re welcome. You don’t want to enlist? You’re welcome. You supported the war until just recently? You’re welcome.”
Read more here.
Israeli acts in Gaza point to ethnic cleansing, genocide: European rapporteur
Saskia Kluit, a Dutch senator and rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the need to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, has denounced the “man-made massacre” under way in the Palestinian territory.
“Children are the first victims of this systematic violence. Without food, clean water, medical care and safe shelter, their right to life is being denied,” Kluit said in a statement.
“It is clear that the Israeli government is not respecting international humanitarian law, which requires that humanitarian aid be delivered unconditionally, unhindered and in sufficient quantities to sustain the health of a population,” she said.
Kluit also noted that Palestinians in Gaza have been “confined to an ever-shrinking space” while “so-called safe zones offer no safety at all”.
“All this – combined with the declarations on the Gazans by members of the Israeli government – makes it very hard to ignore that these acts point in the direction of ethnic cleansing and genocide,” she said.
If you’re just joining us
Let’s bring you up to speed on the latest developments:
- At least 66 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air attacks across the Gaza Strip since dawn today, Gaza’s Health Ministry reports.
- Echoing Guterres and other UN officials, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini says the aid trickling into Gaza is “a needle in a haystack” and families are being starved.
- A new poll from Israeli news outlet Haaretz has found that no less than 82 percent of Israelis support the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
- The UN says Israel stepped up its attacks on Gaza’s healthcare system by about 400 percent over the last week, with nearly all hospitals in Gaza now damaged or destroyed.
Israel ‘kicking genocide into overdrive while world watches’: CAIR
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called on US President Donald Trump’s administration to act as Israel continues to pummel Gaza with unrelenting attacks.
“Every day, Palestinian civilians are being massacred and even the few standing residential buildings are being destroyed with families inside,” the advocacy group said in a statement.
“The Israeli government has openly announced its genocidal intent. The Trump administration must realize that Benjamin Netanyahu and his government of racist mass murderers are not interested in peace and must be stopped immediately.”
The US provides Israel with at least $3.8bn in military aid annually, and it has given its ally billions more since the Israeli military began its war on Gaza.
Israel inceased attacks on Gaza hospitals by some 400 percent this week: UN
The United Nations says Israel stepped up its attacks on Gaza’s healthcare system by about 400 percent over the last week, with nearly all hospitals in Gaza now damaged or destroyed.
“Over the past week alone, four major hospitals have had to suspend medical services because of hostilities, attacks or displacement orders in their areas. That’s Kemal Adan, Indonesia Hammad and European Gaza hospitals,” Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said.
“[The World Health Organization] tells us that 4 percent of nearly 700 attacks on health care in Gaza since October 2023 were recorded over the past week alone. That’s 28 attacks, or four times the average number of attacks per day.
“At least 94 percent of the hospitals in Gaza are now damaged or destroyed, and half of them are no longer operational.”
Photos: Palestinians search for casualties after Israeli attack on Jabalia
Israeli forces storm home of Hebron family as it mourns loved one killed in Gaza
The Wafa news agency reports that Israeli troops have raided a home in the occupied West Bank city during mourning services for Mu’ayyad Suleiman al-Qawasmi.
Al-Qawasmi was freed from Israeli prison in 2011 and deported to the Gaza Strip as part of a previous prisoner exchange deal. He was killed yesterday in an Israeli air attack.
Wafa says soldiers raided the home, wreaking havoc and destroying its contents, while confiscating banners and chairs and expelling all mourners present.
Two killed in Israeli attack on house in Jabalia
Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that at least 10 others have been wounded in the strike.
We’ll bring you more on this when we can.
Northern Gaza continues to wait for even the most basic amount of aid
Throughout the day we’ve been getting questions from people asking about the aid trucks, if they’re coming to the northern parts of Gaza, when the bakeries are going to start operating here.
Because people here are simply hungry, they are thirsty, they are traumatised, and they’ve been displaced for the last 18 months.
They’ve spent most of the past days, and since the blockade intensified, queueing for many hours just to get a bowl of soup, waiting with empty hands and empty pots. And all the while they are keeping their eyes on the sky, worried about the unpredictable falling bombs.
But the reality on the ground is that the northern parts of Gaza are not receiving any aid trucks allowed into the central and southern parts of the Strip.
And when we talk about aid trucks, we’re talking about fewer than 100 trucks filled with flour and other basic supplies, that are not enough to feed a population that has been hungry for 18 months or so since the genocide started.
Just in the past couple of weeks we’ve seen many cases of malnourishment at hospitals, we’ve seen hospitals unable to provide treatment due to the lack of medical supplies, and we’ve seen children dying inside the hospitals due to a lack of antibiotics for treatable infections.
What is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation?
As we reported earlier, UN chief Guterres has reiterated that the United Nations will not take part in any alternative aid distribution efforts in Gaza that do not meet humanitarian principles, such as neutrality.
Guterres’s remarks appeared to reference a contentious US-and-Israeli-backed scheme to distribute aid through a new body, dubbed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). But what is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and why has it been criticised?
- The GHF will be overseen by Jake Wood, a US military veteran who ran Team Rubicon, an organisation that distributed humanitarian aid during natural disasters.
- The foundation says it will set up “secure distribution sites” to feed 1.2 million people in Gaza before expanding to feed every Palestinian in the territory. It says it will coordinate with the Israeli military, while security would be provided by private military contractors.
- UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher recently said the GHF “restricts aid to only one part of Gaza while leaving other dire needs unmet”.
- Fletcher added: “It makes aid conditional on political and military aims. It makes starvation a bargaining chip. It is a cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement.”
For more on the GHF, check out our explainer here.
Process to disarm Palestinian groups in Lebanon undermined by weakness of the state
A committee tasked with the disarmament of Palestinian groups in refugee camps in Lebanon met for the first time on Friday.
This follows a three-day state visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Lebanon to facilitate bringing the camps under the control of the Lebanese state.
But Rami Khouri, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, told Al Jazeera that while Palestinian armed groups in Lebanon say they would rather the Lebanese state protected the country and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, it has never been able to do this.
“The stumbling block [to disarmament] is that the Lebanese government historically has not been able to develop the power and the technical capabilities to defend Lebanon from Israeli aggression and other threats, like terrorism,” he said.
[That’s why] you had this massive growth of Hezbollah, [along with] the Palestinian groups … [but] this has to be fixed. The situation is not normal.”
Palestinian cause gaining traction due to Israel’s abuses, starvation policy
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, has explained that the Israeli government’s attacks against countries that have voiced condemnation of its Gaza war don’t hold water.
This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the leaders of France, the UK and Canada of “emboldening” Hamas after they released a statement warning they would take action against Israel if it didn’t stop its bombing and blockade of Gaza.
“It is the policies, it is the genocide that unravels every day on TV screens that is causing such animosity towards Israel,” Bishara said.
“The Palestinian cause is gaining traction around the world not because of Hamas, but because of Israel’s violations of international law, Israel’s violation of human rights in Gaza, Israel’s starvation policy,” he added.
“People are getting sick and tired after 19 months of genocide by this Israeli government. Public opinion is boiling and governments are trying to catch up – except in Washington.”
Vast majority of Israelis support Palestinian displacement: Israeli poll
A new poll from highly regarded Israeli newspaper Haaretz says that no less than 82 percent of Israelis identifying as Jewish support the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. Among those secular Israelis polled, 69 percent support the forced displacement.
Fifty-six percent of those Haaretz polled support the expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, the newspaper said.
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.
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.
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