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Here is where things stand on Saturday 24 May 2025:
- Israeli attacks have killed at least 76 people across Gaza since early on Friday, medical sources tell Al Jazeera, and casualties continue to mount amid ongoing strikes.
- Witnesses to Israel’s bombing of a family home in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp that left some 50 people dead or missing told Al Jazeera that “the Israeli military is killing civilians for fun”.
- UN chief Antonio Guterres said the conflict in Gaza has reached the “cruellest phase of this cruel conflict” as Palestinians starve while Israel allows only a “teaspoon of aid” to enter the famished enclave and “nothing has reached the besieged north”.
- 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.
- 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.
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Let’s bring you up to speed:
- The Israeli military has carried out several deadly attacks across Gaza over recent hours, killing at least eight Palestinians since midnight, including a drone strike on a tent near Gaza City that killed one person.
- Israel’s army has also said it carried out a drone strike targeting “several armed Palestinians” in central Gaza, The Times of Israel reports, claiming some were “Hamas operatives” standing near aid trucks.
- Gaza’s Government Media Office denied the six men killed in Friday’s attack were Hamas fighters, saying they were aid security “performing purely humanitarian tasks”.
- The Saudi, Jordanian, Egyptian and French foreign ministers met in Paris on Friday to discuss “international efforts to stop the war in Gaza” and ways to “enable humanitarian aid delivery to the Strip”.
Does criticising Israel amount to anti-Semitism?
Israel has a long history of dismissing any legitimate criticism it faces as “anti-Semitic”, but there are times when that description might be accurate for certain actions.
So, how can anyone challenge Israel’s war on Gaza without running the risk of being called anti-Semitic? Or is this an easy way of shutting down any debate about Israel’s occupation?
Israeli antiwar protesters rally near Gaza
The Israeli military veterans’ activist group Breaking the Silence has shared video clips of protesters participating in a march near the boundary between Gaza and Israel and calling for a halt to the war.
“We come here to end this terrible war,” says one of the Israeli participants.
“It’s a disgusting humanitarian catastrophe that we are responsible for, and it’s about time this war has ended,” he says.
Protesters held signs calling for the killing to stop while some banged on drums and other instruments.
As Gaza decimated by Israel, killing of Palestinians in occupied West Banks spirals
While the world’s attention is focused on the spiralling death toll in Gaza – where more than 53,822 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7, 2023, the number of Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank continues to mount, according to the UN.
The death toll in the occupied West Bank now stands at 938 Palestinians killed since Israel began its war on Gaza. At least 198 children were counted among that figure of those killed by Israeli forces or settlers, the UN said.
The UN also notes that 132 Palestinians – including at least 25 children – have been killed since the start of this year.
Alongside the killings of Palestinians in the West Bank, approximately 42,000 residents of the occupied territory’s Nur Shams, Tulkarem and Jenin refugee camps remain displaced after Israeli forces mounted a major military operation against Palestinian communities there in January.
Israeli military attacks across Gaza kill eight since midnight
We have been reporting on the Israeli military’s ongoing attacks across Gaza over recent hours.
An Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent on the ground in the besieged enclave now reports that at least eight people have been confirmed dead since midnight local time (21:00 GMT).
We will bring you further updates when we have them.
Saudi, Egyptian, Jordanian, French FMs discuss ending Gaza war, enabling aid
The foreign ministers held a meeting in Paris on Friday to “review the latest developments in the Gaza Strip”, according to Egypt’s State Information Service.
Following the meeting, the countries issued a joint statement saying their officials discussed “international efforts to stop the war in Gaza Strip”, and ways to “enable humanitarian aid delivery to the Strip, as well as international efforts to stop all violations committed by Israel against Palestinians”.
The meeting also “addressed preparations for an international conference to be held at UN headquarters in June focusing on the two-state solution”, according to the statement.
Photos: Israel’s unending bombing campaign against Gaza’s civilians
Most Israelis believe Netanyahu more interested in staying in power than ending Gaza war: Poll
The new poll, carried out by Israeli television network Channel 12, asked respondents whether Prime Minister Netanyahu is more interested in remaining in power than winning the war or freeing the remaining captives in Gaza.
Some 55 percent of respondents said they believed Netanyahu saw staying in power as his main goal, while only 36 percent said they believed returning the captives was paramount for the prime minister.
When returning the captives was exchanged for “winning the war”, responses remained roughly the same.
When asked why there hadn’t been another captives-for-ceasefire deal, some 53 percent of respondents said they believed it was due to political reasons.
Israeli army says it bombed Hamas gunmen, Gaza officials say they were aid security
The Israeli military carried out a drone strike targeting “several armed Palestinians” in central Gaza, The Times of Israel reports, citing an unnamed Israeli military source.
The source said some of those hit were “Hamas operatives, who were spotted next to humanitarian aid trucks”.
However, Gaza’s Government Media Office has confirmed six people were killed by Israeli air strikes in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, but denied the men were members of Hamas, the Anadolu Agency and Middle East Monitor reported on Friday.
In a statement, the office said they were “aid security and protection teams … who were performing purely humanitarian tasks”.
The statement continued that the men were “securing two trucks carrying vital medicines and medical supplies for the health sector, to ensure their delivery to hospitals in devastated areas”.
It added that Israel “targeting them is a full-fledged crime”.
Trump’s foreign student ban on Harvard has caused ‘very real damage’
President Donald Trump’s decision to ban Harvard from enrolling foreign students has caused irreparable damage to the Ivy League school, student leader Abdullah Shahid Sial has told Al Jazeera.
The order was the latest move in the Trump administration’s escalating battle with Harvard over its handling of campus protests opposing Israel’s war on Gaza.
A federal judge has now temporarily blocked Trump’s move.
Irish band Kneecap says ‘they are trying to silence us’ over activism against Gaza war
A member of Irish rap trio Kneecap said the terror charge he faces in the United Kingdom is an attempt to “silence us”, as the group appeared onstage for a gig they claimed was nearly “pulled”, the Press Association reports.
Liam O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, spoke to thousands of people in Brockwell Park, south London, as the group headlined the Wide Awake Festival on Friday in London.
O hAnnaidh has been charged with a terror offence by UK police over the alleged display of a Hezbollah flag at a gig the band played in November last year.
Kneecap has been outspoken against Israel’s war on Gaza.
“We are being made an example of, the Israeli lobbyists are trying to prove to other artists ‘that if you speak out, we’re going to hit you where it hurts most’,” O hAnnaidh told the crowd.
“They’re trying to cancel gigs, they trying to cancel my freedom of travel,” he said. “And the fact that I’m speaking to this amount of people, and I assume the majority of you will agree, shows that we’re on the right side of history,” he said.
“I went for an interview with the counterterror police and within days they came to a verdict that they were going to charge me. Never has it been that quick,” he added.
“And the reason it was that quick was because Glastonbury is just around the corner, they’re trying to silence us.”
One of the band’s members was also heard saying: “Honestly, lads, you have no idea how close we were to being pulled off this gig.”
British Airways suspends flights to Israel until end of July
British Airways has extended its suspension of flights to and from Israel until the end of July in response to a growing threat of missile attacks from the Yemen-based Houthis.
British Airways, along with a number of major airlines, first suspended flights to Tel Aviv earlier this month after a Houthi “hypersonic ballistic missile” struck near Ben Gurion airport, injuring eight people.
On Friday, the Iran-backed group said it had again targeted Ben Gurion airport with a missile, marking the third such attack within 24 hours.
Voices from Gaza: Palestinians recount hunger and starvation in war-torn territory
More Palestinians are dying from starvation — most of them children.
While Israel has allowed some aid trucks into Gaza, the UN describes the flow as “a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed”.
Before October 2023, more than 500 aid trucks entered Gaza daily.
Voices from Gaza: Palestinians recount hunger and starvation in war-torn territory
More Palestinians are dying from starvation — most of them children.
While Israel has allowed some aid trucks into Gaza, the UN describes the flow as “a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed”.
Before October 2023, more than 500 aid trucks entered Gaza daily.
Trickle of aid entering Gaza ‘not enough or sufficient’ to avert humanitarian crisis
Amid all of this, Palestinians are struggling on a daily basis to find food and drinking water, and still queueing for hours in front of whatever is left of the operational local community kitchens that are providing only a tiny amount of food for a hungry population.
When it comes to drinking water, it is hard to have proper access. Fuel has not been allowed [into Gaza] for the past 80 days or so, since the Israeli military intensified the blockade on the Gaza Strip.
Also, the amount of food or the aid that has been allowed for the past two day, according to international organisations, is not enough or sufficient, and does not address the deepening humanitarian crisis caused by months of Israeli devastation and bombardment across the Strip.
Many people, particularly vulnerable groups – patients with injuries, children – [are] at risk of losing their lives or developing complicated health conditions in hospitals due to the acute shortage of medical supplies and other basic survival items.
Israeli strike rocks Jabalia even as aid to Gaza resumes
Palestinians searched for bodies under rubble after an air strike levelled a residential building in Jabalia, northern Gaza, amid Israel’s intensifying offensive, which killed at least 76 people on Friday.
Small amounts of humanitarian aid have trickled into Gaza for the first time in two months this week, but aid trucks have also been looted.
Four wounded as Israeli military carries out attacks in southern Gaza
Our Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA) colleagues report that Israeli forces have attacked a tent housing displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, wounding at least two people.
Two people have also been wounded after Israeli fighter jets bombed a location north of the town of Abasan al-Kabira near Khan Younis, according to AJA.
Israeli forces have also detonated explosive-laden robots in Khan Younis, the Quds News Network reports. No casualties have been reported so far.
We will bring you more information when we have it.
Neighbourhoods in northern Gaza ‘now completely empty of people’
Earlier this morning, the same site was relentlessly bombed twice by F-16s, forcing many of the people in the vicinity of the area [out of] makeshift tents that they set up in past weeks, as they were forced out of their homes and temporary shelters in the northern parts of the Strip.
For the past month or so, Palestinians have been on the move as evacuation orders have been issued on a daily basis – evacuating and forcing many of the people in the northern part of the Strip [to move].
Close to 14 neighbourhoods, now, in the northern part of Gaza are now completely empty of people. That includes areas where three major health facilities were rendered non-operational as they are in the line of fire of the Israeli military.
These air strikes have caused further civilian casualties, and the sheer level of destruction is quite visible everywhere.
Israeli drone attacks tent in northern Gaza, killing 1
The Israeli military’s assault on Gaza is continuing overnight.
An Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent on the ground now reports that at least one person has been killed after an Israeli military drone fired at a tent in the as-Saftawi area, north of Gaza City.
We will bring you more information when we have it.
A recap of recent developments
- At least 76 Palestinians have been killed and more than 200 wounded since midnight on Friday as Israel has kept up its attacks across Gaza, including a strike on a house near Khan Younis which killed eight people, including seven children.
- UN chief Antonio Guterres has said the limited aid that Israel has allowed into Gaza amounts to a “teaspoon” of what’s needed, as he called for “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
- Echoing Guterres, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini has said the aid trickling into Gaza is “a needle in a haystack” and families are being starved in the Palestinian enclave.
- The World Food Programme has said 15 aid trucks were looted on Friday night in southern Gaza as “hunger, desperation and anxiety” fuel rising insecurity.
- The World Health Organization has said at least 94 percent of Gaza’s hospitals have been damaged or destroyed during Israel’s war on the enclave.
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 of the latest developments.
You can read about key events from Friday, May 23, here.
