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Here is where things stand on Thursday 29 May 2025:
- Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 37 people so far today, including 19 killed in an intense wave of strikes on central Gaza’s Bureij.
- Condemnation is growing over the killings of 10 Gaza aid seekers by Israeli troops in southern Gaza, with authorities in the Strip saying soldiers opened fire on hungry people.
- Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 54,249 Palestinians and wounded 123,492, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Government Media Office updated its 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 of October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Israel plans new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank
As Israel continues to besiege the Gaza Strip, it’s also putting pressure on the occupied West Bank, ramping up both raids and illegal settlements.
Israeli media is reporting that the government has approved 22 new illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.
The UN says Israeli forces demolished more than 1,700 Palestinian buildings and homes and seized 24sq km (9sq miles) of land last year. Palestinians need Israeli military permits to build any structure in 61 percent of the occupied West Bank – which are rarely approved.
Israel’s mass displacement campaign is ‘erasing’ Gaza: Oxfam
Global advocacy group Oxfam International has accused Israel of “erasing Gaza itself” through its relentless military campaign and mass displacement orders, and called on world powers to apply real pressure on Israel to lift the siege.
The UK-based charity said Israel’s military offensive and use of displacement orders have squeezed civilians into five zones that make up less than 20 percent of Gaza’s territory.
Along with its blockade of supplies into the territory, it appeared that Israel’s strategy was not about targeting fighters, but “a deliberate campaign to dismantle and depopulate Gaza”, the group said in a statement, adding that the process of forced displacement was a war crime.
“For over 600 days, Israel has been saying it’s targeting Hamas, but it is civilians who have been corralled, bombed and killed en masse every day,” said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead in the occupied Palestinian territory.
She said the displacement orders followed a “clear and calculated pattern: using the threat of violence to herd civilians into ever-shrinking zones of confinement”.
Oxfam described the areas where Palestinians are being driven as dust-choked encampments that offered no real protection, and were often hit by Israeli strikes. Meanwhile, Israel had expanded its military presence along five “security corridors” which cut across Gaza, slicing the territory into zones.
“This isn’t counterterrorism, as Israel alleges – it’s the systematic clearing of Gaza through militarized force into enclaves of internment.”
Hamas says settlement expansion ‘a blatant challenge to international will’
Hamas has reacted to reports of Israel approving 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying the move is a “blatant challenge to international will and a grave violation of UN resolutions”.
“We call on the international community to take practical measures to confront the policies of annexation and settlement expansion, which constitute a war crime,” the group said in a statement.
The International Court of Justice last year ruled that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”.
Visual guide to how the Gaza aid distribution turmoil unfolded
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, thousands of starving people made the long journey to south Gaza, many walking tens of kilometres in the scorching summer heat to reach a newly established aid distribution centre run by the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Among them was Walaa Abu Sa’da (35), mother of three children who decided to go to Rafah by herself.
“My children were on the verge of starving. No milk, no food, not even baby formula. They cried day and night, and I had to beg neighbours for scraps,” Abu Sa’da told Al Jazeera.
While the previous United Nations-led distribution network operated about 400 sites across the Strip, the GHF, guarded by armed private security contractors working for a US company, has set up only four “mega-sites” for Gaza’s population of about two million Palestinians.
Chaos has erupted as troops fired on desperate aid seekers near several of these sites over the past few days, killing at least 10 people.
Click here for a visual guide to the turmoil.
Israeli military raids occupied West Bank as settler attacks continue
Israeli forces have stormed the town of Duma, south of Nablus, in preparation for home demolitions, our colleagues have reported.
The Palestinian Wafa news agency said the Israeli military also blocked roads in Tulkarem and its camp, as well as the Nur Shams camp. Residents of 58 buildings in Tulkarem camp received immediate demolition orders on Wednesday and were forced to leave their homes.
Several attacks by Israeli settlers were also reported across the West Bank. Residents in the village of al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah, told Al Jazeera that Palestinian farmers and shepherds were attacked in the Marj Sa’i plain.
Settlers also vandalised Palestinian agricultural land east of Yatta, south of Hebron.
Israel used internationally banned weapons in Bureij camp attack: Hospital spokesperson
Israeli forces used internationally prohibited weapons to bomb the Bureij refugee camp, says the spokesperson of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the facility where victims and the wounded were taken to after the attack.
Bodies arrived to the hospital charred, the spokesperson told Al Jazeera.
The spokesperson also sounded the alarm on Gaza’s destroyed healthcare system, stating that 22 hospitals are completely out of service, with 70,000 children at risk of death due to malnutrition, and 11,000 patients in need of immediate treatment while there is a shortage of supplies and medicine due to Israel’s blockade.
Gaza death toll rises
At least 54,249 Palestinians have been killed since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza and 123,492 wounded, according to the latest update by Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The Israeli army has killed 3,986 Palestinians and wounded 11,451 others since resuming hostilities in Gaza on March 18.
The ministry added that 67 bodies and 184 injured people arrived at Gaza hospitals in the past 24 hours.
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Approval of new settlements aims to thwart two-state solution
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim has said Israel’s decision to approve 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank aimed to cement Israel’s hold over the area and thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“They are retroactively recognising illegal settlements that already exist [to fill] in the gaps of places remaining for the Palestinians in the West Bank,” she said.
“More Western governments are now discussing recognising a Palestinian state, that’s why we have seen settler leaders pressuring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to … cement their control.”
According to the UN, Israel demolished more than 1,700 Palestinian homes last year and seized 24 square kilometres of land. Palestinians need Israeli permits to build infrastructure in 61 percent of the occupied West Bank, which are rarely approved.
Israel’s Defence Ministry stated that the goal was “to strengthen the Israeli hold on the territory, to avoid the establishment of a Palestinian state, and to create the basis for future development of settlement in the coming decades”.
Israeli opposition leader says PM must accept ceasefire deal
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire framework mediated by a US envoy.
He said he is willing to give political support to Netanyahu to accept the deal, even if hardliners in the Israeli cabinet reject it.
“Israel must publicly and immediately accept the outline published this morning by American mediator Steve Witkoff,” Lapid posted on X.
“I remind Netanyahu: He has a full safety net from me to accept the outline, even if [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich try to torpedo it.”
Last night, Hamas said it had reached an agreement with Witkoff on a general framework for a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the unhindered entry of humanitarian aid.
Following that, Witkoff made an appearance alongside Trump in the Oval Office and announced he had drafted “a new term sheet” for the president’s approval, Axios reported.
Limited humanitarian aid a ‘strategy’ to distract from ongoing violence: Doctor
Emergency physician James Smith, who spent several weeks working in Gaza since Israel launched its war, has criticised the Israeli-led and US-backed mechanism that began distributing some aid in Gaza this week.
“This is a strategy to distract from ongoing violence and ongoing ethnic cleansing,” the British doctor told Al Jazeera. “This strategy has long been used, it has a name, it’s called the ‘humanitarian alibi’, whereby so-called humanitarian provision distracts from the acts perpetrated by genociders and other belligerents.”
Smith said the distribution of dry food posed a question of how Palestinians would be able to find water to cook it with. The distribution of much-needed medicine has also not been addressed.
Such conditions leave medics largely unable to respond to emergencies. “I’ve worked with medics who had spent the previous day and night looking for food for themselves and their family, living in tents, being subjected to the same conditions as everyone else,” Smith said. “Everyone is collectively traumatised by Israel’s violence in Gaza.”
Almost 700 attacks on medical facilities and personnel have been documented, but Smith said the figure was likely to be “a gross underestimation”.
What’s happening in the occupied West Bank?
Here are the latest updates:
- Israeli forces are currently storming the village of al-Mughair, northeast of Ramallah, to carry out home demolitions, our colleagues report.
- Israeli forces have been raiding the city of Nablus for the last few hours, with an intense deployment of soldiers and military vehicles. Troops have forced dozens of residents living near the slain Jafar Muna home to vacate their homes. Muna’s house is being demolished by Israeli forces, as authorities claim he was responsible for a bombing in Tel Aviv in 2024. Local sources reported that the Israeli forces fired sound bombs during their storming of the old town in Nablus.
- Israeli settlers destroyed Palestinian agricultural land east of Yatta, south of Hebron, sources told Al Jazeera.
- Israeli forces stormed the town of Ceres, south of Jenin, and surrounded a house, alongside an intense army deployment in the vicinity of the town.
- Israeli forces arrested five Palestinians during a raid on several homes in the town of Zeita, north of Tulkarem, before withdrawing, following a 24-hour assault on the town. Sources reported that troops carried out a campaign of raids and searches of several homes. They also set up military checkpoints at the town’s entrances, preventing residents from moving, detaining a few, and interrogating them on the spot.
Gaza Health Ministry says cancer treatment in ‘catastrophic’ condition
The Health Ministry has said intravenous chemotherapy and medical follow-up services for cancer patients in the Gaza Strip have been suspended, while 64 percent of cancer medications are out of stock.
The evacuation of the European Hospital and the Gaza Cancer Centre exacerbated the situation, the statement said, adding that 11,000 cancer patients are without adequate treatment and healthcare.
“Cancer patients are trapped in catastrophic health, social, psychological and economic conditions,” it said. “[We call] on all parties to pressure [Israel] to enable patients to travel for treatment abroad and bring in the necessary medication.”
Third US, Israeli aid centre to begin operating today: Israeli Army Radio
The third US and Israel-backed aid centre will open today in central Gaza, south of the Netzarim Corridor, Israel’s Army Radio has reported.
The new distribution centre, like the two that have already opened, will be able to provide food and humanitarian aid to 300,000 Palestinians every week, the army-operated station stated.
The location of the new centre is intended to push people from Gaza City and the northern part of the Strip to evacuate south, it added.
“The mission is to break the barrier of fear. We are already recognising the beginning of Hamas’s deterioration and loss of control over the population,” security officials were quoted as saying by the station.
The aid centres, run by an organisation called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, have faced international criticism, including from the UN and humanitarian groups.
At least 10 Palestinians desperately seeking aid from the organisation have been killed by Israeli forces in the past three days.
More on deadly Israeli attack on Bureij refugee camp
Israeli military warplanes have launched a series of deadly air strikes on a residential neighbourhood in the Bureij refugee camp. Three houses were consecutively targeted without any prior warning.
The death toll is shocking – 19 Palestinians were killed in the attack. Casualties were transported to both al-Awda Hospital and Al-Aqsa Hospital.
There has been a state of alert in the emergency department as emergency services said they spent at least 30 minutes recovering casualties from the site of the strike. They have been going back and forth from the site of the attack, saying they have left behind a trail of destruction.
Three civilians were also killed in a new air strike on a residential house in Jabalia town, while Gaza’s Health Ministry confirmed that since dawn today, 37 Palestinians have been killed as Israeli military operations on the ground continue to ramp up.
Gaza’s healthcare system has been dismantled by Israeli blockade, attacks
The United Nations Security Council has held a briefing focused on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Speakers condemned Israel’s actions of denying aid to Palestinians and attacking them in displacement camps.
Dr Feroze Sidhwa, a US-based physician who has volunteered at Gaza hospitals over the course of the war, says Israel is carrying out “the deliberate destruction” of the healthcare system in the enclave.
Major strikes on central Gaza kill 19, Health Ministry says
A series of Israeli attacks on residential buildings in the Bureij refugee camp have killed 19 people, the ministry confirmed.
This brings today’s death toll to at least 37 people killed by the Israeli army.
We will bring you more on this shortly.
Another journalist killed by Israel
The Gaza Journalists Syndicate says that Moataz Raja was “assassinated” by the Israeli army while covering its war on the Strip.
It said that an Israeli aircraft targeted a civilian vehicle he was riding on al-Nafaq Street in Gaza City, killing him instantly.
At least 221 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to syndicate figures.
Israeli forces kill two in Gaza
Our team on the ground says that another Palestinian seeking aid has been killed near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid point in Khan Younis.
As we reported yesterday, at least 10 other starving people seeking aid have been killed near one of the US and Israeli-sponsored aid points in the southern Strip in recent days.
Elswhere in the south, our correspondent says that a body was recovered from under the rubble of a home in Abasan al-Kabira, struck earlier by Israeli bombs.
Israel plans new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank: Report
Israel’s public broadcaster reports that the government has announced 22 new settlements in the West Bank, near the Jordanian border.
The ministers responsible for the decision are Defence Minister Israel Katz and right-wing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Katz was quoted as saying by Israeli broadcaster Channel 14 that this is a “strategic move” that strengthens Israel’s grip on the West Bank and works towards the prevention of a Palestinian state.
Settlers have been particularly emboldened by Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, both of whom have pushed to expand settlements in the West Bank – which violate international law – since entering government in 2022.
‘Very good feeling’ about ceasefire agreement: Witkoff
The White House is optimistic a new proposal from US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff could result in a ceasefire agreement soon, US outlet Axios reported, quoting three sources involved in the negotiations.
“If each side moves just a bit, we could have a deal within days,” the outlet reported one source as saying.
Last night, Hamas said it had reached an agreement with Witkoff on a general framework for a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the unhindered entry of humanitarian aid.
Following that, Witkoff made an appearance alongside Trump in the Oval Office and announced he had drafted “a new term sheet” for the president’s approval, Axios reported.
“I have some very good feelings about getting to a temporary ceasefire and a long-term resolution, a peaceful resolution of that conflict,” Witkoff said.
Witkoff has been negotiating with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top adviser Ron Dermer, as well as with Hamas leaders in Doha through Palestinian-American businessman Bishara Bahbah.
Israel’s recent statements signal that it has no intention of ending its war on Gaza.
At least three killed in new attack on north Gaza
Our team on the ground is reporting that the three people were killed when Israel bombed a house in Jabalia al-Balad in north Gaza.
An unspecified number of people were also wounded in this attack, our colleagues report.