- Israeli forces have killed 54 people in Gaza and destroyed the only facility for kidney dialysis patients in the north of the enclave.
- UN and aid groups denounce Israeli killings of dozens of starving Palestinians seeking food near distribution points set up by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
- Egypt and Qatar announce new efforts to secure a ceasefire deal based on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce and the entry of humanitarian aid.
- Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 54,418 Palestinians and wounded 124,190, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Gaza 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 on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
‘This is famine parallel to genocide’
Gaza’s civilians face impossible choices: risk Israeli drone strikes at US-backed aid sites or starve as food prices soar and markets empty.
The new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, replacing UNRWA, is accused of weaponising aid, with distribution points becoming “death traps”.
Hospitals battle malnutrition-induced anaemia, leaving even blood donors too weak to contribute.
“This is famine parallel to genocide,” says one woman, describing hours-long queues for scraps of food.
Instead of bread, ‘they gave him a bullet in his head’
We’ve been covering Israel’s continued attacks on Palestinians who gather at the aid distribution sites run by the US-backed GHF.
Among those wounded on Sunday was Shuaib Abu Tayr, a father of four.
He was shot in the head and is now “between life and death” at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, according to his sister-in-law Asmaa Abu Salah.
“He went for food and drinks for his children. His children need food, [they say] ‘we want food, dad’. This is the most difficult word,” she said.
“He went to get aid [distributed by] the US. He went to get a loaf of bread. Instead of giving him a loaf of bread, they [Israelis] gave him a bullet in his head … We responded to the US forces to come for aid, in order for [Palestinians] to get flour and food for the children and the young people, all of us are dying of hunger.”
Israel’s deadly attacks on Gaza hospitals
The destruction of the Noura Al-Kaabi Kidney Dialysis Centre is the latest Israeli assault on a medical facility in Gaza.
Israel has bombed and burned at least 36 hospitals across the Strip since the war began, according to officials, despite the fact that such attacks are considered a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Convention.
Here are some of the worst attacks:
- Al-Ahli Hospital: Hundreds of people sheltering in the car park of the facility were killed in an attack in October 2023. In the days leading up to the incident, the hospital director reportedly received warnings from Israel.
- Al-Awda Hospital: An Israeli air raid in November 2023 killed Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Dr Ahmad al-Sahar of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and another doctor, Ziad al-Tatari. Israeli forces raided the hospital the following month and detained Dr Adnan Al Bursh, who later died in Israeli custody.
- Al-Shifa Medical Complex: Israeli forces stormed the hospital in November 2023, killing at least 25 Palestinians, including three medical workers, and leaving it non-functional. They stormed the hospital a second time in March of last year, killing at least 22 people, according to the UN. After they withdrew, three mass graves were found and at least 80 corpses were retrieved.
- Nasser Medical Complex: Israeli forces laid siege to the facility for more than a week in February last year, killing dozens who approached the site, and then stormed it and arrested more than 200 people. At least eight patients reportedly died during the siege. This year, Israeli forces also bombed the hospital’s emergency department and a media tent there, killing several people.
- Kamal Adwan Hospital: The Israeli military laid siege to and raided the facility in December, killing at least 20 Palestinians and arresting more than 240, including its director, Dr Hussam Abu Safia.
Germany’s Merz urges Netanyahu to let more aid into Gaza
The dpa news agency is reporting that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the phone on Sunday and urged him to let in more emergency aid into the Gaza Strip.
Following the call, a spokesman for Merz said that “it was urgent that Israel immediately allow sufficient humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and to ensure its safe distribution”, the agency reported.
The report came as international criticism grows of Israeli forces shooting and killing desperate aid seekers at aid distribution points run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Chile’s president vows to ramp up pressure on Israel as term winds down
Gabriel Boric has promised to step up the pressure against Israel over its war in Gaza during his government’s last nine months in office.
He made the comments during a wide-ranging three-hour speech to the National Congress in the coastal city of Valparaiso. The speech is his last annual address to Congress.
In comments that prompted huge cheers and jeers from opposite sides of Congress, Boric said he will introduce a law to ban imports from what he called “illegally occupied territories” and back efforts by Spain for an arms embargo against Israel.
Boric, an outspoken critic of Israel, had recently recalled military personnel from Chile’s embassy in the country and summoned the ambassador for questioning.
Is Netanyahu playing US special Middle East envoy, Witkoff?
Al Jazeera Senior Political Analyst Marwan Bishara says the Israeli prime minister has been “weaponising” diplomatic efforts on Gaza in a bid to “discredit” US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
“Netanyahu is weaponising diplomacy in Palestine not only to continue the bombings in Gaza but also to discredit Witkoff’s negotiations with the Iranians,” on a nuclear deal, Bishara said.
WFP chief warns Gaza could be humanitarian catastrophe ‘like none other’
Cindy McCain, the executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), has urged the Israeli government to grant the UN agency access to the Gaza Strip “so we can do our job”.
“What we need right now is an immediate ceasefire, complete unfettered access [and] every gate open to feed people and stop this catastrophe from happening,” McCain told the US broadcaster ABC News.
“If we don’t do that, it’s going to be a humanitarian catastrophe… like none other.”
McCain also confirmed reports that Israeli forces have killed at least 31 Palestinians who were seeking food aid at the GHF point in Rafah on Sunday.
“Our people are reporting the same thing on the ground. It’s a tragedy,” she said.
Top US senator derides Greta Thunberg’s attempt to break Israel’s Gaza siege
We have a reaction from Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator, to the Swedish activist who joined an effort led by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) to break Israel’s naval siege on Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinians there.
“Hope Greta and her friends can swim,” the prominent legislator wrote on X.
The post was taken as a threat by some users on X, as the FFC’s previous attempt to break the Israeli siege was dealt a blow by drone attacks that breached their ship’s hull.
Activists at the time said they believed Israel was behind the attack.
Responses to Graham’s tweet on X included users who asked, “Why would a US senator be threatening a young climate activist?” and, “Why is a 69-year-old U.S. senator joking about the drowning of a 22-year-old Swedish activist? Is this where American politics is now?”
Thunberg as well as Game of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham are among those joining the mission, which set sail from Italy on Sunday.
Three killed in Israeli attack at US-backed aid site
We are getting reports that there has been a new Israeli attack on Palestinians who gathered at the GHF aid distribution point in Rafah just moments ago.
At least three people were killed and 35 others were wounded, according to medical sources.
As we’ve been reporting, Israeli forces killed at least 31 people at the same site on Sunday.
Israel destroys North Gaza’s only dialysis centre
Here’s what we know:
- The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza says Israeli forces have bombed the Noura al-Kaabi Kidney Dialysis Centre in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.
- The centre, which is part of the Indonesian Hospital, was serving more than 160 patients with kidney failure, and is the only dialysis facility in northern Gaza.
- The latest attack comes weeks after the centre reopened after a previous assault just weeks ago, according to Muneer al-Bursh, a director general at the Health Ministry.
- Footage published by al-Bursh shows Israeli bulldozers at the site.
- The ministry said 41 percent of patients who have kidney failure in Gaza have died over the course of the war after “being denied access to dialysis centres and the destruction of the centres and departments designated for them”.
UN condemns Israel’s ‘militarised’ aid mechanism in Gaza
The UN’s human rights office (OHCHR) has joined the chorus of concern over the Israeli killings of Palestinian aid seekers at the GHF sites in southern Rafah and near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza.
It said the killings on Sunday follow multiple reports of deadly attacks at the sites between May 27 and 31, which killed at least 19 Palestinians and wounded 80 others.
The office stressed “once more that Israel’s militarised humanitarian assistance mechanism violates international standards on aid distribution, endangers civilians, and is contributing to the catastrophic situation in Gaza”.
It added, “The weaponisation of food for civilians and restricting or preventing their access to other life sustaining services constitute a war crime and may constitute elements of other international crimes, including genocide.”
Israel kills dozens of Palestinians waiting for food at US-backed Gaza aid sites
Israeli forces have opened fire on a group of desperate Palestinians gathered near an aid distribution site in Rafah, in southern Gaza.
At least 31 people were killed and more than a hundred others injured.
The distribution point is managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a controversial group backed by both Israel and the US.
A recap of recent developments
- Israeli forces continue pounding Gaza, killing at least 54 people on Sunday alone, while maintaining a blockade that has put the enclave on the verge of famine.
- Aid groups, including Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders, have condemned the Israeli killings of more than 30 people who had gathered at aid distribution sites run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
- Israeli forces destroyed the Noura al-Kaabi Dialysis Hospital, the only facility for dialysis patients in northern Gaza, which served more than 160 people and had been renovated and reopened just weeks ago.
- The United Nations says more than 632,000 Palestinians have been displaced since Israel broke the nearly two-month-old ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza on March 18.
- Egypt and Qatar have announced renewed efforts to secure a ceasefire deal based on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce and the entry of humanitarian aid.
- Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for a ballistic missile attack on Israel’s main Ben Gurion airport. Israeli authorities say the missile was intercepted.
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 Sunday, June 1, here and here.
