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For more on the chaos that ensued at the Israel-backed aid distribution in Gaza, read this.
Israel is applying many of the tactics used in its war on Gaza to seize and control territory across the occupied West Bank. Find out more here.
Check out this story on Israeli forces raiding money exchanges across the West Bank.
And you can follow all our coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, here.
Here’s what happened today
We’ll be closing this live page soon. Here’s a recap of the day’s major developments:
- Large crowds gathered in southern Rafah as the US-and-Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) opened its first aid distribution point, with thousands of Palestinians storming past barricades in desperation for food after a three-month blockade.
- Israeli forces opened fire in a bid to disperse the crowd during the chaos, with Gaza’s Government Media Office saying Israel’s military killed three people and wounded 46 others.
- The United Nations and other aid groups have roundly criticised the GHF’s aid distribution model, saying it doesn’t abide by humanitarian principles and could displace people farther from their homes.
- Israeli bombardment across Gaza continued, with at least 26 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
- Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility for two missile attacks on Israel, saying they came in response to the storming of occupied East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound a day earlier by Israeli settlers.
Where’s the evidence of Hamas stealing Gaza aid?
A veteran humanitarian aid worker says Israel should provide evidence that Hamas is stealing humanitarian relief – the reason Israel claims the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation must take over crucial food distribution for starving Palestinians.
Hardin Lang from Refugees International questioned the reasoning of the need for a new aid group.
“This is not set up to meet the needs of people. It very much feels like it’s been designed to locate people into the south of Gaza – into an area that’s been designated by the Israelis as ‘a humanitarian zone’, as opposed to trying to meet the needs of a very desperate population,” he said.
“If the entire public narrative of this plan is because there’s been strategic aid diversion by Hamas, it would be very helpful to have some evidence of that,” said Lang.
Hamas denies it is looting aid and Lang said even if it is true, the best way around it is to “flood the zone with humanitarian aid”.
“That lowers prices on the black market and turns aid into a non-commodity from the perspective of controlling the community,” he said.
Lang also noted that with so many wounded and malnourished Palestinians, it’s impossible for most to walk long distances and carry back 20kg (44lb) boxes of aid to their families after waiting in long queues in the hot sun.
How common is Israel’s use of human shields in Gaza and West Bank?
A story on the Israeli military’s “systematic” use of Palestinians as human shields has shone a light on an illegal practice that has become commonplace over the 19-month war in Gaza and parallel offensives in the occupied West Bank.
It featured the testimony of seven Palestinians who had been used as human shields, with two Israeli army officers confirming the ubiquity of the practice, which is considered a violation of international law.
So, what are human shields? How widely have they been used by the Israeli military? And is Israel likely to launch a crackdown any time soon?
Read the full story here.
Israeli cabinet ‘secretly’ approves 22 new illegal settlements in occupied West Bank: Report
The Israeli Security Cabinet has “secretly” approved the construction of 22 new illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth has reported.
According to the newspaper, the cabinet “secretly approved two weeks ago the establishment of 22 settlements in [the occupied West Bank]”.
The report added that the proposal was submitted by Defence Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The Palestinian presidency said that the approval of the new illegal settlements constitutes “a dangerous escalation that drags the region into a cycle of violence and instability”.
Woman and daughter dig through rubbish for bits of food in desperate Gaza
With flies buzzing all around them, a woman and her daughter picked through the pile of rubbish bags for scraps of food at the foot of a destroyed building in Gaza City. They find a small pile of cooked rice, a few scraps of bread and a box with some smears of white cheese still inside.
Islam Abu Taeima picks off soggy bits from a piece of bread and puts the dry part in her sack. She will take what she found back to the school where she and hundreds of other families live, boil it, and serve it to her five children, she says.
“We’re dying of hunger. If we don’t eat, we’ll die.”
Abu Taeima says her family can’t afford anything in the market, where prices have skyrocketed for the little food that remains on sale. She says she has tried going to charity kitchens, but every time, they run out of food before she gets any.
“People are struggling, and no one is going to be generous with you. So collecting from the trash is better.”
The incident is a new sign of the depths of desperation being reached in Gaza, where the population of some 2.3 million has been pushed towards famine by Israel’s nearly three-month blockade.
Here is where things stand on Wednesday 28 May 2025:
- Thousands of Palestinians – desperate to get food to feed their families after nearly three months of a total Israeli blockade – stormed a controversial US-Israeli aid distribution centre in southern Gaza.
- Gaza’s Government Media Office says Israel’s military killed three desperate Palestinians and wounded 46 others at the food distribution site in Rafah with seven people missing.
- Our team in the Gaza Strip report US security contractors – working for the Israeli-American backed foundation – lost control at the site shortly after it opened.
- Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 54,056 Palestinians and wounded 123,129, 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 taken captive.
Mapping Israel’s military campaign in the occupied West Bank
Israel is applying many of the tactics used in its war on Gaza to seize and control territory across the occupied West Bank, during its Operation Iron Wall campaign, a new report says.
Israel launched the operation in January. Defending what the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) termed “by far the longest and most destructive operation in the occupied West Bank since the second intifada in the 2000s”, the Israeli military claimed that its intention was to preserve its “freedom of action” within the Palestinian territory as it continued to rip up roads and destroy buildings, infrastructure, and water and electricity lines.
The report by the British research group Forensic Architecture suggested that Israel has imposed what researchers call a system of “spatial control”, essentially a series of mechanisms that allow it to deploy military units across Palestinian territory at will.
The report focused on Israeli action in the refugee camps of Jenin and Far’a in the northern West Bank as well as Nur Shams and Tulkarem in the northwestern West Bank. Researchers interviewed and analysed witness statements, satellite imagery and hundreds of videos to demonstrate a systematic plan of coordinated Israeli action intended to impose a network of military control in refugee camps across the West Bank similar to that imposed upon Gaza.
Read more here.
Israeli-American aid site in starving Gaza collapses in one day
An Israel-US-backed “aid” site in Gaza collapsed in a day as thousands of starving Palestinians tried to get food after nearly three months of Israeli-imposed starvation.
The group running the distribution sites is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is using United States security contractors to secure the sites.
The United Nations and aid agencies have refused to work with the group, calling the Israeli-American aid plan an attempt to weaponise hunger and use starvation to forcibly displace Palestinians.
Young Palestinians endure beatings and starvation in Israeli prisons: Report
Palestinian children and youths detained in Israel’s Megiddo prison endure brutal conditions, including beatings, starvation and a denial of medical care, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs has said.
The Palestinian Authority agency detailed ongoing abuses, citing retaliatory measures by prison authorities, intensified crackdowns, poor food quality and a lack of humanitarian provisions.
The commission highlighted the case of Jihad Maher Hajjaj, a 15-year-old boy from al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya in eastern Ramallah, who suffered severe chest pain and a suspected rib fracture after a prison guard beat him about a month ago.
“The blow was so hard it felt like my bone dislodged, and I’ve received no treatment or clarity on whether the fracture healed,” Hajjaj, detained since February 2024, reportedly told the commission’s lawyer.
Aws Mohammed Taher Dheib, 19, from Silwad, also in eastern Ramallah, lost more than 30kg (66 pounds) because of prison starvation policies since his detention on September 30, 2024. He contracted scabies but received no medical care, the commission said.
Ali Dhiab, 18, from Kafr Aqab in northern Jerusalem, told the commission’s lawyer that food is scarce and insufficient, forcing prisoners to skip meals and combine rations to eat once a day.
“All prisoners have lost dozens of pounds,” Dhiab told the commission.
Palestinians describe Gaza aid centre pandemonium
Ahmed Abu Taha, who was among the thousands of people seeking food in Rafa, said that a crowd stormed into the distribution centre by breaking fences.
He heard gunfire and saw Israeli military aircraft overhead. “It was chaos. People were panicked.”
Another Palestinian, Saleh Abu Najjar, said he heard a tank firing from a distance. “The situation was very dangerous and people were frightened,” he said.
In a statement, Israel’s aid distributor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, said that because of the large number of Palestinians seeking aid, staff at the hub followed safety protocols and “fell back”.
The foundation uses armed private contractors to guard the sites and the transportation of supplies. Shortly before the aid effort began this week, its chairman, Jake Woods, a US military veteran, resigned, citing a risk to humanitarian principles.
Israel’s longstanding policy of ‘diversion, delusion, distraction and lies’ no longer working
Israel’s programme to drive out Palestinians has always been based on a “rolling process of diversion, delusion, distraction and lies”, but it’s not working anymore, Rami Khouri, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, has told Al Jazeera.
“If you see the reaction out of Europe over the last 10 days [to what’s been happening in Gaza], it’s been phenomenal how quickly the flaccid Europeans, who for the past year and a half or so – most of them, with a few exceptions – have said nothing,” he said.
“And suddenly they’re speaking out – including the British, French, and Germans – saying that what Israel is doing is unacceptable, that they’re going to think of sanctions.
“So this is the playbook of Zionism and Israel, and it’s succeeded for a century, but it’s really running out of time now.”
Despite chaos in Gaza, Israel and GHF claim food distribution went to plan
When you look at the statements from the Israeli military and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, they say that everything went according to plan today.
They say they were able to distribute meals, and that the chaos that happened in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was just Palestinians in a large number who came to get food parcels, and that the American food contractors simply backed away. So they essentially downplayed everything that happened.
They say that Palestinians can still go to these four distribution points to pick up more food during certain hours. But they are not really acknowledging the fact that this chaos ensued in the southern part of the Palestinian territory where three out of the four distribution points are. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
It’s worth remembering that the UN and other organisations, like the World Central Kitchen, who have been instrumental in providing aid to the Palestinian people throughout this war, have slammed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
They are refusing to work with it and say it’s unethical, that there are a lot of unanswered questions, and that they are not doing a correct job with distributing this much-needed aid.
Hundreds of Israeli army officers sign letter demanding end to ‘immoral’ war: Report
Hundreds of active and reserve Israeli army officers have prepared an open letter urging the Israeli government and military leadership to halt the war in Gaza, labelling it a political conflict that “doesn’t serve Israel’s national security and is therefore immoral”, according to a report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The letter, which has garnered approximately 1,200 signatures from reservists and active-duty officers across various military units, demands an immediate cessation of hostilities and the safe return of all captives.
“We, former and current reserve [army] officers and commanders, demand the government and chief of staff [Eyal Zamir] stop the political war in Gaza and immediately return all the hostages,” the letter states, as reported by Haaretz.
“Continuing the war goes against the will of an overwhelming majority of the public, will result in the deaths of hostages, [Israeli army] soldiers and innocent civilians, and may even lead to the commission of war crimes.”
Photos: Thousands crowd US-Israeli aid centre in Gaza’s Rafah
Thousands of Palestinians gathered earlier at a controversial aid distribution site in southern Gaza, braving intense heat and bombardment in a desperate bid to secure food and essentials following more than 80 days of a total Israeli aid blockade.
The site, operated under a contested new coordination mechanism, has drawn criticism from aid groups and United Nations officials over safety and fairness concerns.
Here are some photos showing long lines, children waiting, and chaotic scenes as hunger deepens across the besieged enclave. For more, check this photo essay.
Ireland moves to ban trade with Israeli-occupied areas in Palestine
The government of the Republic of Ireland has approved the drafting of a bill to ban the import of goods from illegal Israeli settlements – an unprecedented move for a European Union member.
The move comes after the International Court of Justice last year said Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip is illegal under international law in an advisory opinion that the Irish government said guided its decision.
“The government has agreed to advance legislation prohibiting trade in goods with illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory,” Ireland’s Foreign Ministry said. “It is the government’s view that this is an obligation under international law.”
The settlements include residential, agricultural and business interests that lie outside Israel’s internationally recognised borders.
Before the cabinet decision, Foreign Minister Simon Harris told reporters that he hoped other EU countries would follow Ireland’s lead.
“What I hope today is when this small country in Europe makes the decision and becomes one of the first countries, and probably the first country, in the Western world to consider legislation in this space, I do hope it inspires other European countries to join us.”
Israel’s army accused of ‘deliberate massacre’ during aid site chaos
Gaza’s Government Media Office says Israel’s military killed three Palestinians and wounded 46 others at a food distribution site in southern Rafah earlier. Seven other people are missing.
“The occupation forces, positioned in or around those areas, opened live fire on starving civilians who were lured to these locations under the pretense of receiving aid,” the press office said in a statement.
“What happened today in Rafah is a deliberate massacre and a full-fledged war crime, committed in cold blood against civilians weakened by over 90 days of siege-induced starvation.”
The office added: “This incident provides undeniable evidence of the Israeli occupation’s total failure in managing the humanitarian catastrophe it has deliberately created.”
Israel’s ‘mass murder on industrial scale’ must be halted: US group
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has denounced Israel’s devastating war on Gaza after the official death toll surpassed 54,000 – the majority of victims children, women, and the elderly.
“The Israeli government’s mass murder on an industrial scale must be stopped. The world can no longer sit back and watch the brutal extirpation of a population and the erasure of their legacy,” said Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national executive director, in a statement.
“The Israeli government is not interested in peace. It is time for the United States and the rest of the nations of the world to force them to stop these atrocities.”
It is widely believed that the death toll in Gaza is far higher than the official count. Awad noted the medical journal The Lancet estimated about 186,000 may have died since Israel’s invasion of Gaza in October 2023.
Israeli army blames UN for ‘avoiding’ aid role in Gaza
The Israeli military’s agency for the coordination of goods into Gaza, COGAT, has accused the United Nations of failing to fulfil its role and not collecting humanitarian aid from the Gaza side of the Karem Abu Salem crossing, known as Kerem Shalom to the Israelis.
“With the renewed entry of Humanitarian Aid to the Gaza Strip, we have reached out to all humanitarian aid organizations and the international community – and called for them to take part in the distribution of aid to Gazan civilians,” COGAT said in a statement.
“However, in the past few days, the UN has avoided fulfilling its role and instead continues to spread false and incorrect information regarding civilian distress.”
The comments come after the Israeli-backed foundation, tasked with bringing aid into Gaza, had one of its facilities swarmed by Palestinians desperate for food after nearly three months of a total blockade.
Israel ‘very generously’ using high-tech US weaponry in Gaza
The US government should question Israel on the use of its munitions after a US-made “smart bomb” was dropped by Israel in an grisly attack on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City, a military analyst says.
The air strike killed 36 displaced Palestinians, including 18 children and six women.
The Israeli military has been “very generously using these bombs against civilians”, Elijah Magnier told Al Jazeera.
Monday’s strike on the school was “really deliberate”, he added.
“There is no accountability and Israel can exert pressure on the Palestinians, starting with the civilians, to say ‘nowhere is safe’ and to say ‘you have to turn against Hamas or we will continue to kill more of you’,” Magnier said.
The United States should “question” Israel about the use of these high-tech weapons on the Palestinian people, he added.
Witness describes ‘frightening’ chaos at Gaza aid facility
We’ve been reporting on the pandemonium that erupted as hungry Palestinians stormed a food distribution centre operated by an Israel-US-backed foundation in southern Gaza.
According to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, normal operations have now resumed following the disturbing incident.
“I was standing in the line at an aid distribution point in Rafah with hundreds of citizens, and suddenly a large number of people started pushing and entering randomly,” said war-displaced Palestinian Ayman Abu Zaid.
“It was because of the lack of aid and the delay in distribution, so they tried to get in to take whatever they could.”
At one point, gunfire rang out, he said. “The sound was very frightening and people began to scatter, but some still kept trying to take the aid despite the danger.”
Israel PM acknowledges ‘loss of control momentarily’ at Gaza aid centre
Israel’s prime minister said there was a “loss of control momentarily” when crowds of Palestinians rushed into a new aid centre in Gaza.
“We worked out a plan with our American friends to have controlled distribution sites where an American company would distribute the food to Palestinian families … There was some loss of control momentarily. Happily, we brought it back under control,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech.
Bruce’s UN criticism rings hollow amid Israel’s blockade on Gaza
The other significant point that Tammy Bruce, the US State Department spokesperson, raised in her news conference was essentially dismissing all the criticism from the United Nations and UN-related humanitarian offices that have been providing humanitarian aid inside Gaza for decades.
The criticism from Tammy Bruce is essentially that they are not involved, they couldn’t find a way to deliver the aid without it falling into the hands of Hamas or other “bad actors”, and they are now upset that they’ve been left on the sidelines while people are being helped.
It is important to point out, however, that a humanitarian blockade was imposed by Israel back on March 2. We’re nearly entering the fourth month of that ongoing blockade, along with the return to warfare by the Israeli military on the people of Gaza.
So without the Israeli government allowing humanitarian organisations to get into Gaza, you now have a situation that we’ve seen in the videos where you’ve got people basically rushing through a very small checkpoint trying to get their hands on food and medicines and other supplies that they so desperately need, and doing so because they are watching their relatives get sick and die every single day.
US downplays Gaza aid chaos and blames Hamas for issues
US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce has downplayed the chaos earlier today at an Israeli-US food distribution initiative, blaming Hamas for the situation in Gaza.
“All of this could have stopped if [Hamas] had released the hostages and laid down its weapons, but they’ve refused to do so. They’ve also rejected ceasefires,” she said at a news conference.
“Hamas has been opposed to this [aid] dynamic, they have attempted to stop the aid movement through Gaza to these distribution centres, but they have failed … In that kind of environment, it’s not surprising that there might be a few issues involved. But the good news is that those seeking to get aid to the people of Gaza, which is not Hamas, have succeeded.”
Journalists at the news conference challenged these claims, saying that there was no evidence that Hamas had attempted to obstruct the aid.
Bruce responded by saying the aid delivery will improve over time and needs to expand, and that while she says she doesn’t speak for the initiative, it’s “clear that the goal was to reach as many people as possible”.
“The real story is that aid and food is moving into Gaza in a massive scale, we’re looking at 8,000 boxes [today],” she said.
“Was this going to be like going to the mall or a drive-through? No, it wasn’t. This is a complicated environment, and the story is the fact that it’s working.”
UN says its Gaza aid system was ‘not perfect, but it worked’
While the UN’s system of delivering aid in Gaza was not perfect, “it worked, and we saw how it worked during the ceasefire”, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference.
Dujarric said the Israeli-US aid initiative, which descended into chaos earlier today, did not match the UN’s principles.
“Humanitarian aid needs to be distributed in a way that is safe under principles of independence [and] impartiality, in the way we’ve always done it,” he said.
“We saw the plan that they’ve [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] published and that they presented to us, and it is not done with the parameters that we feel match our principles, which we apply across the board, from Gaza to Sudan to Myanmar, to anywhere you want to talk about.”
German government’s comments on Israel suggests policy shift
For generations of German politicians, whatever their party perspective, there’s been what’s called “staatsraison”: The reason for the Federal Republic of Germany to exist is for the state of Israel to exist and to provide security for it.
Although governments come and go, it hasn’t changed. And yet, in the course of the last 36 hours, we’ve heard the sort of language from Chancellor Fredrich Merz and Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, which basically says there are certain things the government shouldn’t really be doing.
So, for this government now to say it’s thinking very hard about what weapons will be provided to Israel and what won’t, it’s clearly a change of tone, and perhaps a subtle policy shift.
‘Only the word genocide can describe what’s happening in Gaza,’ Belgian foreign minister says
Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot says “only the word genocide” can describe what Israel is doing in Gaza.
“As the foreign minister, it is not up to me to make such statements. But my personal opinion is that this is very close to genocide. I don’t know what other horrors have yet to occur before that word can be used,” Prevot said in an interview with Humo magazine.
He said he felt “very angry” seeing images of death, destruction and hunger coming out of Gaza.
“I have been saying since April that the humanitarian blockade is an absolute disgrace. Deliberately starving a population is a war crime,” he said.
About sanctions on Israel, Prevot said that both the Belgian government and the EU should intensify pressure on Israel.
“I am in favour of sanctions against the military and political leaders on both sides and against the Jewish settlers who are forcibly evicting the Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank,” he said.
“It is no longer enough for the Belgian government to condemn the situation. Actions are needed to make Israel move.”
Pandemonium breaks out at Israeli-backed aid site in Gaza
We’ve been reporting on the chaotic scenes as thousands of starving Palestinians burst into a distribution centre set up by Israel and the United States in southern Gaza.
People grabbed boxes of desperately needed humanitarian relief as American security contractors hastily retreated and Israeli soldiers fired warning shots into the air.
Two civilians killed in Israeli attack on tent camp near Khan Younis
Two Palestinian civilians have been killed in an Israeli attack near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the Wafa news agency reports.
A Wafa correspondent said Israeli forces hit a tent sheltering displaced civilians in Asdaa, northwest of the city, killing two civilians and wounding others.
Gaza media office denies aid obstruction, says GHF spreading false claims
Gaza’s Government Media Office has rejected allegations by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) that Palestinian fighters blocked public access to its aid sites.
In a lengthy statement, it called the claims “a blatant fabrication” and the GHF’s efforts “a dangerous deviation from humanitarian neutrality”.
It blamed the chaos and delays in aid distribution on the new foundation’s mismanagement. The distribution sites are actually “segregated buffer zones” serving Israel’s military agenda, it added.
“GHF … has lost any pretense of credibility or neutrality by parroting and adopting the occupation’s narrative,” the statement said. “It thus bears moral and legal responsibility for covering up the ongoing crime of genocide being committed against over 2.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip through the complete blockade of food, medicine, water, and fuel.”
The media office also accused the foundation of seizing aid trucks from a humanitarian organisation and diverting them – with Israeli army protection – to its own distribution sites in buffer zones.
Israeli military says it did not directly shoot at aid distribution crowd
The Israeli army says its soldiers did not direct gunfire towards an aid distribution centre after thousands of desperate Palestinians stormed it while seeking long-blockaded food.
Soldiers fired “warning shots” in the air to disperse the rowdy crowd outside the aid site in southern Gaza’s Rafah area, the military said.
In a statement, it said control over the chaotic situation has been established with aid distribution to continue as planned. The comments could not be independently verified.
Desperation for food among Palestinians overcame concern about biometric and other checks Israel said it would employ at the Israel-US-backed centre.
Israeli forces kill 26 people in Gaza since dawn
At least 26 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn today, Gaza’s Ministry of Health says.
Israel weaponising aid in a ‘phenomenally cynical’ way
The chaos at the US-Israeli aid distribution centre in southern Gaza was expected as the Israelis “continue to humiliate the Palestinians and weaponise the aid” to Gaza, Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, says.
“[The Israelis] weaponised hunger. Now they are weaponising the aid that is supposed to take care of the hunger,” he said, adding that the US-Israeli aid initiative is “so shady” that its executive director quit two days ago.
“It is phenomenal how much cynicism goes into Israeli policymaking on Gaza besides all the horror of the bombings and destruction.”
Bishara said it remains to be seen whether increased US and European pressure on Netanyahu to agree a ceasefire will succeed as Hamas badly wants a deal to end the war while Netanyahu intends to continue fighting to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza.
“The relationship between the United States and Israel has been slowly but surely deteriorating, and that is leading to some tensions and a bit more pressure on Netanyahu,” he said.
UN: Gaza aid rush at US-Israeli site ‘heartbreaking’
Footage of thousands of Palestinians storming the site where aid is being distributed by a foundation backed by the US and Israel is “heartbreaking”, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says.
“We and our partners have a detailed, principled, operationally sound plan supported by member states to get aid to a desperate population,” Dujarric told reporters.
“We continue to stress that a meaningful scale-up of humanitarian operations is essential to stave off famine and meet the needs of all civilians, wherever they are.”
Israel-US aid initiative driven by military rather than humanitarian logic, says NGO VP
Hardin Lang, the vice president for programmes and policy at Refugees International, said it’s no surprise that the Israeli-US-backed initiative has descended into chaos as the humanitarian community has been warning policymakers that a desperate population would overwhelm a couple of aid distribution sites.
“This is not the way in which you try to feed a population, much less a population that is on the verge of famine,” he told Al Jazeera, speaking from Washington, DC in the US.
“The kind of operation that is required to prevent famine, or stop it if it’s already ongoing, is a tremendously large and complex logistical operation. And it’s not just food. You have to have access to medical facilities, access to acute malnutrition centres … which have not been factored into this plan.”
He said that only the UN and some international NGOs have the necessary infrastructure, experience and community acceptance to do this kind of work, and stressed that if the Israeli-US initiative is intended to use aid to forcibly transfer Gaza’s population, it would be a violation of international humanitarian law.
“The way in which this is being done feels as though it has much more of a military and securitised logic to it, than it does a humanitarian logic,” Lang said.
Criticism mounts over Israel’s Gaza aid plan
We’ve been reporting on the chaos at the GHF food distribution point in Rafah.
The UN and several aid organisations have expressed strong opposition to the GHF’s approach, saying the joint Israeli-US initiative does not abide by humanitarian principles and could displace more people from their homes.
In some of the latest criticism, the spokesperson from the UN humanitarian office, Jens Laerke, called the effort “a distraction” as famine threatens Gaza, saying what’s truly needed is the reopening of all crossings into Gaza and the unrestricted, large-scale entry of humanitarian relief.
Earlier this month, UN aid chief Tom Fletcher described the initiative as a “fig leaf for further violence and displacement”, saying it politicises aid and undermines established humanitarian protocols.
The International Committee of the Red Cross and other agencies have also raised concerns about the lack of impartiality and the potential for aid to be politicised.
Jake Wood, the GHF executive director and a former US marine, resigned on Sunday, just days before the foundation began its Gaza operation. Wood cited its inability to uphold essential humanitarian principles such as “neutrality, impartiality and independence”.
Ex-Israeli PM says Israel ‘committing war crimes’
Ehud Olmert, who was prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, has written an op-ed in which he says that Israel “is committing war crimes”.
“The government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning and with no chances of success,” the Netanyahu critic said in the piece that was published by the Israeli news outlet Haaretz.
“Never since its establishment has the State of Israel waged such a war. The criminal gang headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has set a precedent without equal in Israel’s history in this area, too.”
Journalist injured in Israeli settler attack near West Bank’s Ramallah
Issam al-Rimawi, a photojournalist with Turkiye’s Anadolu news agency, has been injured by Israeli settlers attacking the village of al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah in the central West Bank, according to his employer.
Muatasim Saqf Al-Hait, a colleague who witnessed the incident, told Al Jazeera that the settlers were emboldened by the arrival of the Israeli military and intensified their attacks, including hitting al-Rimawi.
“They started attacking him with rocks. They beat him on his head. It was clear that he was a journalist doing his job, but we know that journalists are attacked as well,” Al-Hait said.
Anadolu reported that the photojournalist lost consciousness and was transferred to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah.
Israeli settlers burn Palestinian vehicles, attack homes near West Bank’s Nablus
Israeli settlers have burned vehicles and attacked homes in the village of Qaryut, south of Nablus, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.
Residents said the settlers targeted Palestinian homes with stones and torched and destroyed seven vehicles.
Settler attacks on Palestinians have been on the rise since the war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, and new settlement building has accelerated under the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent Hamdah Salhout said Palestinians are “essentially left defenceless whenever there are settler attacks because the military is watching and not protecting them”.
They believe these attacks are aimed at “kicking them out of their lands to try and take [them] permanently”, she added.
Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law.
‘A lot of frustration’ at the UN as Israel blocks aid efforts
The chaos in Gaza today – this is exactly what the United Nations has been warning about. The UN has refused to take part in the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid operation that has been organised with Israel and the United States.
The UN says it does not adhere to the basic rules of humanitarian laws, including rules that involve neutrality. The criticism from the United Nations is this organisation doesn’t have the reach or experience that it does.
We know how desperate the situation is. The UN had 400 trucks of aid immediately ready to go, but because of the difficulties on the ground – 80 percent of the Gaza Strip is an Israeli-militarised zone – distributing that aid once it gets in is a real challenge.
The UN has hundreds of locations for aid pickup and distribution compared to the four now being used by this new organisation. The UN has a five-point plan it says would do a better job but it’s not being allowed to do so. So there’s a lot of frustration here.
Chaos at Gaza aid site ‘endangers’ Israeli soldiers: Politician
The chaos at the humanitarian aid distribution site in southern Gaza “is a direct result of a failed government that promises ‘order in the distribution’ and once again endangers our heroic soldiers”, according to Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman.
“Israel needs real leadership,” he said in a social media post.
GHF is ‘armchair humanitarianism at its worst’, ex-UNRWA spokesperson says
Chris Gunness, former spokesperson for UNRWA, tells Al Jazeera that the chaos at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) food distribution point in Rafah “speaks to the extraordinary naivety, amateurishness and inexperience” of the joint Israel-US initiative, calling it “armchair humanitarianism at its worst”.
He said the lack of planning stands out to him, particularly a failure to consult with the community – something known in the humanitarian sector as “the principle of no harm”.
“This was not done. This was imposed by the two powers in the world that are committing a genocide against these people,” he said.
He said UNRWA is the only organisation that has the infrastructure, aid warehouses, food distribution centres, vehicles and workers to effectively distribute aid to Gaza but international donors have allowed UNRWA to be sidelined based on a campaign of “lies, misinformation and propaganda” by Israel.
“We need to re-establish UNRWA. We need to get the international UNRWA staff back into Gaza. We need order restored, and we need proper, orderly food distribution. Only UNRWA can do that,” he said, adding that otherwise there will likely be more mass killings, such as a massacre in February last year when more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces while they waited for aid.
Only sanctioning Israel and re-empowering UNRWA are “going to see us pull back from this absolute catastrophe, which is a stain on the conscience of the world”, he said.
Photos: Palestinians seeking aid gather near distribution site in Rafah
If you’re just joining us
Let’s bring you up to speed with the main developments of the past hour:
- Large crowds have gathered west of Rafah in southern Gaza after the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) opened its first aid distribution point.
- Thousands of Palestinians have stormed past the barricades, desperate to get food to feed their families after three months of an aid blockade.
- Guns are reported to have been fired into the air to disperse the crowds.
- The UN and other aid groups have roundly criticised the GHF’s aid distribution model, saying it doesn’t abide by humanitarian principles and could displace people farther from their homes.
Gunshots fired to disperse people from aid distribution area
While there is a lot of chaos going on in the Tal as-Sultan area of Rafah in southern Gaza, the situation remains extremely difficult in the northern part of the Gaza Strip as well.
It’s unlikely Palestinians there are going to see aid anytime soon. Today, we’ve seen what desperation can do to people, how hunger can lead to violence and chaos.
There are reports talking about the Israeli military trying to secure a safe corridor for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation employees out of the area as thousands of people surrounded it, trying to get to food.
In response, forces fired machine guns in the air to disperse people. This highlights the risk Palestinians are taking right now just to feed themselves.
Israel’s weaponisation of food ‘shameful and must stop’
Tamer Qarmout, an associate professor of public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, has said Israel’s weaponisation of food was behind the “horrific” and “tragic” scenes at the aid distribution site in Rafah.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, he denounced global inaction in the face of a “man-made disaster” unfolding in Gaza as the starvation crisis worsens.
“Aid used to be distributed in an organised manner once it was available in Gaza. But the moment [Israel] started weaponising food, weaponising aid, this is the outcome we get,” Qarmout said.
“There is still a paralysed international community that is watching this, that is allowing these scenes to happen … allowing a criminal state to experiment with people,” he added.
“In this modern century, this is shameful and it should stop.”
Aid points Israel’s ‘last card’ in expelling Palestinians from Gaza
The chaos at the aid centre is the result of the refusal to listen to people who have 80 years of experience at organisations such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA.
They are dealing with two million starved people. The civilians of Gaza are obviously trying to get just any piece of food for their children.
And how logical is this claim that they are doing this aid distribution to separate civilians from Hamas?
Critics say Israel established these distribution points only in the south to encourage people – or even to force them – to flee from the north. This is a clear plan for the complete expulsion of the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip.
It didn’t work before. No amount of starvation, no amount of killing, no amount of bombing has convinced them or forced them to move from northern Gaza, where their homes are.
Now this is the last card that Israel has, which is to force them by starvation to the south, where the distribution is taking place. If Israel gets its way, we will end up with a real concentration camp in the south.
GHF parcels contain non-nutritious, meagre amount of food: AJ correspondent
While the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) says it has handed out some 8,000 food boxes today, supposedly amounting to 462,000 meals, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary says that the parcels she’s seen contain only a meagre amount of food that will not feed a family for long and is not nutritious enough.
She said she had seen a food box that contained 4kg (8.8lbs) of flour, a couple of bags of pasta, two cans of fava beans, a pack of tea bags and some biscuits, while other food parcels contained lentils and soup in very small quantities.
“This is definitely not enough, and it is not enough for all the humiliation that Palestinians are going through to receive these food parcels,” she said, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
“We’re talking about nearly three months without chicken, without meat, without nutritious food, and that’s why most people coming to the hospital now are malnourished Palestinian children.”
Khoudary said that while these GHF food parcels might last a family a day or two, Palestinians used to receive packages from United Nations agencies that would last one to two weeks – until Israel imposed its total blockade on aid almost three months ago, and people increasingly became so hungry they could often not even cobble together one meal a day.
“[The GHF says] 8,000 Palestinians received parcels today. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of Palestinians squeezed into the area very close to Rafah [in southern Gaza], and all of these people said they were forced to go to these distribution points after weeks of not having even one meal a day,” she said.
‘These are the scenes we have been warning about’
We have spoken to Ahmed Bayram, of the Norwegian Refugee Council, about the chaotic scenes at the aid distribution site in Rafah, southern Gaza, and the prior warnings by aid agencies.
Here’s what he said:
“What we’re seeing is indeed a summary of the tragedy that the people of Gaza are living.
“To be honest, I have been describing this plan as a non-starter, and today we see it’s a literal non-starter. You have been starving the entire population for almost three months, and then you’re asking them to walk miles and miles in order to get hold of a bag of lentils and a bag of flour.
“This is not how aid is done, this is not how aid should be distributed, not least obviously an occupier doing that – a country that has destroyed and flattened Rafah asking people to come back to Rafah, that has displaced people out of Rafah and now tells them to come back and receive whatever they can get hold of.
“These are the scenes we have literally been warning about all month now.
“It spread chaos, it spread confusion and this is the result.
“I think the best thing that can be done now is for this plan to be cancelled, to be reversed and for us professional humanitarians in the UN and NGOs to do our job. There are tonnes and tonnes of aid waiting across the border. It’s a very simple decision: open the gates, and keep them open.”
Israeli tank and gunfire reported from aid distribution site
A reporter from The Associated Press says Israeli tank and gunfire could be heard as large crowds of Palestinians tried to reach an aid centre in southern Gaza.
There was no immediate word on whether there were any casualties.
The firing came as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians walked through Israeli military lines to reach the distribution hub set up on the outskirts of Rafah by a United States-backed group that Israel has slated to take over food distribution in Gaza. It was the second day of operations at the hub.
Palestinians in the war-battered territory are starving after Israel blockaded the Gaza Strip of all humanitarian relief for nearly three months.
Israel’s new distribution plan – backed by the US – has been widely criticised by established aid agencies such as the United Nations.