Israeli strike kills 18 Palestinians as turmoil mounts over food distribution
An Israeli strike hit a street in central Gaza on Thursday, where witnesses said a crowd of people were getting bags of flour from a Palestinian police unit which had confiscated the goods from gangs looting aid convoys.
Hospital officials said 18 people were killed.
The strike was the latest violence surrounding the distribution of food to Gaza's population, which has been thrown into turmoil over the past month.
After blocking all food for two and a half months, Israel has allowed only a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May.
A Palestinian boy carries a sack of food (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)
Efforts by the United Nations to distribute the food have been plagued by armed gangs looting trucks, and by crowds of desperate people offloading supplies from convoys.
The strike in the central town of Deir al-Balah appeared to target members of Sahm, a security unit tasked with stopping looters and cracking down on merchants who sell stolen aid at high prices.
The unit is part of Gaza's Hamas-led interior ministry, but includes members of other factions.
Witnesses said the Sahm unit was distributing bags of flour and other goods confiscated from looters and corrupt merchants, drawing a crowd, when the strike hit.
Video of the aftermath showed bodies of multiple young men in the street with blood splattering on the pavement and walls of buildings.
The dead included a child and at least seven Sahm members, according to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where casualties were taken.
Palestinians carry humanitarian aid packages near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centre in Khan Younis (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel has accused the militant Hamas group of stealing aid and using it to prop up its rule in the enclave.
Israeli forces have repeatedly struck Gaza's police, considering them a branch of Hamas.
An association of Gaza's influential clans and tribes said on Wednesday they have started an independent effort to guard aid convoys to prevent looting.
The National Gathering of Palestinian Clans and Tribes said it helped escort a rare shipment of flour that entered northern Gaza that evening.
It was unclear, however, if the association had co-ordinated with the UN or Israeli authorities.
'We will no longer allow thieves to steal from the convoys for the merchants and force us to buy them for high prices,' Abu Ahmad al-Gharbawi, a figure involved in the tribal effort, told the Associated Press.
The move by tribes to protect aid convoys brings yet another player in an aid situation that has become fragmented, confused and violent, even as Gaza's more than two million Palestinians struggle to feed their families.
Throughout the more than 20-month-old war, the UN led the massive aid operation by humanitarian groups providing food, shelter, medicine and other goods to Palestinians despite the fighting.
Israel, however, seeks to replace the UN-led system, saying Hamas has been siphoning off large amounts of supplies from it, a claim the UN and other aid groups deny.
Israel has backed an American private contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has started distributing food boxes at four locations, mainly in the far south of Gaza for the past month.
Thousands of Palestinians walk for hours to reach the hubs, moving through Israeli military zones where witnesses say Israeli troops regularly open fire with heavy barrages to control the crowds.
Health officials say hundreds of people have been killed and wounded. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots.
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Irish Independent
43 minutes ago
- Irish Independent
All eyes on Kneecap as Irish rap trio to perform at Glastonbury despite UK government calls for a ban
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The Irish Sun
2 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
I spent 31 years advising US on the Iran threat – it's the last gaps of a dying regime, Trump's next move is crucial
IRAN'S repressed nation should be encouraged to overthrow its barbaric regime by the US, an ex-Congress adviser said. Calls for regime overhaul in the rogue nation have rumbled louder since a Advertisement 7 Smoke and fire rise following missile attack from Iran on Israel, in Haifa Credit: Reuters 7 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei went into hiding as Israel and Iran traded blows Credit: EPA 7 A demonstrator holding an Israeli flag and a poster demanding regime change during a protest against the Iranian government outside the Federal Building in LA Credit: Reuters Donald Trump unleashed the biggest blow of the conflict last Sunday when he The US leader even hinted at toppling the regime as he wrote on Truth Social: "If the current Iranian regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a regime change? MIGA!". Authorities in the US insisted ousting the Supreme leader Ali Khamenei has led a blood-soaked reign over Iran since 1989 following the death of his ruthless predecessor Ruhollah Khomeini. Advertisement More on Iran But the chorus of voices demanding regime change in Iran has amplified after decades of its people suffering a catalogue of human rights violations. Fears have also escalated that the wounded regime could Kenneth Katzman, who spent 31 years briefing Congress on Iran as a top Middle East Analyst, believes the US should now take little action - except incentivise life under a new regime. Merciless Khamenei, 86, has been in hiding since Israel began a campaign to destroy his nuclear sites - and many senior figures believe his rule could be on its last legs. Advertisement Most read in The Sun Exclusive Exclusive Katzman told The Sun: "These are the last gasps of a dying regime. "It's still in control nominally but I personally believe this regime is basically lost. Only the real diehards right now are behind this regime. 'Daddy' Trump stopped Israel and Iran war, Nato chief tells 'strong' Don "That doesn't mean it's going to collapse any day now, but it will eventually. This regime is in big trouble." Katzman, who retired in 2022 but has continued to watch Iran cut a menacing figure, said if it was still advise Congress to now "do as little as possible". Advertisement The analyst, who worked at the US Congressional Research Service, added: "There is a war fever going on now, with a lot of piling on and dredging up past incidents with Iran, past grievances. 'If it were up to me I would say to send some kind of signal that if there is a new regime, the US is willing to lift sanctions, provide humanitarian aid, welcome defectors and investment from Iran. 'Signalling that if the people can get rid of this regime they can have the same future that Syria is now experiencing, where they got rid of a dictator and have had sanctions lifted. 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"What keeps people not to worry about the fact that the call of these terrorist networks of sleeper cells could smuggle in a few grams of enriched plutonium, throw it in a lake in Europe, and instantaneously kill tens of millions of people who will be radioactively attacked. "You don't need a missile or warhead for that. "We have at least eliminated the imminent threat of the regime. Does that mean that the regime still doesn't have the capability to acquire nuclear weapons or a dirty bomb by purchasing it from the North Koreans? "It doesn't eliminate that, that's the entire point." Pahlavi, whose family was forced to leave Iran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, warned unless the Islamist regime is toppled, the threat of nuclear material being weaponised looms large. The self-styled crown prince - who has been advocating for regime change for decades - announced on Monday he is offering to lead a transitional government to make Iran a democratic, secular country. 'The regime has now brought them into a war with the United States, although that may not continue. I think the people can only take so much.' Last week the US bombed nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan after Iran's devastating missile exchange with Israel. President Donald Trump has since announced a precarious ceasefire, but the world continues to nervously await what happens next. Advertisement While Iran is currently in a ceasefire with Israel, fears continue to grow as to how long this will last. Trump was this week hailed a 'daddy' by Nato chief Mark Rutte at a landmark meeting in the Netherlands. Iran also finally admitted the US strikes had left their nuclear facilities 'badly damaged'. But it came after Trump made the astonishing claim on Tuesday that Israel and Iran 'don't know what the f*** they're doing' following doubts the agreement had been kept. Advertisement Katzman believes Iran is very far away from developing a nuclear weapon. 7 And even if it did get one, it would be extremely difficult for it to ever threaten a launch given US and Israeli intelligence. He added: 'I think US intelligence is good enough to detect if they were actually going to try to use a nuclear weapon. Advertisement 'You need a lot of steps to do that. It's not that easy to conceal, especially with the Mossad agents crawling all over the place as they are right now. 'There are radioactivity detectors. There's a lot of intelligence gathering going on. 'So I don't think it would be that easy for them to just go from where they are now with these destroyed facilities to suddenly producing a nuclear weapon. 'I could be wrong, but I don't think it's that easy.' Advertisement Asked how the Iranian people could conceivably overthrow the regime, Katzman said he doesn't expect anything to happen soon. 7 Kenneth Katzman spent 31 years briefing Congress on Iran as a top Middle East Analyst Credit: soufangroup 7 Missiles fired by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps towards Israel Credit: Reuters 7 Satellite view shows Fordow in Iran after the US struck the underground nuclear facility Credit: Reuters Advertisement He believes the conflict must settle first. Katzman added: 'It can be toppled. Is it close to being toppled? No, but it can be. 'Anything can really spark it. We had a partial prison break at Evin Prison. 'You can get incidents. I hear the IRGC is already cracking down by stopping every car that goes by to see if there are Mossad agents in there. Advertisement 'They're sort of doubling down on their strategy in a way. That can work for a while, but the population is pretty fed up. 'Obviously the population has to get through this crisis first and then it can reassess what to do about the regime. 'So it's not going to do anything right now while the conflict is going on, but ultimately though, there's going to be a reckoning.' On Wednesday Nato leaders pledged to increase their annual defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP by 2035. Advertisement Trump also said he no longer believes the organisation is a 'rip-off'.
RTÉ News
2 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Bombs away - what happens in the aftermath of US attack on Iran?
You can actually understand why Donald Trump was a bit miffed about the public (i.e. media) reaction to last weekend's bombing raid on Iran. It actually was an astonishing feat of arms. Don't get me wrong - there absolutely is a need to critically review that operation, and the US media has mostly done the job it's supposed to: examine the official version, to see how public money is spent. And be in no doubt - this one cost billions. And academics and think tankers did what they are supposed to do: think deeply on the consequences of the action. The various intelligence services did what they are supposed to do too: coldly assess information that the public does not have access to and report the line to political bosses. Sometimes that stuff gets leaked - for all sorts of reasons. So yes, we'll do a little bit of critical analysis of our own later. But first - the mission. The details and the background are useful in assessing the usefulness or otherwise of the US intervention against Iran. Apparently, it's the first time the US has ever directly gone into battle on the Israeli side. That in itself is remarkable, all the more so as the president campaigned on the promise of not allowing the US to be dragged into foreign wars. Yet dragged in, it was. And rather rapidly. Lots of people in America pointed that out. And questioned the efficacy of the raid. That didn't please the president, who took it personally and his administration went on the offensive personally - targeting named reporters from a number of outlets, including CNN and Fox News. At the NATO summit on Wednesday, he posted 28 times on social media complaining about the coverage. He also accused the media of disrespecting the bomber crews and other military who took part and downplayed the difficulty of the operation (in fact the media coverage did neither, but hey). Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth went on the warpath on behalf of his boss, losing the last shreds of his coolness and composure at an ill-tempered press conference on Thursday, even denouncing a one-time colleague at Fox News by name (the reporter in question is a very highly-regarded 18-year veteran of the Pentagon beat). How was the mission was carried out? But back to the mission. The highlight of that news conference on Thursday was the presentation by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Dan Caine, who gave a lot more of the background to the mission. And it goes a long way to explain the presidential umbrage of the previous days. General Caine revealed that the bombing raid on Fordow was not something whistled up in a week by order of the Commander in Chief (let alone cogged from the plot of Top Gun: Maverick). It was in fact a hugely-costly, incredibly-complex operation that has been fifteen years in the making. He told us about the Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), a little-known annex of the Pentagon that is based in Fort Belvoir in North Virginia. Back in 2009 a DTRA officer was "brought into a vault at an undisclosed location and briefed on something going on in Iran", according to Genral Caine's account. "He was shown some photos and some highly classified intelligence on what looked like a major construction project in the mountains of Iran. He was tasked to study this facility, work with the intelligence community to understand it, and he was soon joined by an additional teammate." These two individuals immersed themselves in what is now known to the world at the Fordow nuclear facility. "For more than 15 years, this officer and his teammate lived and breathed this single target: Fordow, a critical element of Iran's nuclear weapons program," General Caine said. "He watched the Iranians dig it out. He watched the construction, the weather, the discard material, the geology, the construction materials, where the materials came from. "He looked at the vent shaft, the exhaust shaft, the electrical systems, the environmental control systems—every nook, every crater, every piece of equipment going in, and every piece of equipment going out." Pretty soon they realised that the US didn't have a weapon capable of destroying such a facility. Which of course is the point of burying it deep under a mountain. So, the DTRA officers set about getting one that might do the job. Which is how the US ended up with the "Bunker Busters", the 13 tonne bombs also known as Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), or the more prosaic official designation, GBU-57. General Caine revealed the MOP has been in development since 2004, but the Iran mission focused minds and sprang resources. The top military advisor to the President revealed the massive investment in developing the technology: "In the beginning of its development, we had so many PhDs working on the MOP program doing modeling and simulation that we were quietly and in a secret way the biggest users of supercomputer hours within the United States of America." "They tested it over and over again, tried different options, tried more after that. They accomplished hundreds of test shots and dropped many full-scale weapons against extremely realistic targets for a single purpose: kill this target at the time and place of our nation's choosing," the General said, and showed video of one of those tests. And that is the only video we have seen so far. A skeptical public is asking why haven't they seen video of the actual raid yet? No doubt the Pentagon wants to keep as much of its secrets as it can, at least until it thinks there is little an adversary can gain from its release (we are still not getting colour images of past bombings, because the military likes to strip out details). But with pilots in following planes reporting explosions "as bright as daylight", no doubt the public would like to see it too. After all they paid for it. And judging by General Caine's backgrounder, it didn't come cheap. Estimated development cost of the MOP was about half a billion dollars, with another $400 million in production contracts. No wonder the US is reported to possess only 20 or 30 of these bunker busters. Now minus the 14 used last weekend. So, America has used either half or two thirds of its stash of bunker busters in just one raid. Then there is the cost of the flying bit. The B2 bombers flew a 37-hour round trip from an airbase in Missouri, pretty much in the middle of the US. And it's the hourly flying cost of planes that are the thing to watch. For the B2, the Pentagon reports it costs about $65,000 an hour. That works out about $2.4 million per bomber. And there were seven of them, so that's $16 million and change. "So, for technical brilliance in the art of aerial warfare, this mission was amazing." In all, there were 125 aircraft of different sorts on the raid, ranging from a fleet of refueling tankers (modified versions of big passenger planes) to F-35 fighters, which cost $42,000 per hour to operate. (President Trump also said the F-22, Americas most advanced fighter also took part: the plane, which is not available to any US allies, costs a reported $80,000 per hour to operate). General Caine said the analysts had identified two ventilation shafts at the Fordow site as being possible vulnerabilities that the bunker busters could use to get down to the underground factory where the Iranians are presumed to have operated centrifuges to enrich uranium. This immediately set off some movie-related memes, as people recalled the plot of Star Wars. In fact, it was closer to Top Gun Maverick: "miracle one and miracle two", blowing a concrete cover off the ventilation shafts, then dropping the munition down the shaft, with a fuse set to detonate up to 100 metres below ground. But unlike Top Gun, the bombers dropped not one, but five bunker busters down each of the two main ventilation shafts. That's five, 13 tonne, bombs, dropped from 13 kilometres up, entering a concrete tunnel a few metres wide. In two locations. Just think about that. For contrast, consider the World War Two-era B-17 "Flying Fortress", each of which carried about four tonnes of bombs, only 20% of which fell within 300 metres of their targets. So, for technical brilliance in the art of aerial warfare, this mission was amazing. That said, the key point of the criticism remains valid too: we don't know much about the impact of this mission on Iran's nuclear programme. Even behind closed doors briefings for Senators and Congressmen on Thursday by General Caine and the head of the CIA left us (and them) none the wiser. Party politics dominated the public comments afterwards: For Democrat Senator Chris Murphy, the raid has set back the Iranians by as little as three months: for Republican Senator Linsey Graham, its set the programme back many years. Only President Trump and his political acolytes are using the word "obliterated", which is not a term of art used by military or intelligence professionals to formally describe the kinetic effects of ordinance. What's next for Iran? Pete Hegseth, the Defence Secretary, was right when he said the only way to know for sure is to get out a shovel and dig at Fordow. Which the Iranians may well do. If they find their structural defences worked as planned, and protected their stockpile of uranium presumed to be stored there, then they could get back in the nuclear game relatively quickly - if only to develop a so called "dirty bomb" to spread radioactive dust around an enemy city, contaminating rather than destroying it. The big question for the Iranians is do they want to? Just as America has spent a fortune to incapacitate the Iranian nuclear programme, so too has Iran spent a much bigger fortune to start and sustain that programme. And to fortify it in underground sites like Fordow cost vast amounts of money (there is another site, in somewhere called by Western Intelligence "Pickaxe Mountain", where another suspicious underground facility was reportedly close to coming into use in recent weeks). On his recent trip to the Middle East, President Trump took time to contrast the discontents of ordinary Iranians with the apparently more lavish lives of the Arab nations on the south side of the Persian Gulf. While one oil rich state spent its liquid gold on nuclear weapons and funding proxy forces in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen - the other oil rich states behaved like oil rich states, and built glittering towers, bought football teams and tried to shift their economies (and their populations future prosperity) beyond oil and into new technologies. Mr Trump held out the prospect of a similar boost to lifestyles and aspirations for the Iranians - but only if they give up their nuclear ambitions and stop trying to subvert neighbouring states. He didn't call for regime change – no American officials have. But they must hope that ordinary Iranians, having witnessed forty years of the Islamic Republic's policy and billions of dollars in investments go up in smoke, will balk at the idea of just picking up and starting over with the same plan. "Tehran may be forced to accept negotiated restrictions on its nuclear programme." Of course, the most dangerous time for any repressive regime is when it starts to change, which inevitably means loosening its grip on society. Which may explain why Iran's supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is in no hurry to enter talks with the Americans on what happens next. President Trump would like to begin talks next month, presumably picking up where his envoy Steve Witkoff left off. Much as he might wish it, it probably won't turn out to be that easy. Amir Asmar, a former Middle East analyst for the US Department of Defence and now a scholar with the foreign policy think tank The Atlantic council, has outlined three scenarios for the Iranians, based on how much of their programme survived the Fordow raid. In the first scenario, if the Fordow complex and its cascade of centrifuges - the machines that enrich the uranium to weapons grade - are damaged and not functional, Tehran may be forced to accept negotiated restrictions on its nuclear programme. But if much of the machinery emerges unscathed, then in Asmar's view "nothing short of endangering the regime itself would cause Tehran's present leaders to permanently abandon decades of commitment to an indigenous nuclear programme". Hence his conclusion that a partially damaged Fordow will only trigger at best a pause – in both Iran's nuclear programme, and in Israel's efforts to smash it. Further attacks, he feels, would be inevitable, with or without US involvement. In a second scenario, Asmar posits the total destruction of Fordow, with none of its highly enriched uranium stock surviving. In this case he thinks the Iranian leaders would calculate they cannot benefit from holding out in nuclear talks because it would take many years (and tens of billions in oil revenues) to reconstitute the programme, and its ballistic weapons programme, which has also been badly smashed up. And as everybody is watching, any efforts to restart the programmes would probably be easily spotted and would probably lead to Israeli raids at the very least. He says compliance would require even more intrusive monitoring by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran considers withdrawing from Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty That agency's head, Rafael Grossi, said the centrifuge machines at Fordow and elsewhere are "extremely vibration-sensitive", and given the huge explosive effects unleashed by the B2 Raid, "very significant damage is expected to have occurred". But Iran's parliament has already begun steps to end Iran's membership of the IAEA and prevent the inspections that come with it. Iran is also considering withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which commits signatories to not acquire nuclear weapons, and subjects them to IAEA inspection in return for access to nuclear technology for energy and other peaceful purposes. Although Iran's extensive development of nuclear facilities that go far beyond peaceful means suggest it was not adhering to the NPT anyway (enriching uranium to 60% is far beyond the needs of a nuclear energy programme), the treaty has other practical uses. It provided the legal justification necessary for the UN Security Council's sanctions on Iran. Without the NPT Iran's only legal barrier to developing a nuke would be Ayatollah Khamenei's fatwa against it. Iran could easily leave the NPT and develop a bomb without the prying eyes of the IAEA. "The long-term prospects for regional security and stability would be destroyed." Writing in The Atlantic magazine, Thomas Wright, who served as senior director of strategic planning at the National Security Council during the Biden Administration, claimed this was the main problem with the Presidents insistence that the Iranian nuclear programme had been "obliterated". "Trump could have managed that risk by telling the public that although the strikes appeared to have been successful, fully ascertaining their results would take time. "He could then have insisted on a week-long cease-fire for the purpose of concluding a diplomatic agreement with Iran - one that would have insisted on limits to Iran's nuclear programme and continued access for the IAEA, whose inspectors remain in Iran but have not been admitted into nuclear sites. "Given the likely damage done to the programme, he could have afforded to stop short of demanding full dismantlement and settled instead for strict limits on enrichment, as well as round-the-clock inspections with no expiration date. "But Trump took a very different path by declaring the problem fully solved and not using the moment of leverage to extract commitments from Tehran. Tensions between Washington and Jerusalem seem all but inevitable in the aftermath of this choice," he wrote. The danger of a half-done job - or worse, scarcely inflicting any damage at all - is that Iran's Supreme leader decides to go for broke, speeding up development of an A-Bomb and detonating one - to show adversaries Iran is in the nuclear club and deter future attackers. The long-term prospects for regional security and stability would be destroyed. From Gaza to Yemen, Kurdistan to Afghanistan the likelihood of a grand bargain to bring peace to this most troubled of regions would slip further away. This is precisely the opposite of what the attacks were intended to achieve. No wonder the effectiveness of the raid has been such a touchy subject for the President. There may be a ceasefire - but now what?
