Latest news with #AlAqsaMartyrsHospital
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
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. 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. 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.
South China Morning Post
a day ago
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
An Israeli strike kills 18 in Gaza as turmoil mounts over food distribution
An Israeli strike hit a street in central Gaza on Thursday, where witnesses said a crowd of people was getting bags of flour from a Palestinian police unit. The bags distributed had been confiscated 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. The strike in the central town of Deir al-Balah on Thursday 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. Gaza aid plan makes a faltering start as Israeli air strikes kill dozens of Palestinians Video of the aftermath showed bodies, several torn, 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. 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 coordinated with the UN or Israeli authorities. The World Food Programme did not immediately respond to requests for comment by Associated Press. Relatives of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes wait for their burials in Gaza. Photo: AP '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, said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, in a joint statement on Wednesday, accused Hamas of stealing aid that is entering northern Gaza and called on the Israeli military to plan to prevent it. The National Gathering slammed the statement, saying the accusation of theft was aimed at justifying the Israeli military's 'aggressive practices'. The move by tribes to protect aid convoys brings yet another player into an aid situation that has become fragmented, confused and violent. March 2025: Israel launches intense air strikes on Gaza, killing at least 200 after truce talks stall Gaza's more than 2 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 even amid the fighting. The UN and other aid groups say that when significant amounts of supplies are allowed into Gaza, looting and theft dwindle. 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 (GHF), which has started distributing food boxes at four locations, mainly in the far south of Gaza, for the past month. Palestinians carry aid distributed by an Israeli and US-backed organisation in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. Photo: AP Thousands of Palestinians walk for hours to reach the hubs, moving through Israeli military zones where witnesses said Israeli troops regularly open fire with heavy barrages. Health officials said hundreds of people have been killed and wounded. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots. Israel has allowed a smaller number of aid trucks into Gaza for UN distribution. The World Health Organization said on Thursday it had been able to deliver its first medical shipment into Gaza since March 2, with nine trucks bringing blood, plasma and other supplies to Nasser Hospital, the biggest hospital still functioning in southern Gaza. In Gaza City, large crowds gathered on Thursday at an aid distribution point to receive bags of flour from the convoy that arrived the previous evening, according to photos taken by a cameraman collaborating with Associated Press. Separately, Israeli strikes overnight and early on Thursday killed at least 28 people across Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry. More than 20 dead arrived at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, while the bodies of eight others were taken to Nasser Hospital in the south.
Asharq Al-Awsat
a day ago
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Israeli Strike Kills 18 Palestinians in Central Gaza, Turmoil Mounts over Food Distribution
An Israeli strike hit a street in central Gaza on Thursday where witnesses said a crowd of people was getting bags of flour from a Palestinian police unit that 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 2 1/2 months, Israel has allowed only a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May. 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 on Thursday 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, several torn, 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. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, The Associated Press reported. 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 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 coordinated with the UN or Israeli authorities. The World Food Program did not immediately respond to requests for comment by The Associated Press. '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 AP. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz in a joint statement Wednesday accused Hamas of stealing aid that is entering northern Gaza, and called on the Israeli military to plan to prevent it. The National Gathering slammed the statement, saying the accusation of theft was aimed at justifying the Israeli military's 'aggressive practices.' It said aid was 'fully secured' by the tribes, which it said were committed to delivering the supplies to the population. 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 2 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. UN and other aid groups say that when significant amounts of supplies are allowed into Gaza, looting and theft dwindles. 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. Israel has continued to allow a smaller number of aid trucks into Gaza for UN distribution. The World Health Organization said on Thursday it had been able to deliver its first medical shipment into Gaza since March 2, with nine trucks bringing blood, plasma and other supplies to Nasser Hospital, the biggest hospital still functioning in southern Gaza. In Gaza City, large crowds gathered Thursday at an aid distribution point to receive bags of flour from the convoy that arrived the previous evening, according to photos taken by a cameraman collaborating with the AP. Hiba Khalil, a mother of seven, said she can't afford looted aid that is sold in markets for astronomical prices and was relieved to get flour for the first time in months. 'We've waited for months without having flour or eating much and our children would always cry,' she said. Another woman, Umm Alaa Mekdad, said she hoped more convoys would make it through after struggling to deal with looters. 'The gangs used to take our shares and the shares of our children who slept hungry and thirsty," she said. Separately, Israeli strikes overnight and early Thursday killed at least 28 people across the Gaza Strip, according to the territory's Health Ministry. More than 20 dead arrived at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, while the bodies of eight others were taken to Nasser Hospital in the south.
Asharq Al-Awsat
29-05-2025
- Health
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Israel Strike on a Home in Gaza Kills 22 as it Orders Hospital Evacuation
An Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza on Thursday killed 22 people, including nine women and children. The airstrike hit a family home in Bureij, an urban refugee camp in central Gaza, according to the officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah. An Associated Press journalist viewed the hospital records of the dead from the strike. Strikes in northern Gaza late Wednesday and early Thursday hit a house, killing eight people, including two women and three children, and a car in Gaza City, killing four, local hospitals said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which says it only targets fighters and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the gunmen operate in populated areas. Meanwhile the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of a hospital in northern Gaza, staff said. Dr. Rami al-Ashrafi said the army wants to evacuate everyone in Al-Awda Hospital in the heavily devastated Jabaliya area. One of the last functioning medical centers in northern Gaza, the hospital has been encircled by Israeli troops and has come under fire in recent days. Speaking by phone to the AP, al-Ashrafi said there are 82 staffers, including doctors, and seven patients left at the hospital. A total of 30 patients and 57 staff were already evacuated Tuesday, he said Israeli authorities issued evacuation orders last week for large parts of northern Gaza ahead of offensives against Hamas, although the army did not order the hospital itself to evacuate. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, said last week that Israeli military operations and evacuation orders in Gaza 'are stretching the health system beyond the breaking point.'
ABC News
25-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Israeli strike in Gaza kills dozens, including children sheltering in tent
At least 38 people have been killed in the latest Israeli strikes on Gaza, including a mother and her two children sheltering in a tent, according to local health officials. The strikes came on Sunday local time as part of Israel's renewed offensive in the enclave, which the Gaza Health Ministry says has killed at least 3,785 people since March. Israeli authorities have vowed to destroy Hamas with the offensive and force the return of 58 hostages the terror group still holds from the October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war. Hamas has said it would only release the hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. The new strike on a tent housing displaced people that killed a mother and her children occurred in the central city of Deir al-Balah, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Another strike in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza killed at least five people, including two women and a child, the health ministry said. The strike in Jabalia also killed local journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda and several family members, while another strike in Nuseirat killed Ashraf Abu Nar, a senior official in the territory's civil emergency service, and his wife, local medics said. The attacks followed a trickle of humanitarian aid that was allowed into Gaza last week by Israel, after months of the country blocking the import of all food, medicine and fuel in a move that has sparked experts' warnings about famine. United States Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was scheduled to visit Israel on Sunday and expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel has been pursuing a new plan to tightly control all aid to Gaza, which the United Nations has rejected. The executive director of the UN World Food Programme, Cindy McCain, told CBS she has not seen evidence to support Israel's claims that Hamas is responsible for the looting of aid trucks. "These people are desperate, and they see a World Food Programme truck coming in and they run for it," she said. Israel also says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of much of its population of over 2 million Palestinians. That plan has also been rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community, with some experts saying it would likely violate international law. In a separate Israeli strike that hit Gaza on Friday, only one of paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar's 10 children survived at their home near the southern city of Khan Younis. The 11-year-old and Ms al-Najjar's husband Hamdi al-Najjar, who is also a doctor, were badly hurt. The charred remains of the children were put into a single body bag according to Alaa al-Zayan, a fellow paediatrician at Gaza's Nasser Hospital. The home was struck minutes after Mr al-Najjar had driven his wife to the hospital. His brother, Ismail al-Najjar, was first to arrive at the scene and said the youngest child to be killed in the strikes was seven months old. "And my brother has no business with [Palestinian] factions." Israel said on Saturday that "the claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review". It says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because it operates in densely populated areas. There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces on the latest strikes. In Khan Younis on Friday, two staffers of the International Committee of the Red Cross were killed when shelling struck their home, the ICRC said. Israeli strikes have killed more than 150 emergency responders from the Red Crescent and Civil Defense, most of them on duty, since the war started, according to the UN. "This is not an endless war," Israel's military chief of staff, said Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir during a visit to Khan Younis. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted 251 people. Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israel's 19-month offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead. It does not provide figures for the number of civilians or combatants killed. The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced about 90 per cent of the territory's population, often multiple times. The strikes on Gaza came on the same day that European and Arab leaders gathered in Madrid, Spain for talks aimed at urging an end to Israel's offensive in the enclave. Some of Israel's long-standing allies have added their voices to growing international pressure after it expanded its operations against Hamas. On Sunday, Spain's foreign minister declared that the international community should look at sanctions against Israel in a bid to end the war. "Silence in these moments is complicity in this massacre … that is why we are meeting," Jose Manuel Albares told reporters before the talks. Mr Albares also said the discussions were focused on putting a stop to Israel's "inhumane" and "senseless" war, and that humanitarian aid must enter Gaza "massively, without conditions and without limits, and not controlled by Israel". Representatives from European countries including France, Britain, Germany and Italy joined envoys from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco, the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation at the meeting in Madrid. After the European Union decided this week to review its cooperation deal with Israel, Mr Albares told reporters Spain would request its "immediate suspension" and promote a two-state solution to the conflict. The country will also look to urge partners to impose an arms embargo on Israel and "not rule out any" individual sanctions against those "who want to ruin the two-state solution forever", he added. The diplomatic drive comes one month before a UN conference on the Israel-Palestinian conflict presided over by France and Saudi Arabia. AP
