By blocking and seizing aid convoys, Israel uses humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war.
The seizure of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters has not deterred other aid convoys from heading towards Gaza. Palestinian-American writer Ahmad Ibsais explains how humanitarian aid has become a politically charged weapon of war.
Wherever Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks, trouble seems to be looming.
Criticism of his government’s war on Gaza is mounting, with charges of genocide and war crimes coming from both foreign leaders and former Israeli prime ministers.
Internationally, Israel is looking increasingly isolated, as images of the starvation it is inflicting on Gaza flood global media.
Domestically, Netanyahu faces deep criticism of a war many believe he is only prolonging to stay in power.
Legally, the prosecution in his corruption trial has begun its cross-examination of him, while politically, he is facing a possible collapse of his governing coalition.
Netanyahu has never seemed so embattled in his career, but is this really the end for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister?
Here’s what we know.
Very, and it’s growing.
Netanyahu has long been accused of manipulating the war in Gaza for his political ends, an accusation that gained new momentum since March, when Israel broke the ceasefire with the Palestinian group Hamas, further endangering the captives held in Gaza.
In late May, a poll for Channel 12 television showed a majority of Israelis thought Netanyahu cared more about retaining his grip on power than returning the captives.
Most of the protests held in Israel have focused on the captives taken during the Hamas-led assault of October 7, 2023, and how extending the war for political motivations endangers them.
But recently, a small but significant number of Israelis have also protested against the intense suffering their government is inflicting upon the people of Gaza. In addition to an open letter from the country’s academics denouncing Israel’s devastation of Gaza, a growing number of photographs of Palestinian children are being held by demonstrators as part of wider Saturday night protests against the war in Tel Aviv.
Even members of the military are growing unhappy with the war in Gaza.
As reports of reservists refusing to fight increased, open letters by current and former officers in various divisions appeared, calling for an end to the war.
Two of Israel’s former prime ministers have recently publicly criticised Netanyahu.
Ehud Barak, a former general and prime minister from 1999 to 2001, said in Time magazine that Netanyahu must choose between a deal brokered by United States President Donald Trump to free the captives and end the war, or continuing with his politically motivated “war of deception”.
Ehud Olmert, prime minister from 2006 to 2009, wrote in Haaretz that Israel was guilty of having committed war crimes in Gaza and that: “This is now a private political war.”
“A sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a pastime, and does not engage in mass population displacement,” former general and leader of the Democrats party, Yair Golan, told local radio station Reshet Bet.
He was referring to the stated plans of far-right ministers like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to expel Palestinians from Gaza in order for Israelis to settle it.
Olmert added on Tuesday that Trump should tell Netanyahu that “enough is enough”.
For years, Israel has been divided over the conscription of its ultra-Orthodox youth, who were exempt from military service if they were full-time students in religious schools or yeshivas.
In June 2024, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the exception could no longer apply, fulfilling a longstanding demand by secular Israelis who protested against the double standard.
But the leaders of the two ultra-Orthodox parties in the ruling coalition, Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), are threatening to collapse the government unless it passes legislation that would override the Supreme Court decision.
It is unclear whether elections would result in a parliament more sympathetic to the ultra-Orthodox, but recent developments, like plans to increase the number of conscription notices to ultra-Orthodox students, have pushed the issue to the fore.
Arab and European leaders have become increasingly vocal in their criticisms of Netanyahu and the war.
However, for now at least, he still has the vital support of the US and President Donald Trump.
In early May, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League slammed Netanyahu after he suggested that expelled Palestinians would be able to settle in Saudi territory.
Later the same month, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom, who had all previously supported Israel’s war on Gaza, issued a statement describing the level of human suffering in the enclave as “intolerable”.
Spain and Ireland, which, along with Norway, recognised a Palestinian state in May 2024, have also called for action to be taken against Israel and the Netanyahu government.
The UK, along with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway, also announced on Tuesday that they would impose sanctions on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.
How long Netanyahu will keep Trump’s support, however, is not clear, as speculation that the mercurial US president may be tiring of Netanyahu is widespread and growing.
Netanyahu has been embroiled in multiple corruption investigations since 2019. If he is found guilty, he faces jail, possibly up to 10 years.
His trial, which began in 2020, has faced numerous delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, the war on Gaza, which he is accused of extending and at times exacerbating precisely to avoid his trial.
Critics also say he is extending the war to avoid being held accountable for his government’s failings during the October 7 attack.
Controversy and scandal have followed Netanyahu throughout his political career, and opposition to his rule is growing within Israel and parts of the West, yet he may still survive, observers say.
However, to do so, Netanyahu must retain US support for his government while sustaining a war that Trump appears to want ended.
“I don’t know if Netanyahu can come back from this,” one of his former aides, Mitchell Barak, told Al Jazeera in May.
“There’s a lot of talk about Netanyahu being at the end of his line … They’ve been saying that for years, and he’s still here … but I can’t see any more magic tricks that are available to him.”
The UK, Australia, Canada, Norway and New Zealand imposed sanctions on Israeli far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, over their incitement of violence against Palestinians. The US criticised the move as “unhelpful” to Gaza ceasefire efforts.
Published On 11 Jun 202511 Jun 2025
Starving Palestinians in Gaza are flocking to controversial aid distribution centres in search of food. More than 150 aid-seekers have been killed – shot dead by Israeli forces and armed gangs. Soraya Lennie breaks down what’s going on at these sites.
Published On 11 Jun 202511 Jun 2025
Israeli forces have killed more than 70 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip since dawn, medical sources have told Al Jazeera, including hungry aid seekers, as Israel continues to relentlessly bombard the besieged enclave where the United Nations says a famine threatens the entire population.
Israeli troops on Tuesday again opened fire on crowds seeking meagre food parcels for their families near the Netzarim Corridor, killing at least 20 people, including a 12-year-old child, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.
The child has been identified as Mohammed Khalil al-Athamneh. More than 200 others were wounded.
The distribution points are operated by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US and Israeli-backed drive in Israeli-controlled zones.
The aid sites have been branded “human slaughterhouses” as more than 150 people have been killed since GHF started operating on May 27. Nearly 1,500 have so far been wounded, according to the Government Media Office.
In a statement on Tuesday, the media office accused the GHF of playing a complicit role in what it described as “lethal ambushes” disguised as humanitarian relief.
“GHF has become a deadly tool in the hands of the Israeli military, luring starving civilians into death traps under the pretence of aid,” the statement said, denouncing the body’s continued operation despite documented attacks on unarmed crowds at its sites.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said the GHF aid distribution centres have become “a theatre for repeated bloodshed and deliberate attacks on civilians”.
Witnesses confirmed that the Israeli military attacked them from “multiple directions”, Abu Azzoum said, adding that Israeli drones, tanks, and snipers have been deployed to the isolated aid sites.
“What’s taking place … is the systematic eradication of the humanitarian response system,” he said.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has again sounded an alarm over the deteriorating humanitarian situation, saying on Tuesday the crisis has reached “unprecedented levels of despair”.
More than 2,700 children under the age of five were diagnosed with acute malnutrition in late May, the agency said, calling for the urgent restoration of humanitarian assistance.
Israel has maintained a crippling aid blockade since March 2, allowing only a limited trickle of assistance through the GHF. At the same time, it has barred established humanitarian organisations from operating in the territory – excluding those who have decades of experience in providing aid from hundreds of distribution points to the entire population of Gaza.
Elsewhere in Gaza, an air strike in al-Mawasi – an Israeli-proclaimed “safe zone” that has come under repeated attack, east of Khan Younis – killed three people sheltering in displacement tents. Three more Palestinians were killed after an Israeli drone strike targeted a group of people in the Ma’an area, east of Khan Younis.
The attacks come as one of the southern city’s last remaining functioning hospitals has ceased operations due to “increasing hostilities” in its vicinity, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
In a post on X, Tedros warned that with the closure of al-Amal Hospital, Nasser Hospital is now the only remaining hospital with an intensive care unit in Khan Younis.
Hospitals are overwhelmed and on the brink of collapse, the Health Ministry has repeatedly warned.
In Gaza’s north, medical sources reported that four paramedics were killed by Israeli gunfire while carrying out their humanitarian duties in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City. Another three were killed in an air strike on Jabalia.
Israeli forces have also stepped up incursions into towns and villages across the occupied West Bank in recent days as part of a months-long assault on the territory.
On Tuesday, during an hours-long raid in Nablus, Israeli troops fired tear gas and live bullets towards residents that killed two brothers, identified as Nidal and Khaled Mahdi Ahmad Umairah, aged 40 and 35, respectively.
Israeli troops had opened live fire on the Umairah brothers in the Old City of Nablus during the ongoing military raid, preventing ambulance crews from reaching them, the Wafa news agency reported.
More than 85 people were injured in the assault, while many others have been detained.
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said residents of Nablus’s Old City are “under lockdown”.
“They cannot leave their homes; they cannot have access to any services,” she said. “Even paramedics are telling us they are having a very difficult time reaching those who need their assistance.”
Thousands of activists from across the globe are marching to the Gaza Strip to try to break Israel’s suffocating siege and draw international attention to the genocide it is perpetrating there.
Approximately 1,000 people participating in the Tunisian-led stretch of the Global March to Gaza, known as the Sumud Convoy, arrived in Libya on Tuesday morning, a day after they departed the Tunisian capital, Tunis. They are now resting in Libya after a full day of travel, but do not yet have permission to cross the eastern part of the North African country.
The group, which mostly comprises citizens of the Maghreb, the Northwest African region, is expected to grow as people join from countries it passes through as it makes its way towards the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
How will they do it? When will they get there? What is this all about?
Here’s all you need to know:
The Coordination of Joint Action for Palestine is leading the Sumud Convoy, which is tied to the Global March for Palestine.
In total, there are about 1,000 people, travelling on a nine-bus convoy, with the aim of pressurising world leaders to take action on Gaza.
Sumud is supported by the Tunisian General Labour Union, the National Bar Association, the Tunisian League for Human Rights, and the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights.
It is coordinating with activists and individuals from 50 countries who are flying into the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on June 12, so that they can all march to Rafah together.
Some of those activists are affiliated with an umbrella of grassroots organisations, including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Codepink Women for Peace in the United States and Jewish Voice for Labour in the United Kingdom.
The convoy of cars and buses has reached Libya. After taking a brief rest, the plan is for it to continue towards Cairo.
“Most people around me are feeling courage and anger [about what’s happening in Gaza],” said Ghaya Ben Mbarek, an independent Tunisian journalist who joined the march just before the convoy crossed into Libya.
Ben Mbarek is driven by the belief that, as a journalist, she has to “stand on the right side of history by stopping a genocide and stopping people from dying from hunger”.
Once Sumud links up with fellow activists in Cairo, they will head to El Arish in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and then embark on a three-day march to the Rafah crossing to Gaza.
The convoy has yet to receive permission to pass through eastern Libya from authorities in the region. Libya has two rival administrations, and while the convoy has been welcomed in the west, discussions are still ongoing with authorities in the east, an official from the convoy told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.
The activists had previously told The Associated Press news agency they do not expect to be allowed into Gaza, yet they hope their journey will pressure world leaders to force Israel to end its genocidal war.
Another concern lies in Egypt, which classifies the stretch between El Arish and the Rafah border crossing as a military zone and does not allow anyone to enter unless they live there.
The Egyptian government has not issued a statement on whether it will allow the Global March to Gaza to pass through its territory.
“I doubt they would be allowed to march towards Rafah,” a longtime Egyptian activist, whose name is being withheld for their safety, said.
“It’s always national security first,” they told Al Jazeera.
If the convoy makes it to Rafah, it will have to face the Israeli army at the crossing.
Palestine supporters have tried everything over the years as Gaza suffered.
Since Israel’s genocidal war began 20 months ago, civilians have protested in major capitals and taken legal action against elected officials for abetting Israel’s mass killing campaign in Gaza.
Activists have sailed on several humanitarian aid boats towards Gaza, trying to break a stifling blockade that Israel has imposed since 2007; all were attacked or intercepted by Israel.
In 2010, in international waters, Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara, one of the six boats in the Freedom Flotilla sailing for Gaza. They killed nine people, and one more person died of their wounds later.
The Freedom Flotilla kept trying as Gaza suffered one Israeli assault after another.
Israel’s current war on Gaza prompted 12 activists from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition to set sail on board the Madleen from Italy on June 1, hoping to pressure world governments to stop Israel’s genocide.
However, the activists were abducted by Israeli forces in international waters on June 9.
The activists will try, even if they are pretty sure they will not get into Gaza.
They say standing idle will only enable Israel to continue its genocide until the people of Gaza are all dead or ethnically cleansed.
“The message people here want to send to the world is that even if you stop us by sea, or air, then we will come, by the thousands, by land,” said Ben Mbarek.
“We will literally cross deserts … to stop people from dying from hunger,” she told Al Jazeera.
Since Israel began its war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, it has strangled the food and supplies entering the Palestinian enclave, engineering a famine that has likely killed thousands and could kill hundreds of thousands more.
Israel has carpet-bombed Gaza, killing at least 54,927 people and injuring more than 126,000.
Legal scholars previously told Al Jazeera the suffering in Gaza suggests Israel is deliberately inflicting conditions to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian people in whole or in part – the precise definition of genocide.
Global outrage has grown as Israel continues to kill civilians in thousands, including children, aid workers, medics and journalists.
Since March, Israel has tightened its chokehold on Gaza, completely stopping aid and then shooting at people lining up for what little aid it allows in, leading to rare statements of condemnation from Western governments.
Al Jazeera journalist Omar Faiad arrived in Paris after being deported by Israel for being aboard the ‘Madleen’.
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Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola says the images of children being killed during Israel’s war on Gaza are “painful” and have left him “deeply troubled”.
The Spanish manager of the English Premier League club urged the world to speak up instead of choosing to stay silent “in the face of injustice” as he addressed an audience after receiving an honorary degree at the University of Manchester on Monday.
“It’s so painful what we see in Gaza. It hurts all my body,” Guardiola said.
“Maybe we think that when we see four-year-old boys and girls being killed by bombs or being killed at a hospital, which is not a hospital any more, it’s not our business. Yeah, fine, it’s not our business. But be careful – the next four- or five-year-old kids will be ours.”
Mentioning his three children – Maria, Marius and Valentina – Guardiola said that every morning “since the nightmare started” in Gaza, whenever he sees his two daughters and son he is reminded of the children in Gaza, which leaves him feeling “so scared”.
About half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are children.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed at least 17,400 children, including 15,600 who have been identified, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Many more remain buried under the rubble and are presumed dead.
Many of the surviving children have endured the trauma of multiple wars, and all of them have spent their lives under an oppressive Israeli blockade.
Over the past 20 months, Israeli attacks have left their homes in ruins, destroyed their schools, and overwhelmed their healthcare facilities.
During his emotional speech, which has been widely shared on social media, Guardiola said the world remains silent in the face of injustice.
“We feel safer [staying silent] than speaking up,” he added.
“Maybe this image feels far away from where we are living now, and you might ask what we can do,” he added.
He then went on to narrate the story of a bird trying to put out a fire in a forest by repeatedly carrying water in its beak.
“In a world that often tells us we are too small to make a difference, that story reminds me the power of one is not about the scale – it’s about choice, about showing up, about refusing to be silent or still when it matters the most.”
The former Barcelona coach and player said the images out of Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine left him “deeply troubled”.
Guardiola, who has formerly voiced his support for the independence of his native Catalonia, lashed out at world leaders for their inability to stop the wars.
“We see the horrors of thousands and thousands of innocent children, mothers and fathers.
“Entire families suffering, starving and being killed and yet we are surrounded by leaderships in many fields, not just politicians, who don’t consider the inequality and injustice.”
An independent United Nations commission report released on Tuesday accused Israel of committing the crime against humanity of “extermination” by attacking Palestinian civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites in Gaza.
“While the destruction of cultural property, including educational facilities, was not in itself a genocidal act, evidence of such conduct may nevertheless infer genocidal intent to destroy a protected group,” the report said.
While the report focused on the impact on Gaza, the commission also reported significant consequences for the Palestinian education system in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as a result of ramped-up Israeli military activity, harassment of students and settler attacks.
“Children in Gaza have lost their childhood. With no education available, they are forced to worry about survival amid attacks, uncertainty, starvation and subhuman living conditions,” the report added.
“What is particularly disturbing is the widespread nature of the targeting of educational facilities, which has extended well beyond Gaza, impacting all Palestinian children.”
“It’s so painful, what we see in Gaza … And let me be clear, this is not about ideology.”
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola discusses his views on Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as how the images of children living through the war have affected him as a parent. pic.twitter.com/zwrlexAcxa
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 10, 2025
Hundreds of Tunisian and Algerian activists launched a convoy from Tunis Monday to reach Gaza via Egypt’s Rafah crossing. The effort aims to deliver aid and break Israel’s blockade, as tons of humanitarian supplies pile up at the border crossing in Arish.
Published On 9 Jun 20259 Jun 2025
A Gaza-bound aid boat illegally seized in international waters by Israeli forces has been towed into Ashdod Port, with the dozen international activists who were on board now facing detention and deportation.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), which launched the ship to draw international attention to the looming famine in besieged Gaza, said it was captured at about 4:02am (01:02 GMT) on Monday, about 200km (120 miles) from Gaza, arriving at Ashdod as night fell.
Earlier, the coalition released a video from the vessel, which left Sicily on June 1, showing the activists – among whom are climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and French member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan – with their hands up as Israeli forces boarded the vessel and “kidnapped” them.
Adalah, a Palestinian legal centre representing the activists, said they were expected to be held at a detention facility before being deported.
It said that Israel had “no legal authority” to take over the ship, which was in international waters, heading not to Israel but to the “territorial waters of the State of Palestine”.
The arrests of the 12 “unarmed activists” amounted to “a serious breach of international law”, it said in a statement.
Huwaida Arraf, an FFC organiser, told Al Jazeera there had been no contact with the activists since they had been detained in the early hours of Monday.
“We have lawyers on standby who are going to demand they have access to them tonight – as soon as possible,” she said.
The Madleen, she noted, was sailing under a United Kingdom flag when it was forcibly seized by Israeli commandos.
“So Israel went into international waters and attacked sovereign UK territory, which is blatantly unlawful. And we expect strong condemnation, which we have not yet heard from the United Kingdom,” she said.
The UK government urged Israel to handle its detention of the activists “safely with restraint, in line with international humanitarian law”.
“We have made clear our position in relation to the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The PM has called it appalling and intolerable,” said a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, said: “Israel has absolutely no authority to intercept and stop a boat like this, which carries humanitarian aid, and more than everything else, humanity, to the people of Gaza.”
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Jordan’s capital Amman, said the activists would be accused of entering Israel illegally.
“These activists had no intention to enter Israel. They wanted to reach the shores of Gaza, which are not part of Israel,” she said.
“But that is how they will be processed, and they will be deported because of that.”
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs portrayed the voyage as a public relations stunt, saying in a post on X that “the ‘selfie yacht’ of the ‘celebrities’ is safely making its way to the shores of Israel”.
It said the passengers were “undergoing medical examinations to ensure they are in good health”, adding that all passengers were expected to return to their home countries.
Government spokesperson David Mencer reserved special scorn for 22-year-old Thunberg. “Greta was not bringing aid, she was bringing herself. And she’s not here for Gaza, let’s be blunt about it. She’s here for Greta,” he said.
In a prerecorded video message that was shared by the FFC, Thunberg said: “I urge all my friends, family and comrades to put pressure on the Swedish government to release me and the others as soon as possible.”
The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs said it was in contact with Israeli authorities.
“Should the need for consular support arise, the Embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will assess how we can best help the Swedish citizen/Greta Thunberg resolve her situation,” said a spokesperson in a written statement to the Reuters news agency.
United States President Donald Trump, who targeted Thunberg in 2019, dismissed her statement. “I think Israel has enough problems without kidnapping Greta Thunberg,” he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said the president had asked Israeli authorities to release the six French nationals on board as soon as possible, calling the humanitarian blockade of Gaza “a scandal” and a “disgrace”.
Turkey condemned the interception as a “heinous attack”, while Iran denounced it as “a form of piracy” in international waters.
Israeli Minister of Defence Israel Katz said the activists would be shown videos of atrocities committed during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
Hamas condemned the seizure of the boat as “state terrorism” and said it saluted its activists.
On the ground in Gaza, Israeli forces continued their onslaught, killing 60 Palestinians since dawn, according to medical sources who spoke to Al Jazeera.
Among them were three medics, killed in Gaza City, as well as 13 hungry aid seekers, killed near an Israeli- and US-backed aid distribution site in southern Gaza.
More than 130 people have been killed near distribution points run by the shadowy Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) since late May.
Israel engaged the group to distribute aid amid its total blockade on all imports, including food, fuel and medicine, as Israel ramped up its offensive after breaking its ceasefire agreement with Hamas in March.
The United Nations and other aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, accusing it of lacking neutrality and suggesting the group has been formed to enable Israel to achieve its stated military objective of taking over all of Gaza.
“Israeli authorities have blocked the delivery of safe and dignified aid at scale to the people of Gaza for over three months now,” said the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, on Monday.
“We are not asking for the impossible. Allow us to do our work: assist people in need and preserve their dignity,” it said.
On Monday, Israeli aircraft also bombed tents sheltering displaced families in al-Katiba square in Gaza City, causing additional deaths and injuries.
They also targeted the Shaarawi and Haddad buildings in the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, resulting in multiple casualties.
At least one person was killed and others injured in an artillery attack on Old Gaza Street in Jabalia, in the north.
Israel has killed at least 54,927 people in Gaza since the start of the war, a figure estimated to be far lower than the actual death toll.
Duha al-Saify, a Palestinian journalist and mother, has vowed to continue reporting on the genocide in Gaza, despite los
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June 9 (UPI) — The Israeli government announced Monday that the boat crew of civilians that included Swedish activist Greta Thunberg it intercepted attempting to transport humanitarian supplies to Gaza will be returned to their home countries upon arrival in Israel.
The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or MFA, reported across its social media platform that the vessel, identified as the “Madleen” by the nonprofit Freedom Flotilla Coalition organization, or FFC, that launched it, is being brought to an Israel port.
The MFA refers to the craft as a “selfie yacht,” and has confirmed that Thunberg is aboard, in addition to other “celebrities,” but did not name them. The FFC listed all their names last week after the announcement that the boat was already on its way “with life-saving aid, to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza and establish a people’s sea corridor.”
The MFA also stated that the passengers aboard the Madleen have been supplied with sandwiches and water, and that the “tiny amount of aid that wasn’t consumed by the ‘celebrities’ will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels.”
It also posted a photo of Thunberg Monday, apparently about to receive food and bottled water from someone dressed in military apparel. “Greta Thunberg is currently on her way to Israel, safe and in good spirits,” the image was captioned.
Another person who was aboard the Madleen European Parliament member Rima Hassan of France, who posted to X late Monday morning that “the crew of the Freedom Flotilla has been unlawfully detained by Israel for more than 14 hours” since Israel commandeered the vessel.
Thunberg had released a video via her social media pages late Sunday that alleged “If you see this video, it means we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters by the Israeli occupational forces or forces that support Israel.”
German citizen Yasemin Acar, also aboard the Madleen, posted a video of herself Sunday night to Instagram in an unspecified situation, but was wearing a life jacket and apparently had at least one arm raised behind her head as sirens wailed in the background and an amplified voice that seemingly said “Don’t be afraid” and “Stay where you are” in English could also be heard.”
The FFC posted a separate message to Instagram Sunday which purported that “drones dropped unidentified chemicals on the Madleen. Immediately after, our peaceful volunteers were rammed and intercepted before Israeli forces boarded the vessel. We lost all contact with them seconds later.” An updated post from the FFC Monday called out what it has described as an “illegal attack” by Israel on the Madleen.
It has been widely reported that the Madleen has been brought to Israel’s Port of Ashdod, and that Sweden’s foreign ministry has confirmed it is in touch with Israel over Thunberg, and will stand by should the need for consular assistance be required.
Governments and NGOs condemn Israel’s interception in international waters of the ship, which sought to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Israel has intercepted a Gaza-bound aid ship, preventing the 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, from reaching the blockaded Palestinian territory.
Israeli forces “forcibly intercepted” the Madleen in international waters overnight about 100 nautical miles (185km) from Gaza, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition NGO said in a statement on Monday. Al Jazeera lost contact with the vessel at 7:00 GMT.
Apart from Thunberg, those taken into custody by Israel are Palestinian French Member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan, Baptiste Andre, Pascal Maurieras, Yanis Mhamdi and Reva Viard from France; Thiago Avila from Brazil; Suayb Ordu from Turkiye; Sergio Toribio from Spain; Marco van Rennes from the Netherlands; Yasemin Acar from Germany; and Omar Faiad, a journalist with Al Jazeera Mubasher, also from France.
Israel has detained the crew for “interrogation”.
Here’s how the world has reacted:
The interception of the Madleen is a “flagrant violation of international law”, Hamas said in a statement, calling for the activists on board to be released and saying it holds Israel “fully accountable for their safety”.
“Israel has no legal authority to restrict access to Palestine since such is within the exclusive right of the Palestinian people,” said the rights organisation Al-Haq, which is based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
“The assault on this flotilla, since it happened in international waters, is considered a form of piracy under international law,” said Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Israel’s interception of the Madleen is a “clear violation of international law” that “once again demonstrates that Israel is acting as a terror state”, Turkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
President Emmanuel Macron “has asked that our six French nationals be allowed to return to France as soon as possible,” said the Elysee Palace in a press release. “We have asked to be able to exercise our consular protection over them” and to “visit them”, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot added.
Spain has summoned Dan Poraz, charge d’affaires at the Israeli embassy in Madrid, reported the Spanish newspaper El Pais and Al Jazeera Arabic, quoting a source at Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Jewish Council of Australia has expressed “grave concerns for the activists on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla” and called “on the Australian government to urgently intervene to secure the immediate release of the vessel and safety of the crew”.
“We strongly condemn the cowardly and illegal Israeli attack on the Madleen as it approached Gaza with desperately needed humanitarian supplies,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations said. “We applaud Greta Thunberg and the other activists of the Madleen who bravely risked their safety and freedom to help the starving people of Gaza.”
Israel’s seizure of the Madleen “outside Israeli territorial waters” is a “blatant violation of international law”, said The Left, the European Parliament faction that Hassan belongs to. “The arrest of the crew members and the confiscation of aid intended for a population in immediate humanitarian distress is unacceptable and is clearly part of a wider strategy to starve and massacre Palestinians in Gaza while hiding Israeli war crimes from the world.”
“Madleen must be released immediately,” United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese said. “Breaking the siege is a legal duty for states and a moral imperative for all of us. Every Mediterranean port should send boats with aid, solidarity and humanity to Gaza. They shall sail together – united, they will be unstoppable.”
“As the occupying power (as recognised by the ICJ [International Court of Justice]), Israel has a legal obligation to ensure civilians in Gaza have sufficient food and medicine. They should have let Madleen deliver its humanitarian supplies to Gaza,” said Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, asserting that Israel’s interception of the Madleen “violates international law”.
Israeli attacks at aid distribution sites sending increased number of casualties to hospitals says ICRC.
Gaza’s healthcare system is “extremely fragile” amid the ongoing Israeli war, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned.
The organisation said in a statement on Sunday that the enclave’s hospitals are in urgent need of protection and reinforcement amid Israel’s continued bombardment and blockade. It added that the system is facing growing pressure due to increasing casualty rates from Israeli attacks at aid points.
“In the last two weeks, the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah has had to activate its mass casualty incident procedure 12 times, receiving high numbers of patients with gunshot and shrapnel wounds,” ICRC said in a statement on X on Sunday.
“An overwhelming majority of patients from the recent incidents said they had been trying to reach assistance distribution sites,” it continued.
The healthcare system in Gaza is extremely fragile. To avert preventable deaths, the services of the remaining health-care facilities must be preserved and reinforced. pic.twitter.com/LhPBz6mSpy
— ICRC in Israel & OT (@ICRC_ilot) June 8, 2025
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire around aid distribution sites operated by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) since it launched on May 27.
The organisation ousted the United Nations and other independent agencies from the aid distribution effort following an 11-week blockade of the enclave that prompted numerous warnings that many of Gaza’s people now face famine.
Gaza’s Government Media Office reported on Sunday that the death toll from events centred on the GHF aid sites had risen to 125. A further 736 are reported to have been wounded, with nine missing.
The Hamas-run office said 13 people were killed and 153 injured in the latest attacks. Israeli forces were reported to have opened fire on civilians gathered near aid distribution centres east of Rafah and Wadi Gaza Bridge, in central Gaza.
Witness Abdallah Nour al-Din told the AFP news agency that “people started gathering in the al-Alam area of Rafah” in the early morning.
“After about an hour and a half, hundreds moved towards the site and the army opened fire,” he said.
The Israeli military said it fired on people who “continued advancing in a way that endangered the soldiers” despite warnings.
A GHF statement said there had been no incidents “at any of our three sites” on Sunday.
The Red Cross also expressed concern that the intensifying conflict is putting the enclave’s few functional medical facilities at risk.
“Recent days have seen an increase in hostilities around the few remaining and functional hospitals,” it said in the statement.
“This has made patient transfers between facilities increasingly challenging, and in many cases, patients cannot receive the intensive or specialized care they require.”
The ICRC warned that further loss of life is inevitable without urgent action and called for the protection of healthcare infrastructure and personnel.
“It requires taking all feasible steps to support their work, ensure their safety, and guarantee that they are not deprived of vital resources needed to carry out their work.”
Video from Al Jazeera Mubasher showed the crew of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s Madleen in life jackets with their hands raised as the ship was about to be raided by Israeli forces. Communications with the vessel were cut shortly after.
Published On 9 Jun 20259 Jun 2025
At least 13 Palestinians have been killed and more than 150 injured after Israeli troops and American security contractors opened fire on crowds waiting for food near two aid distribution sites in Gaza, one east of Rafah and another near the Wadi Gaza Bridge.
Sunday’s killings are the latest in a series of attacks on civilians seeking food at aid centres operated by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-led initiative backed by Israel in Israeli-controlled zones.
More than 130 people have now been killed and more than 700 wounded by Israeli troops while desperately trying to access meagre food parcels for their hungry families from the aid sites since the GHF programme began on May 27.
At least nine people are still missing.
In a statement, Gaza’s Government Media Office condemned the distribution sites as “human slaughterhouses”, accusing Israeli forces of luring desperate civilians to their deaths.
“These are war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the statement said, urging an independent international probe and an immediate suspension of GHF’s delivery model.
The drive backed by Israel and the United States has faced growing criticism from human rights organisations and the United Nations for violating basic humanitarian standards and bypassing organisations that have decades of experience distributing aid to the entire population of the besieged enclave.
The latest bloodshed reportedly began around 6am local time (03:00 GMT), as hundreds of Palestinians stalked by starvation gathered near the aid point in the al-Alam area of Rafah.
Witnesses said people had started forming queues as early as 4:30am, desperate to get food before the site became overwhelmed.
“After about an hour and a half, hundreds moved toward the site, and the army opened fire,” said witness Abdallah Nour al-Din.
![Palestinians mourn over the body of Ahmed Abu Hilal, who was killed while on his way to an aid hub in Gaza, during his funeral at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Sunday, June 8, 2025. [Abdel Kareem Hana/AP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/AP25159513055391-1749393552.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
The Israeli military later said its troops opened fire on individuals who “continued advancing in a way that endangered the soldiers”, and claimed the area had been designated an “active combat zone” at night. However, survivors insist the shooting took place after sunrise.
“This is a trap for us, not aid,” said Adham Dahman, speaking to the Associated Press from Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza with a bloodied bandage on his chin. He said a tank fired towards the crowd, and people were left scrambling for cover.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that 13 wounded individuals and one person who was dead on arrival came to its clinic in the al-Mawasi area of southern Khan Younis today.
MSF said the injured and dead were “carried in donkey carts, on bicycles, or on foot”.
The wounded were all men between the ages of 17 and 30. The victims said they were shot in the Shakoush area while travelling to a food distribution site in Saudi village.
Footage from outside the hospital showed mourning families weeping over blood-soaked shrouds, as emergency workers rushed to treat the wounded.
UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese called the GHF operation “humanitarian camouflage” and “an essential tactic of this genocide”.
![People carry relief supplies from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) on June 8, 2025. The UN and major aid organisations have refused to cooperate with the GHF, citing concerns that it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives. [Eyad Baba/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/AFP__20250608__49L8364__v1__HighRes__PalestinianIsraelConflictUsGazaAid-1749381980.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
In a post on social media, Albanese blamed “the moral and political corruption of the world” for enabling the destruction of Gaza.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said the GHF’s delivery model has proven woefully inadequate. “Today’s deadly attacks in the south show that the GHF is insufficient in the way it’s running aid delivery,” he said.
“In the north, living conditions are becoming even more difficult. People are not just spending hours searching for water and food — they are spending the entire day. By the end of it, many are completely exhausted and dehydrated, simply because they could not find anything.”
An unnamed GHF official claimed there has been no violence in or around its aid distribution sites, all three of which delivered food on Sunday, according to The Associated Press.
The violence comes as Gaza’s Health Ministry reports that the total death toll from Israel’s ongoing war has reached 54,880, with more than 126,000 injured since October 7, 2023. Since Israel ended a ceasefire on March 18, 4,603 Palestinians have been killed and more than 14,000 injured.
In just the last 24 hours, Israeli strikes have killed at least 108 people and wounded nearly 400 more across the besieged enclave, the ministry said.
Hospitals are overwhelmed and on the brink of collapse, the ministry said.
Rafah’s Red Cross Field Hospital has declared 12 mass casualty emergencies in just two weeks, with more than 900 wounded arriving during that period — 41 of them already dead. Most of those treated had been trying to reach food distribution sites when they were shot or injured.
A spokesman at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah warned that fuel supplies for Gaza’s health facilities may run out within 48 hours, leaving patients without care. “The hospital’s artificial kidney department is out of service due to the occupation’s attacks,” he told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, the director of al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera that the lives of 300 kidney failure patients hang in the balance. “We are facing a real disaster in the hospital if electricity is not provided,” he warned.
Activists say Israeli troops have boarded a yacht trying to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
“Connection has been lost” on the Madleen, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition campaign group said on the Telegram app.
It posted a photo showing people in life jackets sitting with their hands up. The report could not be independently verified.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg is among those aboard the vessel, which is believed to be off the Egyptian coast.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz earlier ordered the military to prevent the ship from breaking the blockade of Gaza. Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent weapons from reaching Hamas.
The aid ship sailing towards Gaza has been named after the enclave’s first and only fisherwoman named Madleen Kulab.
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For months, Israel and its defenders have insisted that Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid. They used that claim to justify the starvation of two million people in Gaza – to bomb bakeries, block food convoys and shoot desperate Palestinians waiting in bread lines. We were told this was a war on Hamas and ordinary Palestinians were just caught in the middle.
Now we know the truth: Israel has been arming and protecting criminal gangs in Gaza that engage in stealing humanitarian aid and terrorising civilians. One group led by Yasser Abu Shabab, which is reportedly linked to extremist networks and has engaged in a variety of criminal activities, is directly receiving weapons from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
And Netanyahu is proudly admitting to it. “What’s wrong with that?” he said when confronted. “It saves the lives of [Israeli] soldiers.”
What’s wrong? Everything.
This isn’t just a tactical decision – it’s an admission of true intent. Israel never wanted to protect Palestinian civilians. It wants to break them. Starve them. Turn them against each other. Then blame them for the resulting chaos and suffering.
This strategy isn’t new. It’s colonialism 101: create anarchy, and then use it as proof that the colonised cannot govern themselves. In Gaza, Israel isn’t just trying to defeat Hamas. It’s trying to destroy any future in which Palestinians might govern their own society.
For months, Western media repeated the unverified claim that Hamas was stealing aid. No evidence was shown. The United Nations repeatedly said there was no proof. But it didn’t matter. The story served its purpose – it justified the blockade. It made starvation look like a security tactic. It made collective punishment look like policy.
Now the truth is out. The gangs terrorising aid routes were the ones Israel supported. The myth has collapsed. And yet where is the outrage?
Where are the stern statements from the governments of the United States and United Kingdom – the same ones who claimed to care about humanitarian delivery? Instead, we are getting silence. Or worse – a shrug.
Netanyahu’s open admission isn’t just arrogance. It’s confidence. He knows he can say the quiet part out loud. He knows Israel can violate international law, arm criminal gangs, bomb schools, starve civilians – and still be welcomed on the world stage. Still receive weapons. Still be praised as an “ally”.
This is what total impunity looks like.
And this is the cost of believing Israel’s PR machine – of letting it pose as a reluctant occupier, a humane military, a victim of circumstance. In truth, it’s a regime that doesn’t just tolerate war crimes – it engineers them, funds them and then uses them as propaganda.
It’s not just a war on Palestinian bodies, homes or even survival. It’s a war on the Palestinian dream – the dream of ever having a state, of building a future with dignity and self-determination.
For decades, Israel has systematically worked to prevent any form of cohesive Palestinian leadership. In the 1980s, it quietly encouraged the rise of Hamas as a religious and social counterweight to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The idea was simple: divide Palestinian politics, weaken the national movement and fragment any push for statehood.
Israeli officials believed that supporting Islamist organisations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza would create internal conflict among Palestinians – and it did. Tensions between Islamist and secular groups grew and resulted in clashes on university campuses and in the political arena.
Israel’s policy wasn’t driven by a misunderstanding. It was strategic. It knew that empowering rivals to the PLO would fracture Palestinian unity. The goal wasn’t peace – it was paralysis.
That same strategy continues today – not just in Gaza but in the occupied West Bank too. The Israeli government is actively dismantling the Palestinian Authority’s (PA’s) ability to function. It withholds tax revenues that make up the majority of the PA’s budget, bringing it to the brink of collapse.
It protects settler militias attacking Palestinian villages. It conducts daily military raids in PA-administered cities, humiliating its forces and making them look powerless. It blocks international diplomatic efforts by the PA while mocking its legitimacy.
And this policy doesn’t stop at the boundaries of the occupied territory. Inside Israel, Palestinian citizens face a similar tactic: intentional neglect, impoverishment and engineered chaos. Crime is left to spiral out of control in their communities while infrastructure and services are underfunded. Their economic potential is stifled – not by accident, but by design. It’s a quiet war on Palestinian identity itself: a strategy of erasure that aims to turn Palestinians into a silent, faceless minority stripped of rights, recognition and nationhood.
By engineering instability and then pointing to that instability as proof of failure, Israel writes the script and blames us for living it.
This is not just military policy – it’s narrative warfare. It’s about ensuring that the Palestinian people are forever seen not as a nation striving for freedom but as a threat to be contained.
Israel thrives on chaos because chaos discredits Palestinian agency. It allows Israel to say, “Look, they can’t govern themselves. They only understand violence. They need us.”
It’s not just brutal. It’s deeply calculated.
But Gaza and the West Bank are not a failed state. They are places that have been systematically denied the chance to become one.
Gaza is my home. It’s where I grew up. It’s where my family still clings to life. They deserve better – better than a colonial regime that bombs them, starves them and funds the very people stealing their food.
The world must stop treating Gaza and the West Bank as testing grounds for military doctrine, propaganda and geopolitical indifference. The people of Palestine are not a failed experiment. They are a besieged people, relentlessly denied sovereignty. And still, they try – to feed their children, bury their dead and remain human in the face of dehumanisation.
If Netanyahu’s government can admit to arming criminal gangs and still face no consequences, then the problem is not just Israel. It is us – the so-called international community that rewards cruelty and punishes survival.
What’s needed – urgently – are concrete actions to protect Palestinian lives and safeguard the right to Palestinian statehood before it is erased entirely. Threats to recognise a Palestinian state just won’t do.
If the world continues to look away, it’s not only Palestine that will be destroyed – it’s the very credibility of international law, human rights and every moral principle we claim to stand for.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have marched through the streets of the Italian capital, Rome, against the war in Gaza in a protest called by Italy’s main opposition parties, who accuse the right-wing government of being too silent.
At the start of Saturday’s march, protesters held a banner, reading: “Stop the massacre, stop complicity!”
The protest attracted a diverse crowd from across the country, including many families with children.
According to organisers, up to 300,000 people participated in the rally organised by the left-wing opposition to ask the government for a clear position on the conflict in Gaza.
“This is an enormous popular response to say enough to the massacre of Palestinians and the crimes of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government,” the leader of Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, told reporters at the march.
“There is another Italy that doesn’t remain silent as the Meloni government does,” she said, referring to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Meloni was recently pushed by the opposition to publicly condemn Netanyahu’s offensive in Gaza, but many observers considered her criticism too timid.
Earlier this week, the Italian leader urged Israel to immediately halt its military campaign in Gaza, saying its attacks had grown disproportionately and should be brought to an end to protect civilians.
Israel faces mounting international criticism for its offensive and pressure to let aid into Gaza during a humanitarian crisis.
Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade for nearly three months, with experts warning that many of its two million residents are at high risk of famine.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 54,772 Palestinians and wounded 125,834, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.