Israel-Palestine conflict

Israeli forces have opened fire again on Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid from a distribution site in Gaza, killing at least three people and injuring more than 30, as the United Nations demands an independent investigation into the repeated mass shootings of aid seekers in the strip.

The shooting erupted at sunrise on Monday at the same Israeli-backed aid point in southern Gaza where soldiers had opened fire just a day earlier, according to health officials and witnesses.

“The Israeli military opened fire on civilians trying to get their hands on any kind of food aid without any kind of warning,” Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

“This is a pattern that’s been widely condemned by international aid organisations because it enhances the breakdown of civil order without ensuring humanitarian relief can be received by those desperately in need.”

Witnesses said Israeli snipers and quadcopter drones routinely monitor aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is backed by Israel and the United States.

A Red Cross field hospital received about 50 people wounded in the latest shooting, including two who were dead on arrival, said Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross. Most had been hit by bullets or shrapnel. A third body was taken to Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis.

Moataz al-Feirani, 21, said he was shot in the leg while walking with thousands of others towards the food site.

“We had nothing, and they [the Israeli military] were watching us,” he told The Associated Press news agency, adding that surveillance drones circled overhead. The shooting began about 5:30am (02:30 GMT)  near the Flag Roundabout, he said.

The pattern of deadly violence around the GHF aid distribution site has triggered mounting international outrage, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday demanded an independent inquiry into the mass shooting of Palestinians.

“It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food,” he said. “I call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for perpetrators to be held accountable.”

The Israeli military has denied targeting civilians, claiming its soldiers fired “warning shots” at individuals who “posed a threat”.

The GHF has also denied the shootings occurred although doubts about its neutrality have intensified since its founding executive director, former US marine Jake Wood, resigned before operations even began after he questioned the group’s “impartiality” and “independence”.

Critics said the group functions as a cover for Israel’s broader campaign to depopulate northern Gaza as it concentrates aid in the south while bypassing established international agencies.

Aid is still barely trickling into Gaza after Israel partially lifted a total siege that for more than two months cut off food, water, fuel and medicine to more than two million people.

Thousands of children are at risk of dying from hunger-related causes, the UN has previously warned.

At least 51 people killed in 24 hours

Elsewhere in the territory, Israeli air attacks continued to hammer residential areas.

In Jabalia in northern Gaza, Israeli forces killed 14 people, including seven children, in an attack on a home, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence agency. At least 20 people remained trapped under the rubble.

Two more Palestinians were killed and several wounded in another attack in Deir el-Balah, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, while a drone attack in Khan Younis claimed yet another life.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that at least 51 Palestinians have been killed and 503 injured in Israeli attacks across the territory in the latest 24-hour reporting period alone.

Despite growing international condemnation, Israel’s military on Monday ordered the displacement of even more civilians from parts of Khan Younis, warning it would “operate with great force”.

Roughly 80 percent of the strip is now either under Israeli military control or designated for forced evacuation, according to new data from the Financial Times, as Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are crammed into an ever-shrinking patch of land in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border.

Israel has made little secret of its aim to permanently displace Gaza’s population as officials openly promote “voluntary migration” plans.

The Financial Times reported that the areas Palestinians are being pushed into resemble a “desert wasteland with no running water, electricity or even hospitals”.

Satellite images showed Israeli forces clearing land and setting up military infrastructure in evacuated areas.

Analysts who reviewed dozens of recent forced evacuation orders said the trend has accelerated since the collapse of a truce in March.

“The Israeli government has been very clear with regards to what their plan is about in Gaza,” political analyst Xavier Abu Eid told Al Jazeera.

“It is about ethnic cleansing.”

Eight people were injured in an attack on Sunday on a group of people in the United States city of Boulder, Colorado, who were campaigning for the release of captives held by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Gaza.

Police arrested a man who allegedly threw incendiary devices towards people. The FBI said it was investigating the attack as an “act of terror”.

In a social media post, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described the attack as an anti-Semitic act.

Here is what we know so far:

What happened in Boulder, Colorado?

A group of people were walking in a “regularly scheduled, weekly peaceful event” aimed at galvanising support for the release of captives held in Gaza when they were attacked, according to an official news release shared by the Boulder Police Department. The police were called at 1:36pm (10:36 GMT).

The news release said that witnesses saw the attacker using a makeshift flamethrower as he lobbed incendiary devices – meant to start fires – at the gathering.

Witness videos circulating on social media showed a shirtless man appearing to hold two glass bottles, which looked like Molotov cocktails.

What is a Molotov cocktail?

A Molotov cocktail is a very simple incendiary weapon. It comprises a bottle filled with a flammable liquid covered by a wick, which is lit on fire before the bottle is thrown at a target.

They are named after Vyacheslav Molotov, the foreign minister of the Soviet Union during World War II. In 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, and the country experienced heavy bombing. Molotov insisted that the Soviet Union was not dropping bombs, only food parcels.

In response, the Finns threw handmade explosives towards Soviet tanks, sarcastically dubbing them “Molotov cocktails”.

Where did the attack happen?

The attack took place at the outdoor Pearl Street Mall, a pedestrian mall in downtown Boulder that stretches four blocks. It is home to retail stores, art galleries and restaurants. The mall is a two-minute drive, or 1.1km (0.7 miles), from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

What was the event the victims were attending?

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser released a statement on Sunday, saying that the attack was “against a group that meets weekly on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall to call for the release of the hostages in Gaza”.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a nonprofit focused on combating anti-Semitism – which was accused of double standards in January for defending a salute made by billionaire Elon Musk at an inauguration rally for US President Donald Trump – released a statement saying the event was part of an international campaign called “Run for Their Lives”.

The campaign involves weekly gatherings worldwide where Jewish community members run and walk in solidarity with the captives taken by Hamas and other Palestinian groups during their attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023.

Run for Their Lives gatherings take place in 230 locations in 24 countries, including Brazil, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and Spain. Groups in multiple US states participate in this event and there are two locations in Colorado: one in Boulder and the other one in Denver’s Washington Park.

Armed Palestinian groups took about 251 captives from Israel on October 7. While some captives were returned in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, or rescued, others have died in captivity. Some 59 captives are believed to remain in captivity, and Israel believes that 35 of them have died.

Since October 7, Israeli military bombardment and other attacks have killed more than 61,700 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

Who was the suspect and what did he say during the attack?

The Boulder attack suspect has been identified as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old man from El Paso County, according to the Boulder Police news release.

Soliman was also injured in the attack, though the nature of his injuries is unclear.

The release says that Soliman was medically evaluated at a hospital and then was booked in the Boulder County Jail for multiple charges. The release did not specify what exactly these charges were.

According to the news release, Soliman yelled, “Free Palestine” during the attack.

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, claimed in a post on X that the Boulder attack was carried out by an “illegal alien”.

Without naming Soliman, Miller said the suspect had overstayed a tourist visa granted to him by the government of former US President Joe Biden. “In response, the Biden Administration gave him a work permit. Suicidal migration must be fully reversed,” Miller wrote.

Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify Soliman’s immigration status in the US.

What do we know about the victims?

Law enforcement officials said that eight people were injured. These include four women and four men, aged between 52 and 88.

The victims were taken to hospitals in the Denver metropolitan area.

How are authorities responding?

The Boulder Police Department called the FBI within minutes of the attack, the news release said. The FBI is investigating this as a terror attack.

“This act of terror is being investigated as an act of ideologically motivated violence based on the early information, the evidence, and witness accounts,” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino wrote in an X post. “We will speak clearly on these incidents when the facts warrant it.”

FBI Director Kash Patel also wrote in an X post that his team was investigating the “targeted terror attack” and that FBI agents and law enforcement were at the scene already.

Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, wrote in an X post that the department was working on the situation with its “interagency partners”, including the FBI.

What is the latest on ground?

According to an update by the Boulder Police Department on X on Monday at 05:53 GMT, all roads in downtown Boulder have been reopened except for a block on Pearl Street, “which should be reopened in the next few hours”.

What have been the reactions?

“We will continue to ensure that justice is pursued swiftly, support is provided to victims and their communities and preventative action is taken to protect everyone’s safety,” FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Mark Michalek was quoted saying in the Boulder Police news release.

Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn acknowledged that many residents were scared, and had questions about the attack. “Boulder has recovered from acts of violence before and we will again recover. I urge this community to come together. Now is not the time to be divisive,” he was quoted saying in the same news release.

Israeli Foreign Minister Saar wrote on X on Monday: “Shocked by the terrible antisemitic terror attack targeting Jews in Boulder, Colorado. This is pure Antisemitism, fueled by the blood libels spread in the media.” He did not elaborate on what he meant by this.

US Senate Democratic Party Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on X: “Tonight, a peaceful demonstration was targeted in a vile, antisemitic act of terror. Once again, Jews are left reeling from repeated acts of violence and terror.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X on Sunday: “We’re united in prayer for the victims of a targeted terror attack this afternoon in Boulder.”

We’re united in prayer for the victims of a targeted terror attack this afternoon in Boulder.

Terror has no place in our great country.

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) June 1, 2025

Many Democrats have released online statements condemning the attack and describing it as anti-Semitic.

Less than two weeks after the horrific antisemitic attack at the Capitol Jewish Museum in DC—and after two relentless years of surging antisemitic attacks across the country—the Jewish community is once again shattered by pain and heartbreak. 

Tonight, a peaceful demonstration…

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) June 2, 2025

Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, wrote on X: “My thoughts are with the victims, their families, and the Jewish community that once again appears to have been targeted with hate. We all have a responsibility to stop these antisemitic acts.”

Another terrible attack, this time in Boulder, Colorado. My thoughts are with the victims, their families, and the Jewish community that once again appears to have been targeted with hate. We all have a responsibility to stop these antisemitic acts. https://t.co/KrAA3wwHPi

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 2, 2025

House Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat, released a statement on X, saying: “Our heartfelt prayers are with all of our Jewish brothers and sisters impacted by this unconscionable act of terror, and we thank law enforcement for their swift response. Antisemitism has no place in our nation or anywhere throughout the world. It must be crushed. We stand with the Jewish community today and always.”

My statement on the Antisemitic Attack in Boulder, Colorado. pic.twitter.com/EUpdnl9M6K

— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) June 1, 2025

Have similar events taken place recently?

On May 22, a man named Elias Rodriguez was charged after fatally shooting two Israeli Embassy staff workers in Washington, DC. He was charged with murdering foreign officials, causing death with a firearm and discharging a firearm in a crime of violence.

Israel says its settlement expansion is to “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state” as it announced 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu says Israeli officials are daring the world to stop them.

The 12-person crew, which includes climate activist Greta Thunberg, expects to take seven days to reach Gaza.

International nonprofit organisation Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) says one of its vessels has left Sicily to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, after a previous attempt failed due to a drone attack on a different ship in the Mediterranean.

The 12-person crew, which includes Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, Irish actor Liam Cunningham and Franco-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan, set sail on the Madleen from the port of Catania on Sunday, carrying barrels of relief supplies that the group called “limited amounts, though symbolic”.

The voyage comes after another vessel operated by the group, the Conscience, was hit by two drones just outside Maltese territorial waters in early May. While FFC said Israel was to blame for the incident, it has not responded to requests for comment.

“We are doing this because no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying, because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity,” Thunberg told reporters at a news conference before the departure. The Swedish climate activist had been due to board the Conscience.

She added that “no matter how dangerous this mission is, it is nowhere near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the lives being genocised”.

🇵🇸 ⛵️ Avec @GretaThunberg nous appelons à la mobilisation citoyenne pour soutenir massivement le navire humanitaire de @GazaFFlotilla ! C’est le seul moyen de garantir notre sécurité. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/5DUJbkRdPZ

— Rima Hassan (@RimaHas) June 1, 2025

The activists expect to take seven days to reach their destination, if they are not stopped.

The FCC, launched in 2010, is a non-violent international movement supporting Palestinians, combining humanitarian aid with political protest against the blockade on Gaza.

It said the trip “is not charity. This is a non-violent, direct action to challenge Israel’s illegal siege and escalating war crimes”.

United Nations agencies and major aid groups say Israeli restrictions, the breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting make it extremely difficult to deliver aid to Gaza’s roughly two million inhabitants.

The situation in Gaza is at its worst since the war between Israel and Hamas began 19 months ago, the UN said on Friday, despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries in the Palestinian enclave.

Under growing global pressure, Israel ended an 11-week blockade on Gaza on May 19, allowing extremely limited UN-led operations to resume.

On Monday, a new avenue for aid distribution was also launched: the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, backed by the United States and Israel, but with the UN and international aid groups refusing to work with it, saying it is not neutral and has a distribution model that forces the displacement of Palestinians.

The FCC is the latest among a growing number of critics to accuse Israel of genocidal acts in its war in Gaza, allegations Israel vehemently denies.

“We are breaking the siege of Gaza by sea, but that’s part of a broader strategy of mobilisations that will also attempt to break the siege by land,” said activist Thiago Avila.

Avila also mentioned the upcoming Global March to Gaza – an international initiative also open to doctors, lawyers and members of the media – which is set to leave Egypt and reach the Rafah crossing in mid-June to stage a protest there, calling on Israel to stop the Gaza offensive and reopen the border.

Foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE had planned the visit to discuss Palestinian statehood and end to war on Gaza.

Saudi Arabia has accused Israel of “extremism and rejection of peace” after it blocked a planned visit by Arab foreign ministers to the occupied West Bank.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud made the remarks during a joint news conference in Jordan’s capital, Amman, on Sunday with his counterparts from Jordan, Egypt, and Bahrain.

“Israel’s refusal of the committee’s visit to the West Bank embodies and confirms its extremism and refusal of any serious attempts for [a] peaceful pathway … It strengthens our will to double our diplomatic efforts within the international community to face this arrogance,” Prince Faisal said.

His comments followed Israel’s decision to block the Arab delegation from reaching Ramallah, where they were set to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had planned the visit as part of efforts to support Palestinian diplomacy amid Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.

Israel controls the airspace and borders of the West Bank, and on Friday announced it would not grant permission for the visit.

“The Palestinian Authority – which to this day refuses to condemn the October 7 massacre – intended to host in Ramallah a provocative meeting of foreign ministers from Arab countries to discuss the promotion of the establishment of a Palestinian state,” an Israeli official had said, adding that Israel will “not cooperate” with the visit.

Prince Faisal’s trip to the West Bank would have marked the first such visit by a top Saudi official in recent memory.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said blocking the trip was another example of how Israel was “killing any chance of a just and comprehensive” Arab-Israeli settlement.

An international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, is due to be held in New York from June 17 to 20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said the conference would cover security arrangements after a ceasefire in Gaza and reconstruction plans to ensure Palestinians would remain on their land and foil any Israeli plans to evict them.

Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries, which favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.

At least 30 Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians waiting for aid near a distribution hub in Rafah, run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The attack comes amid disputes over the text of a US-backed ceasefire proposal.

Israel has killed at least 32 Palestinians waiting to get food at two aid distribution sites in Gaza, leaving more than 200 others injured.

Israeli tanks opened fire on thousands of civilians gathered at a distribution site in southern Gaza’s Rafah on Sunday morning, killing at least 31 people, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

Soon after, a Palestinian was reportedly killed in a shooting at a similar distribution point south of the Netzarim Corridor in Gaza City.

The aid is being distributed by Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial group backed by Israel and the United States, which has completed a chaotic first week of operations in the enclave.

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.

‘Killed for seeking one meal for children’

Ibrahim Abu Saoud, who witnessed the attack on aid seekers in Rafah, told The Associated Press news agency that Israeli forces opened fire on people as they moved towards the distribution point.

Abu Saoud, 40, said the crowd was about 300 metres (328 yards) away from the military. He said he saw many people with gunshot wounds, including a young man who died at the scene.

“We weren’t able to help him,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said Palestinians are being killed while trying to secure “one meal for their children”.

“This is why Palestinians have been going to these distribution points, despite the fact that they know that they are controversial. They [distribution points] are backed by the US and Israel, but they do not have any other option,” she said.

“[Even] the food parcels that were distributed to Palestinians are barely enough. We are talking about one kilo of flour, a couple of bags of pasta, a couple of cans of fava beans – and it’s not nutritious. It’s not enough for a family in Gaza nowadays.”

The GHF told the AP that Israeli soldiers fired “warning shots” as Palestinians gathered to receive food. The group denied reports that dozens of people were killed, describing them as “false reporting about deaths, mass injuries and chaos”.

The Israeli army said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that it was “currently unaware of injuries caused by [Israeli] fire within the humanitarian aid distribution site” and that the incident was still under review.

The Government Media Office in Gaza condemned the attacks, describing the GHF’s distribution points as “mass death traps, not humanitarian relief points”.

“We confirm to the entire world that what is happening is a systematic and malicious use of aid as a tool of war, employed to blackmail starving civilians and forcibly gather them in exposed killing points, managed and monitored by the occupation army and funded and politically covered by … the US administration,” it said in a statement.

Speaking from Gaza City, Bassam Zaqout of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society said the current aid distribution mechanism had replaced 400 former distribution points with just four.

“I think there are different hidden agendas in this aid distribution mechanism,” he told Al Jazeera. “The mechanism does not cater to the needs of the people, such as the elderly and people with disabilities.”

Palestinian group Hamas, which runs the enclave’s government, released a statement, saying the Israeli shootings were a “blatant confirmation of premeditated intent” as it held Israel and the US fully responsible for the killings.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said the killings were a “full-fledged war crime” and demanded international intervention to “stop this ongoing massacre and impose strict accountability mechanisms”.

Sunday’s killings capped a deadly first week for the project’s operations, coming on the back of two earlier shootings at two distribution points in the south – the first in Rafah, the second west of the city – which saw a combined total of nine Palestinians killed.

In Gaza, crucial aid is only trickling in after Israel partially lifted a more than two-month total blockade, which brought more than two million of its starving residents to the brink of a famine.

The Palestinian group Hamas has submitted its response to a United States-backed ceasefire proposal, but a leading official from the group said the proposed deal offered “no guarantees to end the war”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Saturday, Basem Naim said that Hamas had still “responded positively” to the latest proposal relayed to it by US special envoy Steve Witkoff, despite the Palestinian group saying that the proposal was different to one it had agreed upon with Witkoff a week earlier.

“One week ago, we agreed with Mr Witkoff on one proposal, and we said, ‘This is acceptable, we can consider this a negotiating paper,’” Naim said. “He went to the other party, to the Israelis, to get their response. Instead of having a response to our proposal, he brought us a new proposal … which had nothing to do with what we agreed upon.”

In a statement released earlier on Saturday, Hamas had said that it had submitted a response to Witkoff, and that the proposal “aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and ensure the flow of aid” to Palestinians in Gaza.

Hamas added that 10 living Israeli captives would be released as part of the agreement, as well as the bodies of 18 dead Israelis, in exchange for an “agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners”.

Witkoff called Hamas’s response “totally unacceptable”.

“Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week,” the envoy said in a post on social media. “That is the only way we can close a 60-day ceasefire deal in the coming days in which half of the living hostages and half of those who are deceased will come home to their families, and in which we can have at the proximity talks substantive negotiations in good-faith to try to reach a permanent ceasefire.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Hamas’s response, “As Witkoff said, Hamas’s response is unacceptable and sets the situation back. Israel will continue its action for the return of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”

Israel has now killed more than 54,000 Palestinians since October 2023, with starvation looming across Gaza after weeks of Israeli blockade, and only a small flow of aid since Israel allowed it to resume in mid-May.

Starvation

With hopes for a permanent truce seemingly fading once again, the level of hunger and desperation inside Gaza grows, with Israel allowing only a trickle of humanitarian aid into the Strip after it had imposed a total blockade for more than two months. The UN warned on Friday that all of the 2.3 million population of Gaza is now at risk of famine. That came after it said in mid-May that one in every five Palestinians there is experiencing starvation.

The World Food Programme (WFP), which has enough food ready near Gaza’s borders to feed the besieged territory’s entire population for two months, renewed its call for an immediate ceasefire as the only way to get the food to starving Palestinians.

The UN’s food agency said in a statement that it brought 77 trucks loaded with flour into Gaza overnight and early on Friday, but they were stopped by people trying to feed their starving families.

The US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is continuing with its own controversial aid distribution, which other aid groups say could violate humanitarian principles and militarise the delivery of desperately needed food. The Gaza Government Media Office said this week that at least 10 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces while trying to get aid.

“We went to this new area and we came out empty-handed,” resident Layla al-Masri said of a new GHF distribution point. “What they are saying about their will to feed the people of Gaza are lies. They neither feed people nor give them anything to drink.”

Another displaced Palestinian, Abdel Qader Rabie, said people across the besieged territory have nothing left to feed their families. “There’s no flour, no food, no bread. We have nothing at home,” he said.

Rabie said that every time he tries to get a box of aid at the GHF, he is swarmed by hundreds of other people trying to get it. “If you are strong, you get aid. If you are not, you leave empty-handed,” Rabie added.

There are also other risks. Families have reported that people have gone missing after reaching GHF distribution points.

“One of these cases is a man from the al-Mughari family – The family is appealing to the ICRC, OCHA, the civil defence teams, to go and search for him in that area – very close to the Netzarim Corridor [in central Gaza],” said Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza. Israeli authorities rejected the accusation, Khoudary added.

Bombing and forced displacement

The Israeli army is continuing its attacks on Gaza, with the spokesperson of the territory’s civil defence saying that approximately 60 homes had been bombed in the last 48 hours in Gaza City and northern Gaza.

On Saturday, there were also reports from across Gaza of the Israeli bombing killing at least 20 Palestinians. More than 3,900 Palestinians have been killed since Israel unilaterally broke a ceasefire in March and resumed its devastation of Gaza, despite growing international condemnation.

Since Friday’s early hours, the Israeli army has also ordered “all residents” of southern Khan Younis, Bani Suheila, and Abasan to evacuate immediately after it said rockets were earlier fired. “The [army] will aggressively attack any area used as a launching pad for terrorist activity,” military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a statement. The area of southern Gaza “has been warned several times in the past and has been designated a dangerous combat zone”, he added.

According to the UN, nearly 200,000 people have been displaced in the past two weeks alone, with displacement orders now covering the entirety of Gaza’s northernmost and southernmost governorates, as well as the eastern parts of each of the three governorates in between.

Israel has refused to cooperate with the Ramallah meeting planned by Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE ministers.

The foreign ministers of five Arab countries who had planned to visit the occupied West Bank this weekend have condemned Israel’s decision to block their plans.

The ministers condemned “Israel’s decision to ban the delegation’s visit to Ramallah [on Sunday] to meet with the president of the State of Palestine, Mahmud Abbas”, the Jordanian foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were expected to take part in the meeting alongside Turkiye.

Israel late on Friday said it will not allow the meeting of Arab foreign ministers, who would have required Israeli consent to travel to the occupied West Bank from Jordan because Israel controls the Palestinian territory’s borders and airspace.

“The Palestinian Authority – which to this day refuses to condemn the October 7 massacre – intended to host in Ramallah a provocative meeting of foreign ministers from Arab countries to discuss the promotion of the establishment of a Palestinian state,” the Israeli official said late on Friday.

“Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”

The Israeli move came ahead of an international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood.

Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries which favour a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognising a Palestinian state was not only a “moral duty but a political necessity”.

Last week, Israeli forces opened fire near a diplomatic convoy near Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, triggering an international outcry. The convoy included diplomats from the European Union, the United Kingdom, Russia and China.

The Israeli military claimed its soldiers fired “warning shots” after the group deviated from an agreed-upon route.

Israel has also allowed the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, with the government announcing plans to establish 22 new settlements, including retroactively legalising a number of unauthorised outposts.

The move has been condemned by Palestinian officials and global human rights groups.

The International Court of Justice declared last July that Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal, and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, at least 972 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in attacks by the Israeli army and settlers across the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and more than 200 were taken captive.

Since then, at least 54,381 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip and 124,054 wounded, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Strip’s Government Media Office has updated the death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.

Gaza is the “hungriest place on Earth” and its entire population is at risk of famine, warns the United Nations, as desperate Palestinians are shot at, starved, and forced from their homes by the Israeli forces.

Calling on Israel to stop its campaign of deliberate starvation and allow food into the besieged enclave, the UN on Friday said its mission to help Gaza’s Palestinians is the “most obstructed in recent history”.

“The aid operation that we have ready to roll is being put in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations, not only in the world today, but in recent history,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson, Jens Laerke, said.

He said out of 900 aid trucks that were approved to enter from the Israeli side of the Karem Abu Salem crossing, known as Kerem Shalom in Israel, fewer than 600 have been offloaded in Gaza, adding that a lower amount of aid had been picked up for distribution.

“I have no flour, no oil, no sugar, no food. I collect mouldy bread and feed it to my children. I want to get a bag of flour for my children. I want to eat. I’m hungry,” a Palestinian told Al Jazeera.

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said the northern part of the Strip, which includes Gaza City, “has not seen a drop of aid coming in that has been allowed in the past few days”.

“People in the central area, in the [southern] city of Khan Younis and Rafah are also struggling on a daily basis to find food supplies, particularly when it comes to flour and other basic necessities to help them survive these difficult conditions,” he added.

Palestinians leaving aid points empty-handed

After a nearly three-month blockade, Israel, under pressure from Western governments and international humanitarian organisations, allowed limited aid to enter the enclave and the resumption of limited UN operations.

However, Israel also pushed for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a shadowy United States-backed private aid distributor, to provide essential food aid to starving Palestinians.

The UN and other aid groups have refused to work with GHF, saying it lacks neutrality and its distribution model forces the displacement of Palestinians.

Still, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Friday that while any aid that gets to those who need it is “good”, aid deliveries are having “very, very little impact”.

“The catastrophic situation in Gaza is the worst since the war began,” he said.

With only three of the four distribution points set up to receive aid from the GHF, people like Layla al-Masri, a displaced Palestinian, are leaving empty-handed.

“What they are saying about their will to feed the people of Gaza is all lies. They neither feed people nor give them anything to drink,” she said.

‘Parents giving children water’

Abdel Qader Rabie, another displaced Palestinian, said his family has nothing to eat. “No flour, no food, no bread, we have nothing at home,” he said.

“Every time I go to get aid, I hold a box and hundreds of people crowd over me. Earlier, UNRWA [UN agency for Palestinian refugees] used to send me a message, [and] I would go and get aid. Now there’s nothing. If you are strong, you get aid. If you are not, you leave empty-handed,” Qader Rabie said.

Eri Kaneko, UN humanitarian affairs spokesperson, also criticised the type of aid that UN agencies are being allowed to bring into Gaza.

“Israeli authorities have not allowed us to bring in a single ready-to-eat meal. The only food permitted has been flour for bakeries. Even if allowed in unlimited quantities, which it hasn’t been, it wouldn’t amount to a complete diet for anyone,” Kaneko said.

Palestinians who received GHF aid said their packages included rice, flour, canned beans, pasta, olive oil, biscuits, and sugar.

Meanwhile, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, described the GHF as a “bait to corral people” which “violates every principle of international law”.

“This is aid being used … to push people out from the north into militarised zones … and it’s about humiliating people, and it’s about controlling the population. This has nothing to do with stopping starvation,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in Gaza, said not much food is coming into the enclave as the number of trucks entering and the aid they are carrying is very limited

“Despite the trucks’ entry over the past few days, Palestinians say they have not really received any food because there have not been any normal distribution points,” she said, adding that many are going back with their pots empty.

“Some parents say they are giving their children water just to make them feel full. People say they are willing to do anything for one bag of flour or one food parcel. They are very desperate.”

Arab states are accusing Israel of weaponising hunger in Gaza, rejecting its new aid system as illegal. “Starvation is being used as a weapon of war,” said UAE envoy Mohamed Abushahab, speaking on behalf of 22 Arab League members at the UN.

As Israel’s devastating war on Gaza grinds on, pushed forward by a prime minister insistent that a goal of total military victory be met, the divisions within Israeli society are growing increasingly deeper.

In the last few weeks, as Israeli peace activists and antiwar groups have stepped up their campaign against the conflict, supporters of the war have also increased their pressure to continue, whatever its humanitarian, political or diplomatic cost.

Members of the military have published open letters protesting the political motivations for continuing the war on Gaza, or claiming that the latest offensive, which is systematically razing Gaza, risks the remaining Israeli captives held in the Palestinian territory.

Another open letter has come from within Israel’s universities and colleges, with its signatories doing a rare thing within Israel since the war began in October 2023: focusing on Palestinian suffering.

Elsewhere, campaigns of protest and refusal of military service have spread – a result of a mixture of pro-peace sentiment and more prevalent anger at the government’s handling of the war – posing a risk to Israel’s war effort, which is reliant upon the active participation of the country’s youth.

The war’s critics say that the man they oppose, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has become reliant upon the extreme right to maintain his coalition, and an opposition too cowardly to confront him in the face of mounting international accusations of genocide.

Powerful far right

It is important not to confuse the growing domestic criticism of the Israeli government’s handling of the war with any mass sympathy for the Palestinian people.

A recent poll reported that 82 percent of Jewish Israeli respondents would still like to see Gaza cleared of its Palestinian population, with almost 50 percent also backing what they said was the “mass killing” of civilians in enemy cities occupied by the Israeli army.

And on Monday, thousands of Israelis led by the country’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, rampaged through occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City, chanting “death to Arabs” and attacking anyone perceived to be either Palestinian or defending them.

Also addressing the crowd at the “Jerusalem Day” march was the country’s ultranationalist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who has been vocal in his push for the annexation of the occupied West Bank, and the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.

Smotrich asked the crowd: “Are we afraid of victory?”; “Are we afraid of the word ‘occupation?’” The crowd – described as “revellers” within parts of Israeli media – responded with a resounding “no”.

“There’s a cohort of the extreme right who feel vindicated by a year and a half of war,” the former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas told Al Jazeera. “They think their message that, if you blink you lose; if you pause, you lose; if you waver, you lose, has been borne out.”

Growing dissent

Alongside the intensifying of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, which has now killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, voices of dissent have grown louder. In April, more than 1,000 serving and retired pilots issued an open letter protesting a war they said served “political and personal interests” rather than security ones. Further letters, as well as an organised campaign encouraging young Israelis to refuse to show up for military service, have followed.

Perhaps sensing the direction the wind was blowing, the leader of Israel’s left-wing Democrats Party, Yair Golan – who initially supported the war and took a hardline position on allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza – launched a stark broadside against the conflict earlier this month, claiming that Israel risked becoming a “pariah state” that killed “babies as a hobby” while giving itself the aim of “expelling populations”.

While welcomed by some, the comments of the former army major-general were rounded upon by others. Speaking at a conference in southern Israel alongside noted antiwar lawmaker Ofer Cassif, Golan was heckled and called a traitor by far-right members of the audience, before he had to be escorted off the premises by security.

Cassif, who refers to himself as an anti-Zionist, has long attracted the outrage of mainstream Israeli society for his loud denunciation of the way Israel treats Palestinians.

“There have always been threats against me,” Cassif, who has been alone among Israeli lawmakers in opposing the war from its onset, told Al Jazeera. “I can’t walk down my own street. I was attacked twice before October 7 and it’s gotten much worse since.

“But it’s not just me. All the peace activists risk being physically attacked or threatened, even the families of the hostages are at risk of attack by these bigots,” he said.

“Many people are coming to realise that this government and even the mainstream opposition aren’t fighting a war for security reasons, or even to recover the hostages, but are carrying out the kind of genocidal mission advocated by Smotrich and the other messianic bigots,” Cassif said of the finance minister and his supporters.

“This has been allowed by people like [Benny] Gantz, [Yair] Lapid and [Yoav] Gallant,” he said, citing prominent politicians opposed to the prime minister, “who didn’t dare criticise it [the war] and Netanyahu, who has manipulated it for his own ends.”

Cassif’s comments were echoed by one of the signatories to the academics’ open letter criticising the war, Ayelet Ben-Yishai, an associate professor at the University of Haifa.

“The opposition has nothing,” she told Al Jazeera. “I get that it’s hard to argue for a complicated future, but they do and say nothing. All they’ve left us with is a choice between managing the war and the occupation and Smotrich and his followers. That’s it. What kind of future is that?”

Inherent within Israel

Many members of the government and opposition have previously served in senior roles within the army, either engaging in or overseeing combat operations against Palestinians, and maintaining the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

Democrats Party head Golan was even previously criticised by the army in 2007 for repeatedly using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

“What we’re seeing right now is a struggle between two Zionist elites over who is the greater fascist in different forms,” Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani, a professor at Tel Aviv University, said of the political struggles at play within Israel.

“On the one hand, there are the Ashkenazi Jews, who settled Israel, imposed the occupation and have killed thousands,” he said of Israel’s traditional military and governing elites, many of whom might describe themselves as liberal and democratic, and were originally from central and Eastern Europe. “Or [you have] the current religious Zionists, like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who [the old Ashkenazi elite] now accuse of being fascists.

“You can’t reduce this to left and right. I don’t buy into that,” Shenhav-Shahrabani said. “It goes deeper. Both sides are oblivious to the genocide in Gaza.”

While resistance against the war has grown both at home and abroad, so too has the intensity of the attacks being protested against.

Since Israel unilaterally broke a ceasefire in March, almost 4,000 Palestinians have been killed, hundreds of them children. In addition, a siege, imposed upon the decimated enclave on March 2, has pushed what remains of its pre-war population of more than two million to the point of famine, international agencies, including the United Nations, have warned.

At the same time as Israel’s war on Gaza has intensified, so too have its actions in the West Bank. Under the guise of another military operation, the Israeli army has occupied and levelled large parts of the occupied territory displacing a reported 40,000 of its inhabitants as it establishes its own military network there.

On Thursday, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz, alongside Smotrich, who as finance minister enjoys significant control over the West Bank, announced the establishment of a further 22 Israeli settlements, all in defiance of international law.

Smotrich’s announcement came as a surprise to few. The far-right minister – himself a settler on Palestinian land – has previously been clear about his intention to see the West Bank annexed, even ordering preparations to do so in advance of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, who he expected to support the idea. He has also said Gaza will be “totally destroyed” and its population expelled to a tiny strip of land along the Egyptian border.

For Shenhav-Shahrabani, little of it was surprising.

“I went with some others to South Africa in 1994. I met a justice of the Supreme Court, a Jew, who’d been injured by an Afrikaner bomb [during the struggle against apartheid],” Shenhav-Shahrabani said. “He told me that nothing will change for Palestinians until Israelis are ready to go to jail for them. We’re not there yet.”

Washington, DC – When the Heritage Foundation, a prominent right-wing think tank in the United States, released a playbook last year for how to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement, it did not garner much attention.

But more than eight months later, the policy document – known as Project Esther – now faces heightened scrutiny from activists and media outlets, in part because President Donald Trump appears to be following its blueprint.

The authors of Project Esther have presented their report as a set of recommendations for combating anti-Semitism, but critics say the document’s ultimate aim is to “poison” groups critical of Israel by painting them as Hamas associates.

Project Esther was created as a response to growing protests against the US support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which United Nations experts and rights groups have described as a genocide.

So, what is Project Esther, and how is it being applied against activists? Here is a look at the document and its ongoing implications for the US.

What is the Heritage Foundation?

The Heritage Foundation is an influential conservative think tank in Washington, DC, whose stated mission is to “formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense”.

Yet, critics argue that Project Esther calls for government interference to curb individual freedoms, including the rights to free speech and association when it comes to opposing Israeli government policies.

According to a New York Times report published earlier this month, the project is overseen by Victoria Coates, a vice president at the Heritage Foundation who served as deputy national security adviser during Trump’s first term.

The Heritage Foundation is also behind Project 2025, which critics describe as an authoritarian playbook for the second Trump presidency.

Ahead of the elections last year, Democrats repeatedly invoked Project 2025 to criticise Trump, but the then-candidate distanced himself from the document.

What does Project Esther aim to achieve?

The initiative says that it aims to “dismantle the infrastructure that sustains” what it calls the “Hamas Support Network” within 24 months.

What is the ‘Hamas Support Network’, according to Project Esther?

The authors claim that groups engaged in advocacy for Palestinian rights are members of the Hamas Support Network (HSN).

They define the supposed network as “people and organizations that are both directly and indirectly involved in furthering Hamas’s cause in contravention of American values and to the detriment of American citizens and America’s national security interests”.

In short, the document alleges that the “pro-Palestinian movement” is “effectively a terrorist support network”.

Does the ‘Hamas Support Network’ exist?

No.

There is no such network in the US, which has stern laws against providing material support to groups designated as “terrorist organisations”, including Hamas.

Beth Miller – the political director at Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a group that the Heritage Foundation names as part of the network – called Project Esther’s allegations “outlandish”.

“It exposes the length of lies and of absurdity that they are going through to try to tear down the Palestinian rights movement,” Miller told Al Jazeera.

The Heritage Foundation did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

How does Project Esther plan to take down the Palestinian rights movement?

The document calls for a multi-faceted campaign against supporters of Palestinian rights, targeting them legally, politically and financially.

The initiative outlines 19 goals that it labels as “desired effects”.

They include denying Palestinian rights supporters who are not US citizens access to universities, ensuring that social media platforms do not allow “anti-Semitic content”, and presenting evidence of “criminal activity” by Palestine advocates to the executive branch.

It also calls for refusing to grant permits for protests organised in support of Palestinian rights.

Project Esther suggests that Israel’s backers should conduct “legal, private research” into pro-Palestine groups to “uncover criminal wrongdoing” and undermine their credibility.

“We must wage lawfare,” it reads, referring to the tactic of using litigation to pressure opponents.

Is the Trump administration turning Project Esther recommendations into policy?

It appears to be the case.

“The phase we’re in now is starting to execute some of the lines of effort in terms of legislative, legal and financial penalties for what we consider to be material support for terrorism,” Coates told The New York Times.

Trump’s crackdown on college protests seems to align with what Project Esther is trying to achieve.

For example, the US administration has been revoking the visas of foreign students critical of Israel. This echoes a proposal in Project Esther, which calls for identifying students “in violation of student visa requirements”.

The Heritage Foundation also extensively cites Canary Mission – a website dedicated to doxxing and smearing pro-Palestine students – in its footnotes for Project Esther. The Trump administration is also suspected of relying on the website, along with other pro-Israel groups, to identify students for deportation.

In addition, Project Esther singles out the “Middle East/North Africa or Islamic studies” programmes as having professors who are “hostile to Israel”.

The Trump administration has been pressuring elite universities to revamp academic departments, including Middle East studies programmes, that it views as biased in favour of Palestinians. Columbia University, for instance, appointed a provost to review its programmes at Trump’s request, “starting immediately with the Middle East” department.

The White House did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

What groups does Project Esther name as targets?

The initiative explicitly identifies several Arab, Muslim and progressive Jewish organisations as well as student groups as part of the so-called Hamas Support Network.

The initiative claims that “the network revolves around” American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an educational and civic advocacy group.

Osama Abuirshaid, AMP’s executive director, said Project Esther points the finger at the group because it has “Muslim” in its name, playing on Islamophobic bigotry.

“American Muslims for Palestine is an easy target. Given the Islamophobic tendencies, it’s easy to assume guilt of American Muslims, Palestinians. That’s a name that sticks,” Abuirshaid told Al Jazeera.

He added that the group is also a target because it is effective and has a “solid constituency”.

“If they can cripple and bring down AMP, that will have a chilling effect within the movement. So they think, if they can bring us down, other organisations will stop working on Palestine solidarity,” Abuirshaid said.

Why focus on universities?

Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a US policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank, said Project Esther targets universities because Israel is bleeding support among young people in the US.

“That’s why there’s such an overwhelming focus on universities and college campuses,” he told Al Jazeera’s The Take podcast.

Kenney-Shawa explained that support for Israel’s war on Gaza has been trending downwards across US demographics. But on college campuses, the change is more pronounced.

“While this change is absolutely across the political spectrum, it’s obviously a lot more acute in the left and among young Americans,” Kenney-Shawa said.

A recent poll from the Pew Research Center showed that 53 percent of US respondents had negative views of Israel, a number that rises to 71 percent among Democrats below the age of 50.

Is Project Esther working?

Advocates say that, in the immediate future, the crackdown on the Palestine solidarity movement threatens the safety and wellbeing of activists, especially foreign students. But it has also sparked a backlash.

“The extreme nature of these attacks has also emboldened people to defiantly continue to speak out in the face of these attacks,” JVP’s Miller said.

“And it has actually, in many cases, awoken people – who weren’t paying attention before – to the hypocrisy that has so long existed in the willingness to silence and censor Palestinian rights activists.”

Earlier in May, several right-wing lawmakers and Trump allies came out in opposition of a bill that aimed to expand restrictions on boycotts of Israel, citing free speech concerns.

Abuirshaid echoed Miller’s comments. He acknowledged that the media attacks, arrests and lawsuits against advocates and student protesters have been “distracting” from the mission of focusing on Palestine.

However, he added, “I’m going to be clear: It’s energising us to continue this fight.”

Gaza is the “hungriest place on Earth”, the United Nations has said, as Israel continues to block all but a trickle of humanitarian aid from entering the Strip, where famine stalks the entire Palestinian population, and the Israeli military relentlessly bombs the besieged enclave.

Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said on Friday that 100 percent of the 2.3-million population of Gaza is now on the verge of “catastrophic hunger”.

The “limited number of truckloads coming in [Gaza] is a trickle – it’s drip-feeding food,” Laerk said.

“The aid operation that we have ready to roll is being put in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations not only in the world today, but in recent history”, he added.

What paucity of aid is entering the enclave is under the control of a new, shadowy NGO backed by Israel and the United States – the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

On Friday, sources at Gaza hospitals told Al Jazeera that 20 people were shot by Israeli troops as they desperately tried to get food at a GHF aid distribution point.

That distribution site, located near Israel’s Netzarim Corridor bisecting the territory, is the third to have been set up, after two distribution points were established in the southern city of Rafah.

Armed surveillance is administered around the clock. “People are telling us that the sites managed and operated by the GHF are metres away from where the Israeli military is stationed. They can see the tanks, they can see the armoured vehicles,” said Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City.

Ten people were killed earlier this week trying to access food distribution points, and images showed many being herded into cage-like lines. Palestinians desperately trying to get hold of any aid must risk Israeli fire and military forces.

“There are also reports of enforced disappearances. A lot of families reported that many of their children, of their family members, who went to the sites … have gone missing as they were trying to get food,” Mahmoud said.

The aid delivery scheme has been roundly condemned by UN officials and the humanitarian community, who have accused the group of aiding Israel’s war objectives by forcibly displacing Palestinians under the guise of aid.

Critics maintain that the currently inadequate aid could be safely scaled up in Gaza, if Israel would allow access to aid and let the organisations that have decades of experience handle the flow.

“Through this dangerous and reckless approach, food is not being distributed where it’s needed most but is instead directed only to areas where Israeli forces choose to amass civilians,” said Doctors Without Borders Secretary-General Christopher Lockyear. “This means the most vulnerable – especially the elderly and people with disabilities – have virtually no chance of accessing the food they desperately need.”

Famine is declared in an area where at least 20 percent of households face an extreme lack of food. At famine levels of deprivation, 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and at least four children in every 10,000 die each day from starvation or malnutrition-linked disease. OCHA said at least 1 in 5 people in Gaza is currently facing starvation.

Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, says it’s “safe to say there is famine” in Gaza. Fakhri told Al Jazeera that Israel is using aid “as bait to corral people” and push them out of the north and into militarised zones”.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza was already catastrophic when Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2, causing conditions to deteriorate even further. After growing international pressure, Israeli authorities said they would allow minimal supplies of food and medicine into the Strip, but critical supplies are still not reaching the people.

France’s sanctions threat

The chorus of condemnation against Israel was underscored by France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Friday. The French leader warned that Paris could “apply sanctions” unless the Israeli government responds to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Speaking during a visit to Singapore on Friday, Macron said the international community could not remain passive while Palestinians in Gaza face a deepening hunger crisis that is “untenable”.

“If there is no response in the coming hours and days in line with the humanitarian situation, we will have to harden our collective position,” he added, suggesting that France may consider applying sanctions against Israeli settlers.

Palestinian daily deaths as ceasefire remains uncertain

At least 30 people have been killed since dawn on Friday in attacks in southern Deir el-Balah, northern Jabalia and on eastern Khan Younis.

The Israeli army has also been expanding its military operation on the ground, issuing new forced displacement orders for five areas in northern Gaza. According to a UN spokesperson, nearly 200,000 people have been displaced in Gaza in the last two weeks by Israel’s displacement orders.

Meanwhile, hopes for an elusive truce remained unrealised. Hamas said on Friday it is currently reviewing a new US ceasefire proposal that Washington says has been signed off on by Israel, but that in its current form will only result in “the continuation of killing and famine” in Gaza.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that Israel had “signed off” on the ceasefire proposal, and the Trump administration’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, had submitted it to Hamas for consideration.

Trump said he believes his administration will have an announcement later on Friday, “or maybe tomorrow”.

“We have a chance of that,” he told reporters from the Oval Office.

The details of the new proposal have not been made public, but senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told the news agency Reuters that, crucially, it did not contain commitments from Israel to end its war on Gaza, withdraw from the enclave, or allow aid to freely enter the war-torn territory.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition plans second sailing after earlier attempt saw ship targeted in a drone attack blamed on Israel.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and Game of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham will join the next sailing of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) as it attempts to break Israel’s months-long blockade of Gaza.

The “Madleen” is due to disembark from Catania, Sicily, on Sunday with a cargo of humanitarian aid and several high-profile activists on board, including Thunberg, European Member of Parliament Rima Hassan and Palestinian-American lawyer Huwaida Arraf.

Cunningham, an Irish actor best known for his role as Davos Seaworth in the hit HBO series, is a longtime advocate for Palestine and similar causes.

The sailing marks the second attempt in as many months by the FFC, a coalition of humanitarian groups, to reach Gaza.

A mission at the start of May was aborted after another FFC vessel, the “Conscience”, was attacked by two alleged drones while sailing in international waters off the coast of Malta.

The FFC alleges that Israel was responsible for the attack, which severely damaged the front section of the ship.

Meet some of the panelists, volunteers and supporters joining the launch of ‘Madleen’ in Catania, Sicily about to sail to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza. ⛵️#AllEyesOnDeck #BreakTheSiege https://t.co/ZoCnr45S3I @RimaHas pic.twitter.com/IqAhOSHBv9

— Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@GazaFFlotilla) May 29, 2025

MEP Hassan said in a short video on social media that the trip by the “Madleen” is a protest against Israel as much as an attempt to deliver much-needed aid to Gaza.

“The first [goal] being of course to reject the blockade of humanitarian aid, the ongoing genocide, the impunity enjoyed by the State of Israel and to raise global international awareness,” she said.

“This action is also in response to the attack that took place on May 2 against the previous ship that took place in international waters near Malta.”

Israel partially lifted its nearly three-month blockade of Gaza last week, but since then has only allowed a tiny amount of assistance into the Palestinian territory, which the United States has warned is on the brink of famine.

This week, thousands of Palestinians rushed to so-called aid distribution stations set up by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, leading to the deaths of at least three people and dozens of injuries in the chaos that ensued as desperate people tried to get food supplies.

The UN and other humanitarian organisations are boycotting the US and Israeli-backed initiative, accusing Israel of attempting to consolidate and control aid distribution across Gaza in a further weaponisation of food and starvation.

The World Health Organization has warned that Gaza is at risk of famine following months of prolonged food shortages amid Israel’s punishing blockade, and that about a quarter of the population is in a “catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness and death”.

A ceasefire proposal with Israel tabled by the administration of United States President Donald Trump is “still under discussion” by Hamas, but in its current form will only result in “the continuation of killing and famine” in Gaza, an official from the Palestinian group has said.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that Israel had “signed off” on the ceasefire proposal, and the Trump administration’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, had submitted it to Hamas for consideration.

Hamas political bureau member Basem Naim told the Reuters news agency that the deal “does not meet any of our people’s demands, foremost among them, halting the war”.

“Nonetheless, the movement’s leadership is studying the response to the proposal with full national responsibility,” Naim added.

The details of the new proposal have not been made public, but senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that, crucially, it did not contain commitments from Israel to end its war on Gaza, withdraw Israeli troops from the enclave, or allow aid to freely enter the war-torn territory.

The Israeli government has not publicly confirmed that it approved the latest proposal.

Reports in Israeli media this week suggested that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the families of captives still held in Gaza that he is prepared to move forward with Witkoff’s temporary ceasefire proposal.

Akiva Eldar, an Israeli political analyst, told Al Jazeera it was “unusual” for Israel to come out and agree to a proposal first, and that Netanyahu may be betting on the plan being impossible for Hamas to accept so that he can paint them as the “bad guys” and continue the war.

“It happened before… and Netanyahu put the blame on them,” Eldar said.

Conflicting reports

Attempts to restore a ceasefire in Gaza have been scuppered by deep differences on conditions for ending the conflict, including Israel’s demand that Hamas completely disarm, and the Palestinian group’s demand that Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza.

Reports of this latest proposal follow conflicting reports earlier this week, when Hamas claimed it had reached an understanding for a ceasefire “general framework” with Witkoff and only awaited a “final response”.

“We have reached an agreement on a general framework with Witkoff that ensures a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from Gaza, and the unhindered entry of humanitarian aid,” the group said in a statement.

The agreement also reportedly included “the establishment of a professional committee to manage Gaza’s affairs once a ceasefire is declared”, according to the Hamas statement.

As part of the deal, Trump would also reportedly guarantee that a ceasefire would be established within 60 days and ensure the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Witkoff, however, later denied that these were the terms of any deal he had proposed, telling Reuters that what he had seen was “completely unacceptable”.

An anonymous US official close to Witkoff also rejected the claim, telling Al Jazeera that the group’s claims were “inaccurate” and “disappointing”. Israel also dismissed the claim, with one unnamed official calling the statement “psychological warfare” and “propaganda” in comments to The Times of Israel.

Israel resumed its war on Gaza on March 18, after breaking a six-week temporary ceasefire, with Netanyahu announcing that fighting had resumed with “full force”.

The months since have seen the Israeli military resume its relentless assault across Gaza, killing close to 4,000 people since breaking the truce and propelling the overall death toll in the enclave to more than 54,000, according to health authorities in Gaza.

Israel has also imposed a deadly, months-long blockade on humanitarian aid entering the Palestinian enclave, which UN officials say has pushed the population to the brink of famine.

Israel partially lifted its blockade on May 19, allowing a trickle of aid to enter Gaza, but United States Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described it as a mere “teaspoon” of what is needed.

There were chaotic scenes this week as crowds of starving Palestinians attempted to reach life-saving supplies distributed by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a new and controversial group that said it would deliver aid in the besieged enclave.

Residents of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank retrieve their belongings from their homes before they’re demolished by the Israeli military. Tens of thousands have already been forced out. This comes as Israel approves 22 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, the largest expansion in decades.

Israel’s government has approved a major expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The defence minister said the aim is to prevent a Palestinian state. Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim has more details of the plan.