IsraelPalestine

According to Oxfam, nearly 150,000 people in the Netherlands called for the government to do more against the war in Gaza.

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators gathered in the Netherlands to oppose Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and to call on the government to take a stronger stance, as nearly 55,300 Palestinians have now been killed in the more than 20-month-long war.

On Saturday, huge crowds of people marched through the streets of The Hague for the second time in four weeks towards the International Court of Justice.

Rights groups, who were among the organisers of the rally, including Amnesty International and Oxfam, said the demonstration aimed to create a symbolic “red line” that they say the government has failed to set to halt Israel’s war on Gaza and its Palestinian population.

Demonstrators sang, delivered speeches and marched past the courthouse, which is hearing a case by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide during its war on the besieged enclave.

Michiel Servaes, director of Oxfam Novib, said “more than 150,000 people” attended the protest calling for “concrete sanctions to stop the genocide in Gaza”.

Reporting from The Hague, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said that the large turnout was proof that more people in the Netherlands reject their government’s support for Israel.

“While there is much frustration about the lack of action, protesters here say the focus should remain on the continuing genocide in Gaza despite Israel’s efforts to distract attention,” Vaessen said, adding that protesters also called for Israel to stop its attacks on Iran.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof said that the “unprecedented” thousands of people in The Hague raised their voices with “concerns, anger and frustration”.

“The Netherlands remains committed to stopping the violence and ending the humanitarian blockade. We are constantly looking at how we can be most effective with our efforts, both in front of and behind the scenes, to improve the situation on the ground,” Schoof wrote on X.

“To all those people in The Hague, I say: ‘We see you and we hear you.’ Our goal is ultimately the same: to end the suffering in Gaza as soon as possible,” he added.

Salih el Saddy, a medical doctor protesting, told Al Jazeera that as a doctor, it’s “very painful to watch” the scenes from Gaza.

Pro-Palestine protests also were taking place in Belgium, Turkiye, Brazil, and Greece, all calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza.

“We are in an existential war” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the site of the Iranian missile strike that targeted a residential block in Bat Yam, Israel. Netanyahu called the attacks an existential threat and warned of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Israeli fire and air strikes have killed at least 58 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, many of them near an aid distribution site operated by the United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), according to local health authorities, the latest deaths of people desperately seeking food for their hungry families.

Medics at al-Awda and Al-Aqsa hospitals in central Gaza, where most of the casualties were moved to, said at least 15 people were killed on Saturday as they tried to approach the GHF aid distribution site near the so-called Netzarim Corridor.

The rest were killed in separate attacks across the besieged and bombarded enclave, they added. Since the GHF started operations last month, at least 274 people have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded near aid distribution sites, according to a statement by the Gaza Ministry of Health.

The GHF said they were closed on Saturday. But witnesses said thousands of people had gathered near the sites anyway, desperate for food as Israel’s punishing 15-week blockade and military campaign have driven the territory to the brink of famine.

‘Execution sites’

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said Palestinians are starting to see GHF distribution hubs as “execution sites,” considering the repeated attacks there. But people in Gaza “have run out of options, and they are forced to travel to these dangerous humanitarian spaces to get aid”.

Israel imposed a full humanitarian blockade on Gaza on March 2 for 11 weeks, cutting off food, medical supplies and other aid.

It began allowing small amounts of aid into the enclave in late May following international pressure, but humanitarian organisations say it is only a tiny fraction of the aid that is needed.

There has been no immediate comment by the Israeli military or the GHF on Saturday’s incidents.

The GHF – a United States and Israel-backed organisation led by Johnnie Moore, an evangelical Christian who advised US President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign – began distributing food packages in Gaza on May 27, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral.

Israel and the United States say the new system is intended to replace the UN-run network. They have accused Hamas, without providing evidence, of siphoning off the UN-provided aid and reselling it to fund its military activities.

Israel has also admitted to backing armed gangs in Gaza, known for criminal activities, to undermine Hamas. These groups have been blamed for looting aid.

UN officials deny Hamas has diverted significant amounts of aid and say the new system is unable to meet mounting needs. They say it has militarised aid by allowing Israel to decide who has access and by forcing Palestinians to travel long distances or relocate again after waves of displacement.

Later on Saturday, the Israeli military ordered residents of Khan Younis and the nearby towns of Abasan and Bani Suheila in the southern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and head west towards the so-called humanitarian zone area, saying it would forcefully work against “terror organizations” in the area.

More than 80 percent of the Gaza Strip is now within the Israeli-militarised zone, under forced displacement orders, or where these overlap, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The UN estimates that nearly 665,000 people have been displaced yet again since Israel broke the ceasefire in February.

Israel’s war on Gaza and its population has killed more than 55,290 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the densely populated Strip, which is home to more than two million people. Most of the population is displaced and malnutrition is widespread.

Despite efforts by the United States, Egypt and Qatar to restore a ceasefire in Gaza, neither Israel nor Hamas has shown willingness to back down on core demands, including that Israel implement a permanent ceasefire and not restart the war.

Authorities in both Egypt and Libya have stopped activists seeking to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza, protest organisers have said, with reports of more detentions and deportations taking place.

“Forty participants of the Global March to Gaza have had their passports taken at a checkpoint on the way out of Cairo,” the organisers of the Global March to Gaza said in a statement on Friday.

“They are being held in the heat and not allowed to move,” they continued, adding that another “15 are being held at hotels”.

The activists are from France, Spain, Canada, Turkiye and the United Kingdom, it said, adding, “We are a peaceful movement and we are complying with Egyptian law.”

The group urged embassies to help secure their release so they could complete their voyage.

Activists arrived in Egypt this week for the Global March to Gaza, a grassroots initiative aiming to pressure Israel to allow the delivery of aid and humanitarian supplies to Gaza’s starving population.

Organisers said that participants from 80 countries were set to begin their march towards Egypt’s Rafah crossing with Gaza, with about 4,000 activists expected to take part.

The overland protest was to coincide with other solidarity efforts, including a boat carrying aid and activists that was intercepted by the Israeli military earlier this week as it attempted to reach Gaza.

Detentions and deportations

According to plans outlined by organisers, participants were to travel by bus to El Arish, a city in the heavily securitised Sinai Peninsula, before walking the final 50km (30 miles) to Rafah. Protesters intended to camp near the border before returning to Cairo on June 19.

However, Egyptian police stopped several groups of foreign nationals en route, forcing vehicles to pull over roughly 30km (20 miles) from Ismailia, just outside the Sinai. Activists said police ordered passengers with non-Egyptian passports to disembark, blocking their passage to Rafah.

Paul Murphy, an independent Irish member of parliament, who has travelled to Egypt to take part, said in a post on X, “We have had our passports confiscated and are being detained. It seems Egyptian authorities have decided to crack down on the Great March To Gaza.”

Mo, a member of the protest march from the Netherlands, said that his group had headed in taxis to Ismailia, but that at a checkpoint near the city foreigners were told to hand over their passports, with only Egyptians allowed through. He also described riot police who came to clear the road of protesters.

Now back in Cairo, Mo and the group from the Netherlands are deciding what to do next.

“We are trying to regroup,” he told Al Jazeera. “A lot of our group is splintered, some have been beaten up by the police… so they’re coming back battered and bruised and broken.”

“It seems like the Egyptian authorities are determined to stop us from reaching anywhere near the border.”

Security sources told the Reuters news agency that at least 88 individuals had been detained or deported from Cairo airport and other locations across the country.

Three airport sources told Reuters that at least 73 foreign nationals were deported on a flight to Istanbul for violating entry protocols, with about 100 more still awaiting deportation at the airport.

Officials at Cairo International Airport said new directives were issued to airlines requiring all passengers travelling to Egypt between June 12 and 16 to hold confirmed return tickets, Reuters reported.

Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that any visits to the Rafah border area must be coordinated in advance with Egyptian embassies or official bodies, citing security concerns in the Sinai.

Organisers of the march maintain they coordinated the trip with authorities and called on the government to release those detained.

Convoy blocked in Libya

Separately, a land convoy known as “Soumoud”, which had departed Tunisia carrying activists from Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania, was stopped on Friday morning at the entrance to Sirte, a city in Libya under the control of forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Haftar.

“The caravan was barred from passing through at the entrance to the city of Sirte,” Tunisian organiser Wael Naouar said in a video posted on Facebook.

Naouar said the convoy needs Egyptian authorisation to reach Gaza but had received mixed messages from local security officials. “Some told us we could cross in a few hours. Others insisted that ‘Egypt has denied [passage] and therefore you will not pass,’” he said.

On Wednesday, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered the military to block demonstrators from entering Gaza from Egypt, claiming people involved were “jihadist protesters”.

“I expect the Egyptian authorities to prevent them from reaching the Egypt-Israel border and not allow them to carry out provocations and try to enter Gaza,” he added.

It comes as Israel continues its relentless air strikes on Gaza, while severely restricting the flow of aid, including food, water, and medical supplies, as humanitarian experts warn that the enclave could fall into full-scale famine unless Israel lifts the blockade.

UN spokesman says Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is not delivering supplies safely to those in need.

The United Nations says the Israeli- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is a “failure” from a humanitarian perspective.

Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said aid operations have stalled because the GHF is not delivering supplies safely to those in need.

“GHF, I think it’s fair to say, has been, from a principled humanitarian standpoint, a failure,” Laerke told reporters in Geneva on Friday. “They are not doing what a humanitarian operation should do, which is providing aid to people where they are, in a safe and secure manner.”

The UN and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, citing concerns that it prioritises Israeli military objectives over humanitarian needs.

The newly formed private organisation began operations on May 26 after Israel had completely cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, sparking warnings of mass famine.

It says it has distributed more than 18 million meals since then.

On Friday, more than 30 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera’s Tariq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said Israeli forces were targeting parts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza with artillery fire and ground attacks.

“The Israeli military is deepening its ground operations,” Azzoum said, saying there were clashes in the eastern part of the city.

The besieged territory remained under a communications blackout for a second day on Friday. Hamas has denounced what it described as an Israeli decision to cut communication lines in Gaza, calling it “a new aggressive step” in the country’s “war of extermination”.

Israel continues to force civilians into what it calls the “safe zone” of al-Mawasi, a barren coastal strip with no infrastructure, which it has repeatedly bombed. A drone strike on a tent there killed at least two people on Friday.

The attack left “everyone on the ground quite confused about where they can go in order to find safety”, Azzoum said.

Israel locks down occupied West Bank

In the occupied West Bank, Israel sealed all crossings and checkpoints between Palestinian towns and cities early on Friday, shortly after it launched a wave of air strikes on targets in Iran.

Sources told Al Jazeera the closures were imposed without any indication of when they might be lifted.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its ambulances were being denied access to patients, including those in urgent need of medical care.

In occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli forces closed Al-Aqsa Mosque, preventing Palestinians from attending Friday prayers.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa held an emergency cabinet meeting in response and activated crisis committees across the West Bank.

Israel’s far-right finance minister says he wants to cut Palestinian banks off from the global financial system.

Bezalel Smotrich’s plan has not yet been approved by the Israeli government.

But if it does happen, what could the consequences be?

Presenter: 

Cyril Vanier

Guests: 

Raja Khalidi – Director-general at the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute

Shahd Hammouri – Lecturer in international law at the University of Kent

Mustafa Barghouti – Secretary-general at the Palestinian National Initiative

On June 9, Israeli forces seized the Madleen ship in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea as it attempted to break the suffocating siege on Gaza.

The 12 activists on board – who belong to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition – were abducted in international waters and taken to Israel.

One day after their capture, four of them were swiftly deported after waiving their right to see an Israeli judge and signing a deportation order that claimed they had “illegally” entered Israel. Well-known Swedish climate and human rights activist, Greta Thunberg, was among those deported.

The other eight refused to sign and remained in detention. On Thursday, six of them were deported, including Rima Hassan, a French-Palestinian member of the European Parliament.

Another two French nationals remain in Israeli custody awaiting deportation on Friday, according to Adalah, a nonprofit legal association in Israel.

This is everything you need to know about their treatment.

Who are the 12 activists?

On Tuesday, Israel deported Thunberg (Sweden), Sergio Toribio (Spain), Baptiste Andre (France) and Omar Faiad (France). Faiad is a reporter with Al Jazeera Mubasher.

On Thursday, six more were deported, including Rima Hassan, a French-Palestinian member of the European Parliament, Mark van Rennes (Netherlands), Suayb Ordu (Turkiye), Yasemin Acar (Germany), Thiago Avila (Brazil) and Reva Viard (France), according to Adalah, cited by Turkish news agency Anadolu.

French nationals Pascal Maurieras and Yanis Mhamdi remain in detention and are expected to be released on Friday, according to Adalah. Mhamdi is a journalist for The Blast, a French left-wing outlet.

Where were the activists held?

In Givon prison in Ramla, a city between West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Two of the activists, Hassan and Avila, were placed in solitary confinement, according to Adalah.

Hassan was taken there after first writing “Free Palestine” on the prison walls. Adalah later reported that Avila began a hunger and water strike to protest Israel’s blockade of Gaza, which has led to widespread starvation.

Hassan was later returned to Givon, said Adalah.

After Thursday’s release of Hassan and Avila, along with four others from the Madleen, Adalah released a statement saying that “volunteers were subjected to mistreatment, punitive measures and aggressive treatment, and two volunteers were held for some period of time in solitary confinement”.

Did Israel violate international law by arresting the activists on the Madleen?

According to Luigi Daniele, a legal scholar at the University of Molise, Italy, Israel has no right to intercept a boat in international waters or to deny aid to starving civilians in Gaza.

On the contrary, Israel has an international legal obligation as an occupying power to facilitate aid into Gaza.

He told a local Italian outlet that Israel, above all, has no legal right to use force or permanent aggression on occupied Palestinian territory, including against the activists who were sailing to Gaza on the Madleen.

Adalah has also argued that the activists were not trying to enter Israel illegally, but were sailing to Gaza, which is occupied Palestinian land.

Israeli courts dismissed the legal arguments made by Adalah.

How long will the remaining two activists remain in detention?

The Madleen activists are supposed to serve 72 hours in the Israeli prison before being deported back to their home countries, according to Israeli law.

This indicates all activists should have been released at some point on June 12, yet it is unclear if the remaining detainees – Maurieras and Mhamdi – will face additional charges that could keep them longer in prison.

Have embassies lobbied for their release?

Some have, while others have been curiously silent.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, said earlier this week that he expected the four French activists who were on board the Madleen to return to France on Thursday or Friday. As of Thursday, two remained in detention.

Brazil had also demanded the release of Brazilian activist, Avila. When the activists were first abducted from international waters, Brazilian diplomats reportedly visited Givon prison to assist with legal proceedings.

In addition, Turkiye called Israel a “terrorist state” after the Madleen was intercepted.

Germany and the Netherlands, however, did not issue public statements to demand the release of their nationals.

The Madleen’s captain, Mark van Reenes, deported on Thursday, is a Dutch national who filmed himself just before Israel seized the ship.

In the video, he called on his country to urgently demand his release.

UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, also posted on X that “the silence of [European Union] institutions over the unlawful detention and punitive conditions imposed on EU citizens including [Hassan] speaks volumes to the deep roots of Israelism in European institutional culture”.

At least 26 people were killed in Israeli drone strikes while waiting for basic aid distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Israeli attacks have killed at least 42 people across Gaza since dawn, medical sources told Al Jazeera, as the United Nations General Assembly prepares for a vote urging an unconditional ceasefire in the besieged enclave.

Sources told Al Jazeera that at least 26 of the people killed on Thursday died in Israeli drone attacks while waiting for food and basic supplies being distributed by the controversial United States and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Gaza civil defence official Mohammed el-Mougher told AFP news agency that al-Awda Hospital received at least 10 bodies and about 200 others who were wounded “after Israeli drones dropped multiple bombs on gatherings of civilians near an aid distribution point around the Netzarim checkpoint in central Gaza”.

El-Mougher said that Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital also received six bodies after Israeli attacks on aid queues near Netzarim and in the as-Sudaniya area in northwestern Gaza.

Since the GHF began its operation in Gaza in late May, dozens of Palestinians have been killed while trying to reach the aid distribution points, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.

The previously unknown GHF has come under intense criticism from the United Nations, which says its distribution model is deeply flawed.

“This model will not address the deepening hunger. The dystopian ‘Hunger Games’ cannot become the new reality,” Philippe Lazzarini, the chief of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), wrote on X.

“The UN including @UNRWA has the knowledge, expertise & community trust to provide dignified & safe assistance. Just let the humanitarians do their jobs,” he added.

Separately, a medical source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera that two Palestinians were killed as a result of Israeli shelling targeting the Bir an-Naaja area west of Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Meanwhile, Hamas condemned on Thursday the decision of Israel to cut off communication lines in Gaza, describing it as “a new aggressive step” in the country’s “war of extermination”.

“We call on the international community to assume its responsibility to stop the aggression and ensure the protection of civilians and humanitarian and civilian facilities.”

The disruption of communications has resulted in the UNRWA losing contact with its colleagues in the agency in Gaza, the UN’s main humanitarian provider in Gaza said.

The latest developments come as the UN General Assembly is set to vote on a draft resolution that demands an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in the war in Gaza.

The 193-member General Assembly is likely to adopt the text with overwhelming support, diplomats say, despite Israel lobbying countries this week against taking part in what it called a “politically motivated, counterproductive charade”.

Last week, the United States vetoed a similar effort in the Security Council.

“Food has become an opportunity for killing, I’ve never heard of such a thing”

Former UN aid chief Martin Griffiths slammed Israel’s killing of Palestinians seeking aid. In an interview with Al Jazeera, he said the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was luring people to their deaths.

A Palestinian man in a red cap walks down the narrow alleyway in Nablus’s old city towards a group of Israeli soldiers, clearly unarmed.

He attempts to talk to the soldiers, who had flooded into the occupied West Bank city in the early hours of Tuesday as part of Israel’s latest military raid – believed to be the largest carried out in Nablus in two years.

The soldiers immediately kick and shove the man – 40-year-old Nidal Umairah – before his brother walks over, attempting to intervene. Gunfire follows, and soon the two brothers are lying dead.

Nidal and his brother 35-year-old brother Khaled were the latest victims of Israel in the West Bank, after they were killed late on Tuesday. It is unclear which brother had initially been detained, but witnesses were adamant that the behaviour of the Israeli soldiers was an unnecessary escalation that led to the deaths of yet more Palestinians.

Ghassan Hamdan, the director of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society in Nablus, was at the scene of the killings.

“There were at least 12 soldiers and they all fired their automatic machine guns at once,” said Hamdan.

After the two men fell to the ground [medics] asked the soldiers if we could treat their wounds. They answered by firing at all of us.”

“We all took cover behind the walls of the old city,” he told Al Jazeera.

Hamza Abu Hajar, a paramedic at the scene, said that the Umairah brother who had initially approached the Israeli soldiers had been trying to go to his house to move his family out and away from the Israeli raid.

“They lifted his shirt up to prove he was unarmed,” Abu Hajar said. “They then started shooting at him, and at us as well.”

The Israeli army said it acted in self-defence after one of the Umairah brothers tried to seize a weapon from a soldier. It said that four soldiers had been injured in the incident.

West Bank raids

The raid in Nablus, which lasted more than 24 hours, is the latest Israel has conducted in the West Bank.

Israel has taken advantage of the world’s focus on its own war on Gaza since October 2023 to escalate its land theft and violence in the West Bank.

During that span, Israel has killed at least 930 people in the West Bank, 24 of whom were from Nablus, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Many of these deaths are the result of violent Israeli raids ostensibly aimed at clamping down on Palestinian fighters in the West Bank, but which have resulted in mass destruction and thousands of Palestinians fleeing their homes.

According to Hamdan, Israeli troops mainly targeted Nablus’s old city by storming into hundreds of homes in the middle of the night. Dozens of people were also reportedly arrested.

Young people in the city protested by burning tyres and throwing rocks at Israeli troops, yet they were met with heavy tear gas, injuring at least 80 Palestinians in the raid.

In the past, Palestinian protesters have been imprisoned on “terrorism” charges or shot and killed for simply resisting Israel’s occupation by throwing rocks or defying Israeli soldiers.

This time around, the Israelis classified the entire old city in Nablus as a closed military zone for 24 hours. No ambulances or medics were allowed inside to aid distressed residents, said Hamdan.

“Nobody was allowed in or out. Nobody was allowed to make any movement at all. We [as medics] could not enter the area during the entire raid to try and help people in need,” he told Al Jazeera.

Assault and vandalism

During the raid, Israeli troops stormed into several apartments after blowing off door hinges with explosives.

Umm Hassan, a 58-year-old resident who did not want to give her full name, recalls feeling terrified when several Israeli soldiers broke into her home.

About five months ago, her husband passed away from cancer, an illness that also claimed two of her children years ago.

Umm Hassan is also battling cancer, yet she said Israeli soldiers showed her no mercy. They flipped her television on the ground, broke windows and tossed her paintings off the walls and onto the living room floor.

They even vandalised her books by throwing them on the ground, including the Quran.

“I told them to leave me alone. I was alone and so scared. There was nobody to protect me,” Umm Hassan told Al Jazeera.

Another woman, Rola, said that Israeli soldiers stormed into her home two times in the span of six hours during the raid.

When Israeli soldiers returned the second time, Rola said that they attacked her elderly father, hitting him on the head and chest with the butts of their guns.

Rola described her three nieces and nephews – all small children – cowering with fear as Israeli soldiers vandalised and destroyed their home.

“The second time they came to our home, they put us all in a room and we weren’t able to leave the room from 8am until 3:30pm,” said Rola.

“We [Palestinians] always talk about being resilient. But the reality is when Israeli soldiers come into your private home, then you get very scared. It’s natural. We are humans and humans get scared,” she told Al Jazeera.

Psychological warfare

More than 80 Palestinians received treatment from the Palestine Red Crescent Society during the raid, 25 of them as a result of gunshot wounds.

While Israel says its raid was “precise”, inhabitants of Nablus say that the attack on the city was the latest attempt to intimidate and frighten Palestinians.

“Honestly, what were Israeli soldiers searching for in my home? What did they think they were going to find?” asked Rola. “The reason for their raids [violence] is to uphold the [illegal] occupation.”

Cameron told ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan that applying for arrest warrants for Israeli officials would be like ‘dropping hydrogen bomb’, media report says.

Several United Kingdom lawmakers have criticised the previous government over allegations in a recent media report that former Foreign Secretary David Cameron “privately threatened” to defund and withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its plans to issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

The report, published on Monday by the UK-based outlet Middle East Eye (MEE), cited sources with knowledge of a phone call Cameron allegedly made to ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan on April 23, 2024, after he had given advance notice of his intention to apply for the warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

MEE’s report cited unnamed sources, including former staff in Khan’s office, and had seen minutes of the conversation, claiming that Cameron warned the arrest warrants, which were issued in November that year, would be – in quotes reported by the sources – tantamount to “dropping a hydrogen bomb”, warning that if the ICC went ahead, the UK would “defund the court and withdraw from the Rome Statute”.

Khan reportedly stood his ground, with sources telling MEE that he said afterwards that he did not like “being pressurised”. “I won’t say if it rises to blackmail – I don’t like being threatened,” he reportedly said, adding that the government was “debasing” the UK with its clear attack on the independence of the court and the rule of international law.

Neither Khan nor Cameron, who was prime minister between 2010 and 2016, and now sits in the House of Lords as a life peer, has commented on the report.

Following the report’s publication, Labour Party MP Zarah Sultana said on X that Cameron “and every UK minister complicit in arming and enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza” should be investigated.

David Cameron — and every UK minister complicit in arming and enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza — must be investigated for war crimes. https://t.co/YYcsmFg1BN

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) June 9, 2025

Scottish National Party MP Chris Law said the allegations were “shocking”, but added the country was “not seeing much better under Labour”.

Shocking that the UK Tory govt tried to undermine the International Criminal Court for investigating those responsible for war crimes in Gaza. However not seeing much better under Labour #GazaGenocide‌ https://t.co/Wd3nK9UkhV

— Chris Law MP (@ChrisLawSNP) June 9, 2025

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, a Labour MP, called for an “independent inquiry into the UK’s role in the Gaza genocide”.

Concerning new allegations, which suggest the last foreign secretary tried to shield Israeli leaders from facing justice for war crimes.

We need an independent inquiry into the UK’s role in the Gaza genocide.https://t.co/JROBHyqtDo

— Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP (@BellRibeiroAddy) June 9, 2025

Zack Polanski, the deputy leader of the Green Party, was cited by MEE as saying: “It’s been clear for all to see that both the former and current government have stood with the oppressors, not the marginalised.”

When the ICC applied for the arrest warrants in May last year, the previous Conservative Party government, a strong backer of Israel, decried the move as “not helpful in relation to reaching a pause in the fighting, getting hostages out or getting humanitarian aid in”.

In July, the new Labour government, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, dropped the previous Rishi Sunak-led government’s bid to challenge the ICC’s power to seek the warrants, which were issued for Netanyahu, Gallant and three Hamas leaders in November.

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.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has been pictured on a plane after Israel’s Foreign Ministry said they had deported her. Thunberg was one of 12 people on board the Madleen ship, which was seized by the military while attempting to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

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.

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.”

‘A form of piracy’

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.

More killings at aid distribution point

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.

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.

‘Increase in hostilities’

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.

‘Urgent action’

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.

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.

‘This is a trap for us, not aid’

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.

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”.

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.

Hospitals overwhelmed

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.

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.