Middle East

Khan Younis, Gaza – Yazan Musleh, 13, lies in a hospital bed set up in a tent on the grounds of Nasser Hospital, his t-shirt pulled up to reveal a large white bandage on his thin torso.

Beside him, his father, Ihab, sits fretfully, still shaken by the bloodied dawn he and his sons lived through on Sunday when Israeli forces opened fire on thousands of people gathered to receive aid from the Israeli-conceived, and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Ihab, 40, had taken Yazan and his 15-year-old brother, Yazid, from their shelter in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, to the Rafah distribution point that the GHF operates.

They set out before dawn, walking for about an hour and a half to get to the al-Alam Roundabout roundabout in Rafah, near the distribution point.

Worried about the size of the gathering, hungry crowd, Ihab told his sons to wait for him on an elevation near the GHF gates.

“When I looked behind the hill, I saw several tanks not far away,” he says. “A feeling of dread came over me. What if they opened fire or something happened? I prayed for God’s protection.”

As the crowd moved closer to the gates, heavy gunfire erupted from all directions.

“I was terrified. I immediately looked towards my sons on the hill, and saw Yazan get shot and collapse,” he recalls.

Yazid, also sitting by his brother’s bedside, describes the moments of terror.

“We were standing on the hill as our father told us, and suddenly, the tanks opened fire.” He says. “My brother was hit in the stomach immediately.”

“I saw his intestines spilling out – it was horrifying. Then people helped rush him to the hospital in a donkey cart.”

Down by the gates, Ihab was struggling to reach his sons, trying to fight against the crowd while avoiding the shots still ringing out.

“Shooting was coming from every direction – from tanks, quadcopters.

“I saw people helping my son, eventually dragging him away.”

When Ihab managed to get away from the crowd, he ran as best as his malnourished body could manage, towards Nasser Hospital, in hopes that Yazan had been taken there. It felt like more than an hour, he says.

At Nasser Hospital, he learned that Yazan had been taken into surgery.

“I finally breathed. I thanked God he was still alive. I had completely lost hope,” he says.

The bullet that hit Yazan had torn through his intestines and spleen, and the doctors say he needs long and intensive treatment.

Sitting by him is his mother, Iman, who asks despairingly why anyone would shoot at people trying to get food. She and Ihab have five children, the youngest is a seven-month-old girl.

“I went to get food for my children. Hunger is killing us,” says Ihab.

“These aid distributions are known to be degrading and humiliating – but we’re desperate. I’m desperate because my children are starving, and even then, we are shot at?”

He had tried to get aid once before, he says, but both times he came away empty-handed.

“The first time, there was a deadly stampede. We barely escaped. This time, my son was wounded and again… nothing,” he says.

But he knows he cannot stop trying.

“I’ll risk it for my family. Either I come back alive or I die. I’m desperate. Hunger is killing us.”

The group distributing aid

The GHF, marketed as a neutral humanitarian mechanism, was launched in early 2025 and uses private US military contractors to “secure the distribution points”.

The GHF’s head, Jake Wood, resigned his post two days before distribution began, citing concerns that the foundation would not be impartial or act in accordance with humanitarian principles.

Five days later, on May 30, the Boston Consulting Group, which had been part of the planning and implementation of the foundation, withdrew its team and terminated its association with GHF.

International aid organisations have been unanimous in criticising the GHF and its methods.

‘We went looking for food for our hungry children’

Lying nearby in the tent ward is Mohammed al-Homs, 40, a father of five.

He had also headed out early on Sunday to try to get some food for his family, but moments after arriving at the al-Alam Roundabout roundabout, “I was shot twice – once in the leg and once in the mouth, shattering my front teeth,” he says.

“I collapsed, there were so many injured and dead around me. Everyone was screaming and running. Gunfire was coming from tanks, drones everywhere. It felt like the end of the world.”

He lay bleeding on the ground for what felt like an hour, as medical teams were not able to reach the injured.

Then, word spread that the gates had opened for distribution, and those who could move started heading towards the centre.

It was only then that people could start moving the wounded to a nearby medical point.

“This was my first time trying to get aid, and it will be my last,” Mohammed says.

“I didn’t expect to survive. We went looking for food for our hungry children and were met with drones and tanks.”

‘I never imagined I’d face death for a box of food’

Also in the tent is someone who had succeeded in getting an aid package on the first day of distribution, on May 27, and decided to try again on Sunday: 36-year-old Khaled al-Lahham.

Al-Lahham is taking care of 10 family members: his parents, one aunt, and seven siblings, all of whom are displaced in the tents of al-Mawasi.

He had managed to catch a ride with five friends that morning, driving as close as they could to the al-Alam Roundabout roundabout.

As the distribution time approached, the six friends started getting out of the car.

“Suddenly, there was loud gunfire all around and people screaming. I felt a sharp pain in my leg – a bullet had passed clean through my thigh,” says Khaled, who did not make it fully out of the car.

“I was screaming and bleeding while people around me ran and screamed. The shooting was frenzied,” he adds. “There were tanks, quadcopters – fire came from every direction.”

Injured, Khaled could not get out of the car and huddled there until one of his friends managed to return and drive him to the hospital.

“I never imagined I’d face death for a box of food,” Khaled says.

“If they don’t want to distribute the aid, why do they lie to people and kill them like this?

“This is all deliberate. Humiliate us, degrade us, then kill us – for food?”

Israeli military says it shelled targets in Syria in response to a pair of projectile launches.

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned an Israeli strike on the Syrian province of Deraa, saying that it caused “significant human and material losses”, the state news agency SANA reports.

The strike came after the Israeli military said that two projectiles had crossed from Syria towards Israel on Tuesday, and fell in open areas in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, though the Syrian Foreign Ministry said these were “reports that have not been verified yet”.

The ministry reiterated that Syria has not and would not pose a threat to any party in the region.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the projectiles.

“We believe that there are many parties that may seek to destabilise the region to achieve their own interests,” the ministry added.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he held Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa responsible for the projectiles.

“We consider the president of Syria directly responsible for any threat and fire towards the State of Israel, and a full response will come soon,” Katz said.

Syria and Israel have recently engaged in indirect talks to ease tensions, a significant development in relations between states that have been on opposite sides of the conflict in the Middle East for decades.

Several Arab and Palestinian media outlets circulated a claim of responsibility from a little-known group named the Muhammad Deif Brigades, an apparent reference to Hamas’s military leader who was killed in an Israeli strike in 2024.

The statement from the group could not be independently verified.

The Israeli army said it attacked southern Syria with artillery fire after the projectiles launched at Israel.

Residents said that Israeli mortars were striking the Wadi Yarmouk area, west of Deraa province, near the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The area has witnessed increased tensions in recent weeks, including reported Israeli military incursions into nearby villages, where residents have reportedly been barred from sowing their crops.

Israel has waged a campaign of aerial bombardment that has destroyed much of Syria’s military infrastructure. It has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and taken more territory in the aftermath of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s removal in December, citing lingering concerns over the past of the country’s new government.

Around the same time that Israel reported the projectiles from Syria, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile from Yemen.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they targeted Israel’s Jaffa with a ballistic missile. The group has been launching attacks against Israel in what they say is in support of Palestinians during the Israeli war in Gaza.

US envoy says Syria strategy ‘will not be like the last 100 years’ as troops pull out.

The United States will shut down most of its military bases in Syria, consolidating operations to a single location, as part of a policy overhaul announced by its new special envoy.

Thomas Barrack, appointed by President Donald Trump last month as the US ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy for Syria, said the shift marks a rejection of Washington’s past century of failed approaches in Syria.

In an interview with the Turkish broadcaster NTV on Monday, Barrack said the troop drawdown and base closures reflect a strategic recalibration.

“What I can assure you is that our current Syria policy will not be close to the Syria policy of the last 100 years because none of these have worked,” he said.

US forces are expected to withdraw from seven of eight bases, including those in Deir Az Zor province in eastern Syria, with remaining operations centred in Hasakah in the northeast.

Two security sources told the Reuters news agency that US military hardware and personnel have already started relocating. “All troops are being pulled from Deir Az Zor,” one source told Reuters in April.

A US Department of State official later said troop levels would be adjusted “if and when appropriate”, depending on operational demands.

Roughly 2,000 American soldiers remain in Syria, largely embedded with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a key partner in the US-led campaign against ISIL (ISIS).

The SDF, dominated by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia, has been a longstanding point of contention with NATO ally Turkiye, which views it as linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The PKK, which recently announced its disbandment, fought a decades-long armed rebellion against the Turkish state.

Barrack called the SDF “a very important factor” for the US Congress, stressing that integrating the group into Syria’s national army is now a priority. “Everyone needs to be reasonable in their expectations,” he said.

Since the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December, international engagement with Damascus has resumed under new President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Barrack recently raised the US flag over the ambassador’s residence in Damascus for the first time since 2012.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticised the SDF last week, accusing it of “stalling tactics” despite its agreement to join the Syrian armed forces.

Deadly attack on United Nations convoy in Sudan disrupts aid to hunger-stricken families in the war-torn country.

An ambush on a United Nations food aid convoy in Sudan has killed at least five people, blocking urgently needed supplies from reaching civilians facing starvation in the war-torn Darfur city of el-Fasher.

Aid agencies confirmed on Tuesday that the 15-truck convoy was transporting critical humanitarian supplies from Port Sudan to North Darfur when it was attacked overnight.

“Five members of the convoy were killed and several more people were injured. Multiple trucks were burned, and critical humanitarian supplies were damaged,” the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a joint statement.

The agencies did not identify the perpetrators and called for an urgent investigation, describing the incident as a violation of international humanitarian law. The route had been shared in advance with both warring parties.

The convoy was nearing al-Koma, a town under the control of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), when it came under fire. The area had witnessed a drone attack earlier in the week that killed civilians, according to local activists.

Fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese army has raged for over two years, displacing millions and plunging more than half of Sudan’s population into acute hunger. El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, remains one of the most vulnerable regions.

“Hundreds of thousands of people in el-Fasher are at high risk of malnutrition and starvation,” the UN statement warned.

Both sides blamed each other for the attack. The RSF accused the army of launching an air attack on the convoy, while the army claimed RSF fighters torched the trucks. Neither account could be independently verified.

The attack is the latest in a string of assaults on humanitarian operations.

In recent weeks, RSF shelling targeted WFP facilities in el-Fasher, and an attack on El Obeid Hospital in North Kordofan killed several medical staff. Aid delivery has become increasingly perilous as access routes are blocked or come under fire.

After Sudan’s army recaptured the national capital region of Khartoum in March, tens of thousands of people returned to check on their homes and reunite with loved ones.

The joy of returning was tempered by the shock of seeing the damage caused during nearly two years under the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group that has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), recognised by many Sudanese and the UN as the de facto authority in Sudan, since April 2023.

In a region whose hospitals and food and medicine stores had been systematically plundered by the RSF, many returnees started falling sick.

Omdurman falters

Many of the returnees had settled in Omdurman, one of the national capital’s three cities, where living conditions were slightly better than in the other cities. This is because several localities in Omdurman never came under the RSF’s control, insulating it from heavy clashes, pillaging, and looting.

Omdurman quickly became overcrowded, with “thousands of people [returning] from Egypt alone”, according to Dr Dirar Abeer, a member of Khartoum’s Emergency Response Rooms, neighbourhood committees spearheading relief efforts across the country.

The crowding, Dr Abeer said, meant an accelerated spread of cholera, an acute, highly contagious diarrhoeal infection that is endemic to Sudan and can be fatal if not treated.

“In areas south of the Nile in Omdurman, there are a lot of corpses rotting next to [or in] the Nile, and this has [partially] caused the spread of infection,” said Badawi, a volunteer in Omdurman who declined to give his full name due to the sensitivity of speaking in a warzone.

Cholera has become an epidemic in Sudan, spreading in several states, including White Nile and Gadarif, and killing hundreds in the last two weeks.

As in Khartoum, the spread was fuelled by overcrowding and a lack of essential services in these regions.

The waterborne disease could be stopped with basic sanitation and provisions, said Fazli Kostan, the project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF.

“But that’s not really possible right now,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to a lack of electricity to pump water since Omdurman’s electricity grids went down on May 14.

The RSF had fired a barrage of suicide drones that day, which took out major power stations and grids, consequently shutting down water treatment plants and causing a sharp rise in cases.

Deprived of safe drinking and bathing water, people have resorted to drinking contaminated water from the Nile, as well as scooping up water from the ground after it rains, Badawi said.

The SAF-backed Ministry of Health (MoH) reported a huge surge in daily cholera cases in the national capital region between May 15 and May 25, with at least 172 people dying between May 20 and May 27.

The UN says daily cases spiked from 90 to more than 815 in the latter half of May.

Patients waiting in the streets

Those who contract the disease often rush to the nearest hospital, further straining an already overwhelmed and ill-equipped health sector. However, local volunteers said many people do not experience life-threatening symptoms and that they would be better off staying at home and isolating themselves.

The overcrowding at hospitals has further exacerbated the spread of the disease and overstrained the already collapsing health sector, they explained.

“We do not have enough medication or medical tools, and the rate of people coming to the hospitals is far more than we can handle,” said Kareem al-Noor, a medic at al-Nao hospital in Omdurman.

“The [remaining hospitals] are at full capacity and people are also waiting for treatment, crowded on the streets,” al-Noor added.

Dr Abeer feels the SAF-backed health authorities are not doing enough to tackle the epidemic. While she acknowledged that the health sector was largely destroyed by the RSF, she believes the current health authorities could be doing more.

Al Jazeera submitted written questions to Dr Montasser Towarra, the MoH spokesperson, asking him what measures the ministry is undertaking to help volunteers and to provide basic provisions.

He had not answered by the time of publication.

Hunger exacerbates the crisis

Sudan is also suffering an acute hunger crisis.

Since the civil war, millions of Sudanese have struggled to feed their families due to spoiled harvests, the systematic looting of markets and food aid and the destruction of homes and livelihoods.

According to the UN, about 25 million people – more than half the population – currently suffer extreme food shortages.

Hunger can weaken bodies and lead to an acute increase in contagious diseases, according to Alex De Waal, an expert on Sudan and famine.

He noted that civilians – especially children – have always been more likely to die from diseases if they are also on the brink of starvation.

“We could see an excess of hundreds of thousands of deaths [due to these factors] over the next year,” warned De Waal.

The UN has also warned that up to one million children could die from cholera unless the spread is thwarted quickly.

The only way to thwart the health crisis is to repair basic provisions such as electricity and sewage systems to improve sanitation, said De Waal.

However, he believes that repairing essential services is not a priority for the army, which remains the de facto authority.

Al Jazeera sent written questions to SAF spokesperson, Nabil Abdullah, to ask if the army is planning on repairing vital resources such as bombed electricity grids.

Abdullah said, “These questions are not for the army, but for the Ministry of Health.”

Tawarra from the MoH also did not respond to these questions.

De Waal suspects the army is prioritising combat operations against the RSF.

“My sense is the army is too stretched financially and organisationally to prioritise anything other than fighting the war,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The bread was dipped in blood.” A Palestinian child mourns his mother who was killed when Israeli forces opened fire at an aid distribution point in Rafah, Gaza. More than 100 people have been killed in days of attacks at aid hubs run by the US-Israeli backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Israeli forces have killed at least 27 Palestinians and injured 90 more as they opened fire close to an aid distribution site in Rafah, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

The latest killings came early on Tuesday at the Flag Roundabout, near an aid hub operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

It was the third such incident around the Rafah hub in as many days. Gaza’s authorities report that more than 100 aid seekers have been killed since the United States- and Israel-backed GHF started operating in the enclave on May 27, with reports of violence, looting and chaos rife.

The Israeli military said it had fired shots as “a number of suspects” deviated from the regulated routes, on which a crowd was making its way to the GHF distribution complex.

The “suspects” were about 500 metres (approximately 550 yards) from the site, the military said in a statement on Telegram, adding that it was looking into reports of casualties.

The death toll was confirmed by Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department.

A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Hisham Mhanna, said 184 wounded people had been taken to its field hospital in Rafah, 19 of whom were found dead on arrival, and eight others died later of their wounds.

Video verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency showed the arrival of dozens of injured people at the hospital.

Lured

Gaza’s Government Media Office accused Israel of “a horrific, intentionally repeated crime”, saying it has been luring starving Palestinians to the GHF centres – controversially opened following an 11-week total blockade to take over most aid distribution from the United Nations and other aid agencies – and then opening fire.

It said Tuesday’s death toll brought the number of aid seekers killed at aid sites in the Rafah governorate and the so-called Netzarim Corridor since GHF launched operations to 102, with 490 others injured.

The United Nations on Monday demanded an independent investigation into the repeated mass shootings of aid seekers in Gaza.

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

“We heard from witnesses that there was chaos,” said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting about Tuesday’s killings from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. “The Israeli forces just opened fire randomly, shooting Palestinians … using quadcopters and live ammunition.”

Health Ministry officials and doctors said most of the wounded have been hit in their chest and head, she added.

The bloodshed, she continued, had unfolded in the same way as on the previous two days, amid ongoing chaos around the aid distribution centres.

“There’s no process. There’s no system,” she said. “You just need to run first to be able to get the food.”

‘Either way, we will die’

Rasha al-Nahal told The Associated Press news agency that “there was gunfire from all directions”, and that she saw more than a dozen people dead and several wounded on the road.

When she finally made it to the distribution hub, there was no aid, al-Nahal said, adding that Israeli troops “fired at us as we were returning”.

Another witness, Neima al-Aaraj, from Khan Younis, described the shooting as “indiscriminate”.

“I won’t return,” she said. “Either way, we will die.”

The Israeli military, in its statement on Telegram, said troops had fired warning shots as people deviated from “designated access routes” and “after the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects who advanced toward the troops”.

However, it denied firing on civilians or blocking them from accessing aid.

This account echoes statements around similar incidents on Sunday, when 31 aid seekers were reportedly killed, and on Monday, when three more were killed.

Shati refugee camp, Gaza – Inside a stifling tent in Shati, one of Gaza’s overcrowded displacement camps, 30-year-old Raneem Abu Al-Eish cares for her sisters, Aseel, 51, and Afaf, 33.

They sit close to Raneem, laughing at times and at others growing agitated when the cries of children playing outside get too loud.

Aseel and Afaf suffer from celiac disease and intellectual disabilities that impair their speech, understanding, and behaviour – conditions that have only deepened under the strain of war and displacement.

They struggle to express themselves, often overwhelmed by their environment, Raneem explains. While she doesn’t know the medical term for their condition, the symptoms at times mirror Tourette syndrome.

‘People laugh, it devastates them’

The cramped tent shelters seven family members: Raneem, her two sisters, their elderly parents, and another sister with her husband.

Raneem’s mother is frail, and her father is still recovering from an injury sustained in Israel’s relentless war on Gaza, leaving Raneem to shoulder their care alone.

The family used to live in Jabalia camp’s Block 2, until Israel destroyed their home eight months ago. Since then, they have moved from relatives’ homes to makeshift shelters, then to an overcrowded United Nations school.

Now they are in this tent, which traps sweltering heat by midday and lets the bitter cold seep through its thin walls in the night.

Privacy and dignity are nearly impossible in the crowded tent. “When they need to change, we try to get the others to step out,” Raneem says. “But it’s not always possible.”

Yet that is only part of the ordeal for Aseel and Afaf, who are bullied daily due to their conditions.

“People don’t understand what my sisters go through,” Raneem says softly. “They judge by appearances, assuming they’re fine. But they aren’t. They need care, patience, dignity.”

Life in the camp overwhelms Aseel. “She finds it hard to cope with noise or sudden changes,” Raneem explains. “When that happens, she gets distressed – she shouts, cries, sometimes lashes out.”

Afaf, meanwhile, struggles with involuntary movements and impulsive behaviours. “A small argument or loud voice can trigger her,” Raneem adds.

“She doesn’t know how to control it,” she says, which makes it all the more sad that Afaf is frequently targeted for mockery, especially by children.

Using communal bathrooms brings repeated humiliation. “Every bathroom visit becomes a spectacle. People laugh, make cruel remarks, and it devastates them,” Raneem says.

Israel took their protector

The family’s greatest blow came six months ago, when Mohammad, Raneem’s 22-year-old brother, was taken by Israel.

Mohammad had gone to Kamal Adwan Hospital for surgery after a hand injury. While he was there, Israel raided the hospital on October 25 and seized Mohammad. Since then, the family knows nothing about his whereabouts.

Mohammad was the sibling most adept at navigating the outside world. “He got their medicines, managed hospital visits, dealt with aid agencies,” Raneem explains. “Without him, we’re completely alone.”

Since his detention, the sisters face worsening food shortages and a lack of medical care. “He was their protector,” Raneem says, her voice breaking. “Now we have no one.”

Between March and May, intensified bombing again displaced 436,000 Palestinians, many for the second, third or fourth time since the October 2023 beginning of the war. For families like Raneem’s – already in tents or shelters – each new wave of violence means starting over again, often without food or medicine.

For Aseel and Afaf, even basic nutrition is rife with threats. Celiac sufferers cannot eat gluten, which damages their small intestines.

In a starving Gaza where there is little to eat other than wheat-flour bread, which contains gluten, there is little chance that Raneem can find vegetables or meat for the sisters, especially with Mohammad detained.

Without gluten-free flour, Aseel and Afaf risk severe malnutrition, and they have gotten a dismally small amount of the 80 tonnes of gluten-free flour that aid agencies have thus far delivered to Gaza.

Much of it was blocked by closed borders, damaged roads, and broken distribution systems. “The little that reaches us is too expensive or too late,” Raneem says.

Begging for empathy, again and again

Before the war, Aseel and Afaf had routine medical care at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Their conditions required special diets, medication, and regular therapy, needs now nearly impossible to meet.

Psychological specialist Dr Sara al-Wahidi says the war has sharply worsened the marginalisation of people with disabilities in Gaza.

“We’ve seen people with disabilities become separated from [their families in] displacement areas – some missing for long periods, sadly later found deceased,” she explains.

A 2025 report estimates that at least 15 percent of Gaza’s displaced population lives with a disability, and they have to navigate the makeshift shelters, whether in encampments, schools, or hospitals, that lack functioning ramps, adapted toilets and basic accessibility.

Raneem also battles social stigma, and despite her efforts – talking with neighbours, seeking support from community elders – ignorance persists.

“People provoke them, mock them. All we ask is understanding,” she says.

Some elders occasionally invite the sisters to their tents for a visit, brief moments of respite in a daily reality where they have no consistent medical or social support.

“We’ve been displaced again and again, from Jabalia to the west, then Gaza City,” Raneem recounts. “Every new place, we have to start over, explaining their condition, begging for patience.

“These aren’t just war victims,” she pleads.

“They’re vulnerable people forgotten by the world.”

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a new prisoner swap and the return of thousands of war dead during direct talks in Istanbul although little headway was made towards ending the war.

The delegations met on Monday at the Ottoman-era Ciragan Palace in the Turkish city, and officials confirmed that both sides will exchange prisoners of war and the remains of 6,000 soldiers killed in combat.

Negotiators from both sides confirmed they had reached a deal to swap all severely wounded soldiers as well as all captured fighters under the age of 25.

“We agreed to exchange all-for-all seriously wounded and seriously sick prisoners of war. The second category is young soldiers who are from 18 to 25 years old – all-for-all,” Ukraine’s lead negotiator and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov told reporters in Istanbul.

Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said the swap would involve “at least 1,000” on each side – topping the 1,000-for-1,000 POW exchange agreed at talks last month.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking from Vilnius, Lithuania, said the two parties “exchanged documents through the Turkish side” and Kyiv was preparing for the next group of captives to be released.

The Istanbul meeting marks the second direct dialogue in less than a month, but expectations were low. The talks on May 16 produced another major prisoner swap but failed to reach a ceasefire.

“The exchange of prisoners seems to be the diplomatic channel that actually works between Russia and Ukraine,” Al Jazeera correspondent Dmitry Medvedenko said, reporting from Istanbul.

“We’ve actually had exchanges of prisoners throughout this war, not in the numbers that have been happening as a result of these Istanbul talks,” Medvedenko added.

Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Kyiv also handed over a list of children it accuses Russia of abducting and demanded their return.

As for a truce, Russia and Ukraine remain sharply divided.

“The Russian side continued to reject the motion of an unconditional ceasefire,” Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya told reporters after the talks.

Russia said it had offered a limited pause in fighting.

“We have proposed a specific ceasefire for two to three days in certain areas of the front line,” Medinsky said, adding that this was needed to collect the bodies of dead soldiers from battlefields.

At the negotiating table, Russia presented a memorandum setting out the Kremlin’s terms for ending hostilities, the Ukrainian delegation said.

Umerov told reporters that Kyiv officials would need a week to review the document and decide on a response. Ukraine proposed further talks on a date between June 20 and June 30, he said.

After the talks, Russian state news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti published the text of the Russian memorandum, which suggested as a condition for a ceasefire that Ukraine withdraw its forces from the four Ukrainian regions that Russia annexed in September 2022 but never fully captured.

As an alternate way of reaching a truce, the memorandum presses Ukraine to halt its mobilisation efforts and freeze Western arms deliveries, conditions that were suggested earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The document also suggests that Ukraine stop any redeployment of forces and ban any military presence of third countries on its soil as conditions for halting hostilities.

The Russian document further proposes that Ukraine end martial law and hold elections, after which the two countries could sign a comprehensive peace treaty that would see Ukraine declare its neutral status, abandon its bid to join NATO, set limits on the size of its armed forces and recognise Russian as the country’s official language on par with Ukrainian.

Ukraine and the West have previously rejected all those demands from Moscow.

Ceasefire hopes remain elusive

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the talks “magnificent”.

“My greatest wish is to bring together Putin and Zelenskyy in Istanbul or Ankara and even add [United States President Donald] Trump along,” he said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who chaired the talks, said the world was watching closely. He acknowledged the two sides had discussed the conditions for a ceasefire but no tangible outcome was announced.

Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian member of parliament, told Al Jazeera he was not very optimistic about the talks in Istanbul.

“Russia clearly shows that they don’t want to end the war because Ukraine proposed a 30-days ceasefire in March, and the American and Europe proposition was the same, but only one country [Russia] refused,” Goncharenko said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has ramped up its military efforts far beyond the front lines, claiming responsibility for drone attacks on Sunday that it said damaged or destroyed more than 40 Russian warplanes. The operation targeted airbases in three distant regions – the Arctic, Siberia and the Far East – thousands of kilometres from Ukraine.

“This brilliant operation will go down in history,” Zelenskyy said, calling the raids a turning point in Ukraine’s struggle.

Ukrainian officials said the attacks crippled nearly a third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. Vasyl Maliuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine, said the mission had taken more than a year to plan.

Zelenskyy said the setback for Russia’s military would increase pressure on Moscow to return to the negotiating table.

“Russia must feel the cost of its aggression. That is what will push it towards diplomacy,” he said during his visit to Lithuania, where he met leaders from NATO’s eastern flank and Nordic countries.

Ukraine’s air force, meanwhile, reported that Russia launched 472 drones on Sunday – the highest number since the start of its full-scale invasion in 2022 – aiming to exhaust Ukrainian air defences. Most of those drones targeted civilian areas, it said.

On Monday, Russian forces bombarded southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, killing three people and injuring 19, including two children. Separately, five people were killed and nine injured in attacks near Zaporizhzhia in the neighbouring Zaporizhia region.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces had intercepted 162 Ukrainian drones overnight across eight regions and Crimea while Ukraine said it shot down 52 of 80 drones launched by Russia.

Zelenskyy warned that if the Istanbul talks fail to deliver results, more sanctions against Russia will be necessary. “If there’s no breakthrough, then new, strong sanctions must follow – urgently,” he said.

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.”

Russia and Ukraine have concluded talks in Istanbul with no ceasefire deal, but agreed to an exchange of prisoners and fallen soldiers. The talks took place amid escalated attacks by both sides in recent days.

Critics, including US officials, are calling for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s new mission to fail, with twelve volunteers, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg on board. The flotilla is trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Washington has not been clear on ‘how and through what mechanism’ sanctions would be lifted, says Tehran.

Iran has demanded that the United States clarify exactly how sanctions will be lifted if the two sides are to reach a new agreement on Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmail Baghaei made the comments on Monday, days after the US submitted what it described as an “acceptable” proposal. Unverified reports claim that Iran sees the offer as a “non-starter” and is preparing to reject it.

The pair has conducted seven weeks of negotiations over the nuclear programme, with the US seeking assurances that it is peaceful, while Iran hopes to escape punishing sanctions that have battered its economy in recent years.

However, Tehran is now demanding Washington detail what it is offering, reflecting scepticism voiced earlier this year by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In remarks carried by the official IRNA news agency, Baghaei stressed the need for guarantees regarding the “real end of the sanctions”, including details on “how and through what mechanism” they would be removed.

“The American side has not yet provided the necessary clarity in this regard,” he said.

Baghaei also reiterated Iran’s intention to continue enriching uranium for “peaceful” purposes.

US envoy Steve Witkoff has said President Donald Trump opposes Tehran continuing any enrichment, calling it a “red line”.

A leaked United Nations report shows that Iran has ramped up production of uranium enriched to 60 percent, short of the roughly 90 percent required for atomic weapons but significantly above the 4 percent or so needed for power production.

Baghaei dismissed the report as biased, accusing unnamed Western countries of pressuring the UN to act against Iran’s interests.

Official sources cited by The New York Times said the recent US proposal includes a call for Iran to end all enrichment.

While Tehran has confirmed receipt of the proposal, which the White House described as being in Iran’s “best interest”, it has said it is still reviewing the document.

“Receiving a text certainly does not mean accepting it, nor does it even mean that it is acceptable,” Baghaei said.

The Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed Iranian diplomat as saying that Tehran is in the process of “drafting a negative response to the US proposal, which could be interpreted as a rejection”.

The official described the proposal as a “non-starter” because it does not soften the US’s stance on enrichment or offer a “clear explanation” of sanctions relief, according to the report.

Iran has held five rounds of talks with the US since April 12 in search of a new agreement to replace the deal with the leading powers that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.

Iraqi authorities have opened an investigation into a mass die-off of fish in the country’s central and southern marshlands, the latest in a series of such incidents in recent years.

One possible cause for the devastation is a shortage of oxygen, triggered by low water flow, increased evaporation and rising temperatures driven by climate change, according to officials and environmental activists. Another is the use of chemicals by fishermen.

“We have received several citizens’ complaints,” said Jamal Abd Zeid, chief environmental officer for the Najaf governorate, which stretches from central to southern Iraq, adding that a technical inspection team had been set up.

He explained that the team would look into water shortages, electrical fishing, and the use by fishermen of “poisons”.

For at least five years, Iraq has endured successive droughts linked to climate change. Authorities further attribute the severe decline in river flow to the construction of dams by neighbouring Iran and Turkiye.

The destruction of Iraq’s natural environment adds another layer of suffering to a country that has already faced decades of war and political oppression.

“We need lab tests to determine the exact cause” of the fish die-off, said environmental activist Jassim al-Assadi, who suggested that agricultural pesticides could also be responsible.

Investigations into similar incidents have shown that the use of poison in fishing can lead to mass deaths.

“It is dangerous for public health, as well as for the food chain,” al-Assadi said. “Using poison today, then again in a month or two … It’s going to accumulate.”

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.