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.
The body of a Palestinian is transported on a car roof as mourners travel to attend funerals of Palestinians who were killed in Israeli fire on Thursday [Mahmoud Issa/Reuters]
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.”
20 Palestinian children have been evacuated by the World Health Organization to receive urgent medical treatment abroad. Dr. Alaa al-Najjar and her surviving son are amongst those being evacuated. Her husband and nine other children were killed when an Israeli strike hit their home.
By blocking and seizing aid convoys, Israel uses humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war.
The seizure of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters has not deterred other aid convoys from heading towards Gaza. Palestinian-American writer Ahmad Ibsais explains how humanitarian aid has become a politically charged weapon of war.
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.
Starving Palestinians in Gaza are flocking to controversial aid distribution centres in search of food. More than 150 aid-seekers have been killed – shot dead by Israeli forces and armed gangs. Soraya Lennie breaks down what’s going on at these sites.
Five-time champions Brazil have confirmed their participation in the 2026 FIFA World Cup by defeating Paraguay 1-0, thanks to a goal by star forward Vinicius Jr in front of a jubilant home crowd in Sao Paulo.
Playing under new head coach Carlo Ancelotti, the Selecao went ahead at the stroke of half-time when the Real Madrid star found the net, much to the delight of the 46,000 fans at the Corinthians Arena on Tuesday.
In other major World Cup qualifying results, war-torn Palestine were left heartbroken when Oman drew level against them from a penalty converted deep into stoppage time in their Asian Football Confederation (AFC) qualifying match in Amman, Jordan.
Palestine have been playing their international fixtures at neutral venues, including Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar. Israel’s war on Gaza, its control and destruction of sports facilities and venues in Gaza and the occupied West Bank have left the players unable to travel and play at their home venue, the Faisal Al-Husseini International Stadium in ar-Ram, a town northeast of occupied Jerusalem.
Needing a win to reach the fourth round of the AFC qualifiers, Palestine led the home side through Oday Kharoub’s goal at the end of the first half.
The Al-Fidai seemed to have done enough until they conceded a penalty in the last moments of the match, and Essam al-Subhi’s spot kick in the 97th minute ended the game in a draw, crushing the Palestinian dream of having another shot at qualification by proceeding to the fourth round.
Oman have now taken up that spot.
Despite their team fighting to keep their World Cup dream alive against Palestine, fans in Oman showed support for the visiting side as Israel’s war rages on in Gaza [Ibraheem al-Omari/Reuters]
Which teams have confirmed their qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup?
After the latest round of qualifying matches, here is a breakdown of the confirmed contenders from each of the six regions:
Africa: None of the 54 nations involved in the qualifiers has been able to confirm their spots as the first round of qualifying matches does not conclude until October 16.
Asia: Iran, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Jordan, Australia, Japan.
Europe: None. Similar to Africa, none of the 54 European teams vying for 16 qualification spots have confirmed their berths as their first-round matches will run until November 18.
North, Central American and Caribbean region: Canada, Mexico and USA. With the World Cup host nations taking three spots, only three are left up for grabs and will be decided on November 18.
Oceania: New Zealand. With one spot up for grabs and 11 nations fighting for it, New Zealand emerged victorious and took the spot by winning the third-round playoff final against New Caledonia on March 24.
South America: Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador.
Lionel Messi’s Argentina were amongst the first teams to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and have a chance of defending the trophy they won in Qatar in 2022 [File: Martin Meissner/AP]
Which major teams have been eliminated from qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup?
Chile, third-place finishers in 1962, are among the biggest names confirmed out of the next World Cup.
While China are not considered among the football powerhouses in Asia, the nation’s focus on building the game at home and seeing its team in another World Cup since 2002 was crushed on June 5.
Which teams can still qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup?
Apart from the nine African and 16 European spots still fully up for grabs, the others that are still in the race for a World Cup spot are:
Asia: Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iraq, and Oman are vying for the two direct qualification slots for the World Cup and one intercontinental playoffs spot.
South America: Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia will fight for the three remaining World Cup slots, while Peru can only advance to the intercontinental playoffs.
North, Central American and Caribbean region: Honduras, Bermuda, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, Curacao, Haiti, Panama, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Guatemala, Suriname and El Salvador have all advanced to the third round, from where three teams will directly qualify for the World Cup. The three second-placed teams from each group will then fight for the intercontinental playoffs spot.
Oceania: New Caledonia have qualified for the intercontinental playoffs.
When will all teams for the 2026 FIFA World Cup be confirmed?
As late as March 31, 2026. With the European qualification rounds stretching to March and the intercontinental playoff final also scheduled for the same month, we will not know our final 48 teams for the World Cup until less than three months ahead of the tournament.
When is the 2026 FIFA World Cup scheduled?
The tournament begins in Mexico City on June 11 and ends with the final in New Jersey on July 19.
The MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, US, will host the final of the 2026 FIFA World Cup [File: Seth Wenig/AP Photo]
Israeli forces have killed more than 70 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip since dawn, medical sources have told Al Jazeera, including hungry aid seekers, as Israel continues to relentlessly bombard the besieged enclave where the United Nations says a famine threatens the entire population.
Israeli troops on Tuesday again opened fire on crowds seeking meagre food parcels for their families near the Netzarim Corridor, killing at least 20 people, including a 12-year-old child, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.
The child has been identified as Mohammed Khalil al-Athamneh. More than 200 others were wounded.
The distribution points are operated by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US and Israeli-backed drive in Israeli-controlled zones.
The aid sites have been branded “human slaughterhouses” as more than 150 people have been killed since GHF started operating on May 27. Nearly 1,500 have so far been wounded, according to the Government Media Office.
In a statement on Tuesday, the media office accused the GHF of playing a complicit role in what it described as “lethal ambushes” disguised as humanitarian relief.
“GHF has become a deadly tool in the hands of the Israeli military, luring starving civilians into death traps under the pretence of aid,” the statement said, denouncing the body’s continued operation despite documented attacks on unarmed crowds at its sites.
‘Theatre for repeated bloodshed’
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said the GHF aid distribution centres have become “a theatre for repeated bloodshed and deliberate attacks on civilians”.
Witnesses confirmed that the Israeli military attacked them from “multiple directions”, Abu Azzoum said, adding that Israeli drones, tanks, and snipers have been deployed to the isolated aid sites.
“What’s taking place … is the systematic eradication of the humanitarian response system,” he said.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has again sounded an alarm over the deteriorating humanitarian situation, saying on Tuesday the crisis has reached “unprecedented levels of despair”.
More than 2,700 children under the age of five were diagnosed with acute malnutrition in late May, the agency said, calling for the urgent restoration of humanitarian assistance.
Israel has maintained a crippling aid blockade since March 2, allowing only a limited trickle of assistance through the GHF. At the same time, it has barred established humanitarian organisations from operating in the territory – excluding those who have decades of experience in providing aid from hundreds of distribution points to the entire population of Gaza.
Elsewhere in Gaza, an air strike in al-Mawasi – an Israeli-proclaimed “safe zone” that has come under repeated attack, east of Khan Younis – killed three people sheltering in displacement tents. Three more Palestinians were killed after an Israeli drone strike targeted a group of people in the Ma’an area, east of Khan Younis.
The attacks come as one of the southern city’s last remaining functioning hospitals has ceased operations due to “increasing hostilities” in its vicinity, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
In a post on X, Tedros warned that with the closure of al-Amal Hospital, Nasser Hospital is now the only remaining hospital with an intensive care unit in Khan Younis.
Hospitals are overwhelmed and on the brink of collapse, the Health Ministry has repeatedly warned.
In Gaza’s north, medical sources reported that four paramedics were killed by Israeli gunfire while carrying out their humanitarian duties in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City. Another three were killed in an air strike on Jabalia.
An Israeli soldier takes part in an Israeli raid in Nablus, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, June 10, 2025 [Raneen Sawafta/Reuters]
Nablus residents ‘under lockdown’
Israeli forces have also stepped up incursions into towns and villages across the occupied West Bank in recent days as part of a months-long assault on the territory.
On Tuesday, during an hours-long raid in Nablus, Israeli troops fired tear gas and live bullets towards residents that killed two brothers, identified as Nidal and Khaled Mahdi Ahmad Umairah, aged 40 and 35, respectively.
Israeli troops had opened live fire on the Umairah brothers in the Old City of Nablus during the ongoing military raid, preventing ambulance crews from reaching them, the Wafa news agency reported.
More than 85 people were injured in the assault, while many others have been detained.
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said residents of Nablus’s Old City are “under lockdown”.
“They cannot leave their homes; they cannot have access to any services,” she said. “Even paramedics are telling us they are having a very difficult time reaching those who need their assistance.”
Palestine are denied by late Oman penalty in a 1-1 draw that ends their dreams of a first FIFA World Cup appearance.
Palestine’s historic Asian Football Confederation (AFC) qualifying campaign for the 2026 FIFA World Cup was ended by a late Oman penalty in a 1-1 draw in their final group game.
Needing a win to reach the fourth round of the AFC qualifiers, Palestine led deep into five minutes of injury time through Oday Kharoub’s goal early in the second half.
The scoreline would have been enough to propel Palestine past Oman into the fourth and final qualifying spot in Group B of the third round of the AFC qualifiers – a stage they had also reached for the first time.
However, a tug of the shirt on a runner chasing a free kick from the deep was spotted by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), and Palestine’s dream of a first appearance at a football World Cup ended with Essam Al-Subhi’s spot kick in the 97th minute of the match.
Oman’s Essam Al-Subhi celebrates scoring their equalising goal as Palestine players respond with disbelief [Alaa Al Sukhni/Reuters]
Kharoub’s headed goal came after a fine first half for Palestine, in which Michel Termanini struck the bar with a header.
Wessam Ali had a second for Palestine ruled out for a marginal offside, only moments after Oman’s Harib Al-Saadi saw red for a second yellow following a foul on Hamed Hamdan in the 73rd minute.
The decisive moment came, though, when Muhsen Al-Ghassani ran clear in the box in an attempt to reach a looped ball in the area. Ahmed Taha’s grab at the runner was deemed illegal and the eliminating kick was awarded against Palestine.
Palestine’s AFC Asian Cup nearly the spark for World Cup dream
The run to the third round of the AFC World Cup qualifiers for the first time followed Palestine’s remarkable feat of reaching the knockout stages of the last AFC Asian Cup for the first time.
A first appearance at football’s global showpiece was only one more round away until the late drama at the King Abdullah II Stadium in Amman, Jordan, where Palestine were forced to stage their home matches due to Israel’s war on Gaza.
The full-time whistle, and with it, anticipated scenes of wild celebration was cruelly only seconds away for Palestine.
Instead, the tension that was palpably building ahead of the referee calling an end to the match turned to scenes of despair as tears rolled down the cheeks of the Palestine players, many of whom collapsed to the floor in disbelief.
Palestine’s Wessam Ali, right, thought he had scored his side’s second goal with a slotted finish only for the goal to be disallowed for offside [Alaa Al Sukhni/Reuters]
Oman now join Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Iraq and Indonesia, who lost 6-0 to Japan earlier in the day, in the fourth round of qualifiers, from which two teams will join the already six qualified nations from the third round of qualifiers.
One final chance will be available for the third-placed team from the fourth round of qualifiers, as that nation will progress to the FIFA Intercontinental Playoffs in a last-chance saloon to line up at next year’s finals.
Australia became the final team to confirm their automatic qualification from the third round of qualifiers when they saw off Saudi Arabia’s challenge for second spot in Group C with a 2-1 win in Jeddah.
Alongside Australia – Japan, Iran, South Korea, Uzbekistan and Jordan, finished as the top two finishers in their group to book their places at the 2026 tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The latter two qualified for a World Cup for the first time.
Palestine’s Oday Kharoub celebrates scoring the first goal of the game, which for so long appeared to be sending his team to the next round of qualifiers for the World Cup [Alaa Al Sukhni/Reuters]
Thousands of activists from across the globe are marching to the Gaza Strip to try to break Israel’s suffocating siege and draw international attention to the genocide it is perpetrating there.
Approximately 1,000 people participating in the Tunisian-led stretch of the Global March to Gaza, known as the Sumud Convoy, arrived in Libya on Tuesday morning, a day after they departed the Tunisian capital, Tunis. They are now resting in Libya after a full day of travel, but do not yet have permission to cross the eastern part of the North African country.
The group, which mostly comprises citizens of the Maghreb, the Northwest African region, is expected to grow as people join from countries it passes through as it makes its way towards the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
(Al Jazeera)
How will they do it? When will they get there? What is this all about?
Here’s all you need to know:
Who’s involved?
The Coordination of Joint Action for Palestine is leading the Sumud Convoy, which is tied to the Global March for Palestine.
In total, there are about 1,000 people, travelling on a nine-bus convoy, with the aim of pressurising world leaders to take action on Gaza.
Sumud is supported by the Tunisian General Labour Union, the National Bar Association, the Tunisian League for Human Rights, and the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights.
It is coordinating with activists and individuals from 50 countries who are flying into the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on June 12, so that they can all march to Rafah together.
Some of those activists are affiliated with an umbrella of grassroots organisations, including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Codepink Women for Peace in the United States and Jewish Voice for Labour in the United Kingdom.
How will they reach the Rafah crossing?
The convoy of cars and buses has reached Libya. After taking a brief rest, the plan is for it to continue towards Cairo.
“Most people around me are feeling courage and anger [about what’s happening in Gaza],” said Ghaya Ben Mbarek, an independent Tunisian journalist who joined the march just before the convoy crossed into Libya.
Ben Mbarek is driven by the belief that, as a journalist, she has to “stand on the right side of history by stopping a genocide and stopping people from dying from hunger”.
Once Sumud links up with fellow activists in Cairo, they will head to El Arish in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and then embark on a three-day march to the Rafah crossing to Gaza.
Tunisians wave the Palestinian flag as they gather in Tunis early on June 9, 2025, before the departure of the Global March to Gaza to break the siege on the Strip [AFP]
Will the activists face obstacles?
The convoy has yet to receive permission to pass through eastern Libya from authorities in the region. Libya has two rival administrations, and while the convoy has been welcomed in the west, discussions are still ongoing with authorities in the east, an official from the convoy told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.
The activists had previously told The Associated Press news agency they do not expect to be allowed into Gaza, yet they hope their journey will pressure world leaders to force Israel to end its genocidal war.
Another concern lies in Egypt, which classifies the stretch between El Arish and the Rafah border crossing as a military zone and does not allow anyone to enter unless they live there.
The Egyptian government has not issued a statement on whether it will allow the Global March to Gaza to pass through its territory.
“I doubt they would be allowed to march towards Rafah,” a longtime Egyptian activist, whose name is being withheld for their safety, said.
“It’s always national security first,” they told Al Jazeera.
If the convoy makes it to Rafah, it will have to face the Israeli army at the crossing.
Why did the activists choose this approach?
Palestine supporters have tried everything over the years as Gaza suffered.
Since Israel’s genocidal war began 20 months ago, civilians have protested in major capitals and taken legal action against elected officials for abetting Israel’s mass killing campaign in Gaza.
Activists have sailed on several humanitarian aid boats towards Gaza, trying to break a stifling blockade that Israel has imposed since 2007; all were attacked or intercepted by Israel.
In 2010, in international waters, Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara, one of the six boats in the Freedom Flotilla sailing for Gaza. They killed nine people, and one more person died of their wounds later.
The Freedom Flotilla kept trying as Gaza suffered one Israeli assault after another.
Israel’s current war on Gaza prompted 12 activists from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition to set sail on board the Madleen from Italy on June 1, hoping to pressure world governments to stop Israel’s genocide.
However, the activists were abducted by Israeli forces in international waters on June 9.
From left: Suayb Ordu, Baptiste Andre, Greta Thunberg, Thiago Avila, Marco Rennes, and Yasemine Acar, six of the Madleen activists, before departure from Catania, Italy, on June 1, 2025 [Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images]
Will the Global March to Gaza succeed?
The activists will try, even if they are pretty sure they will not get into Gaza.
They say standing idle will only enable Israel to continue its genocide until the people of Gaza are all dead or ethnically cleansed.
“The message people here want to send to the world is that even if you stop us by sea, or air, then we will come, by the thousands, by land,” said Ben Mbarek.
“We will literally cross deserts … to stop people from dying from hunger,” she told Al Jazeera.
How bad are things in Gaza?
Since Israel began its war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, it has strangled the food and supplies entering the Palestinian enclave, engineering a famine that has likely killed thousands and could kill hundreds of thousands more.
Israel has carpet-bombed Gaza, killing at least 54,927 people and injuring more than 126,000.
Legal scholars previously told Al Jazeera the suffering in Gaza suggests Israel is deliberately inflicting conditions to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian people in whole or in part – the precise definition of genocide.
Global outrage has grown as Israel continues to kill civilians in thousands, including children, aid workers, medics and journalists.
Since March, Israel has tightened its chokehold on Gaza, completely stopping aid and then shooting at people lining up for what little aid it allows in, leading to rare statements of condemnation from Western governments.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola says the images of children being killed during Israel’s war on Gaza are “painful” and have left him “deeply troubled”.
The Spanish manager of the English Premier League club urged the world to speak up instead of choosing to stay silent “in the face of injustice” as he addressed an audience after receiving an honorary degree at the University of Manchester on Monday.
“It’s so painful what we see in Gaza. It hurts all my body,” Guardiola said.
“Maybe we think that when we see four-year-old boys and girls being killed by bombs or being killed at a hospital, which is not a hospital any more, it’s not our business. Yeah, fine, it’s not our business. But be careful – the next four- or five-year-old kids will be ours.”
Mentioning his three children – Maria, Marius and Valentina – Guardiola said that every morning “since the nightmare started” in Gaza, whenever he sees his two daughters and son he is reminded of the children in Gaza, which leaves him feeling “so scared”.
About half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are children.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed at least 17,400 children, including 15,600 who have been identified, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Many more remain buried under the rubble and are presumed dead.
Many of the surviving children have endured the trauma of multiple wars, and all of them have spent their lives under an oppressive Israeli blockade.
Over the past 20 months, Israeli attacks have left their homes in ruins, destroyed their schools, and overwhelmed their healthcare facilities.
(Al Jazeera)
‘Deeply troubled’ by wars
During his emotional speech, which has been widely shared on social media, Guardiola said the world remains silent in the face of injustice.
“We feel safer [staying silent] than speaking up,” he added.
“Maybe this image feels far away from where we are living now, and you might ask what we can do,” he added.
He then went on to narrate the story of a bird trying to put out a fire in a forest by repeatedly carrying water in its beak.
“In a world that often tells us we are too small to make a difference, that story reminds me the power of one is not about the scale – it’s about choice, about showing up, about refusing to be silent or still when it matters the most.”
The former Barcelona coach and player said the images out of Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine left him “deeply troubled”.
Guardiola, who has formerly voiced his support for the independence of his native Catalonia, lashed out at world leaders for their inability to stop the wars.
“We see the horrors of thousands and thousands of innocent children, mothers and fathers.
“Entire families suffering, starving and being killed and yet we are surrounded by leaderships in many fields, not just politicians, who don’t consider the inequality and injustice.”
An independent United Nations commission report released on Tuesday accused Israel of committing the crime against humanity of “extermination” by attacking Palestinian civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites in Gaza.
“While the destruction of cultural property, including educational facilities, was not in itself a genocidal act, evidence of such conduct may nevertheless infer genocidal intent to destroy a protected group,” the report said.
While the report focused on the impact on Gaza, the commission also reported significant consequences for the Palestinian education system in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as a result of ramped-up Israeli military activity, harassment of students and settler attacks.
“Children in Gaza have lost their childhood. With no education available, they are forced to worry about survival amid attacks, uncertainty, starvation and subhuman living conditions,” the report added.
“What is particularly disturbing is the widespread nature of the targeting of educational facilities, which has extended well beyond Gaza, impacting all Palestinian children.”
“It’s so painful, what we see in Gaza … And let me be clear, this is not about ideology.”
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola discusses his views on Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as how the images of children living through the war have affected him as a parent. pic.twitter.com/zwrlexAcxa
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.
Greta Thunberg has arrived on dry landCredit: IsraelMFA
10
Greta Thunberg posted on social media that she had been kidnapped by the Israeli militaryCredit: Instagram
10
A photo posted on Telegram purportedly showing activists with their hands up on board the MadleenCredit: Freedom Flotilla Coalition
Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on X: “The ‘Selfie Yacht’ docked at Ashdod Port a short while ago.
“The passengers are currently undergoing medical examinations to ensure they are in good health.”
But lawyer Nariman Shehade Zoabi said they haven’t been able to contact the activists yet.
She told Expressen: “We demand information about the whereabouts of our clients and the right to meet them.”
Lawyer Zoabi added that Greta and the others would be taken to a “Givon prison” near the town Ramle where “illegal immigrants are detained” and there is a “court that can quickly decide on deportation”.
She is waiting in Ashdod with five others, and explained that the process of deportation could be fast.
Zoabi said: “Israel has no interest in detaining them and they themselves do not want to stay in the country.”
Israel accused the group who were aboard the boat of supporting Hamas terrorists who detonated Middle East mayhem by massacring 1,200 and kidnapping 251 hostages.
And all of those detained will be made to watch a screening of video footage showing innocents including children being slaughter by Hamas savages during the attacks.
The “selfie yacht” operated by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition was said to be “safely making its way to the shores of Israel”, Israel’s Foreign Minsitry said.
Israel issues warning to Greta’s ‘Freedom Flotilla’ as eco-pest SAILS to Gaza
All passengers were safe and unharmed and activists handed sandwiches and water before the vessel docked at the southern Israeli port of Ashdod.
The boat was carrying a “tiny amount of aid” on board – which will be sent to Gaza.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said that he has instructed the Israeli Defence Forces to screen footage of the 7 October attacks as soon as they arrive.
The disturbing footage – titled “Bearing Witness” – shows innocent people being massacred and mutilated.
And all the footage was taken from the Hamas terrorists’ bodycams as they filmed their massacre.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) said early on Monday that Israeli forces had boarded the charity vessel.
Shortly before the FFC statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry posted a video on X showing the Israeli Navy communicating with the Madleen over a loudspeaker, urging it to change course.
“The maritime zone off the coast of Gaza is closed to naval traffic as part of a legal naval blockade,” a soldier said.
10
Greta Thunberg is offered a sandwich by an Israeli soldier
10
The Madleen began its journey to deliver aid to Gaza last Sunday but could be facing Israeli fury upon its arrival
10
Thunberg sits aboard the aid ship Madleen, which left the Italian port of Catania on June 1 to travel to GazaCredit: Reuters
10
Gaza has been hammered by the IDF as it aims to wipe out HamasCredit: Getty
“If you wish to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, you are able to do so through the (Israeli) port of Ashdod.”
The campaigners had said they are hoping to “break the siege” and raise “international awareness” of the humanitarian crisis on the Gaza Strip.
But Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant issued a warning as the vessel entered the final stretch of its journey, saying: “You should turn back – because you will not reach Gaza.”
Thunberg, 22, has posted on social media with a Palestine flag and wearing a keffiyeh scarf while on the journey.
Travelling alongside her is Rima Hassan, a French member of the European parliament of Palestinian descent.
She has previously been barred from entering Israel due to her outspoken criticism of the country’s policies towards Palestinians.
Organisers claim the voyage is “a non-violent, direct action to challenge Israel’s illegal siege” – and is carrying essential supplies to a population at risk of famine.
Israel imposed a near-total blockade on Gaza in late 2023, following Hamas’s horror massacre on southern Israel on October 7.
Though some limited aid has been allowed in since last month, aid agencies claim it is nowhere near enough.
Ahead of the journey, Thunberg said through tears: “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.”
CONTROVERSIAL CREW
The flotilla’s latest voyage follows a failed attempt in May, when another of its vessels was struck by two drones in international waters off Malta.
The group accused Israel of being behind the attack.
Despite the risks, activists aboard the Madleen have said they plan to enter Gaza’s territorial waters as early as Sunday.
The vessel’s controversial crew includes figures who have openly supported terrorist organizations and have made inflammatory public statements.
Brazilian activist Thiago Avila attended the funeral of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, calling the terrorist a “beloved” leader and a “martyr”.
10
Thunberg with part of the crew of the ship headed to the StripCredit: Getty
10
Thiago Ávila (L) hailed the former leader of terrorist group Hezbollah
10
Yasemin Acar is among the extremist crew
Avila said he was “very honoured” and “very happy” to attend, and described the funeral as something that “amazed him”.
He wrote that Nasrallah was an “important figure” who “inspired people all over the world”.
Also on board was Yasemin Acar from Berlin, who reportedly danced as Iranian rockets rained down on Israel and once told a white woman at a protest: “You’re a white person, you shouldn’t tell us what to do.”
French journalist Omar Faiad, of Al-Jazeera, sparked outrage for comparing the IDF to Nazis.
On X, he wrote: “The Israeli army resembles the Nazi army,” and claimed: “Israel is committing a new Holocaust in Gaza.”
Rima Hassan, meanwhile, previously tweeted: “Kfir, Ariel, and Shiri Bibas were killed by an Israeli attack,” despite Hamas being responsible for their abduction and deaths.
She was also seen at a protest where demonstrators chanted: “We die for jihad.”
And it included included a London-based Palestinian named in Parliament in 2023 as being a London-based Hamas operative.
Zaher Birawi was at the launch of the Madleen and live streamed from the dock in Greece and is chair of the International Committee to Break the siege of Gaza.
Birawi, 62, has been photographed with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and runs UK-registered charity, Education Aid for Palestinians, which has raised more than £3 million since 2017.
Irish Game of Thrones star Liam Cunningham was also on the boat.
Khan Younis, Gaza – In the ruins of his home in Khan Younis, 75-year-old Shaker Safi gently thumbs through fading photographs of his son Mohammed’s sporting career.
Medals, trophies, team huddles, and group photos of young athletes coached by Mohammed now serve as a haunting memorial to a dream destroyed by war.
On November 15, 2023, Mohammed Safi – a football coach and physical education teacher – was killed in an Israeli air strike.
He had spent years building a legacy of hope through sport, training at schools and community clubs, and transforming underdog teams into local champions.
A graduate in physical education from Al-Aqsa University, Mohammed was the head coach of Al-Amal Football Club in southern Gaza and was widely admired for his work nurturing young talent aged between six and 16.
“My son dreamt of representing Palestine internationally,” Shaker says, surrounded by remnants of his son’s accolades. “He believed sport could lift youth from despair. But war reached him before he could reach the world.”
Mohammed Safi’s father, Shaker Safi, shows an image of his deceased son holding a football trophy. Mohammed, who was a junior football coach and umpire, was killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023 [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
Now displaced, Mohammed’s wife Nermeen and their four children – 16-year-old Shaker Jr, Amir, 14, Alma, 11, and Taif, 7 – live with the painful void created by his death.
The children cling to their father’s last football and coaching notes as keepsakes.
Nermeen, an art teacher, gently wipes away Taif’s tears when she asks, “Why did they take Daddy from us?”
“He was a man of dreams, not politics,” Nermeen says. “He wanted to become an international referee. He wanted his master’s degree. Instead, he was killed for being a symbol of life and youth.”
Mohammed Safi is one of hundreds of athletes and sports professionals who have been killed or displaced since the war began.
According to the Palestinian Olympic Committee, 582 athletes have been killed since October 7, 2023, many of them national team players, coaches, and administrators.
Mohammed Safi’s wife and children are not only dealing with his death, but also displacement created by the war on Gaza [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
Sports replaced by survival
For those who remain alive in Gaza, survival has replaced sporting ambition.
Yousef Abu Shawarib is a 20-year-old goalkeeper for Rafah’s premier league football club.
In May 2024, he and his family fled their home and took shelter at Khan Younis Stadium – the same field where he once played official matches.
Today, the stadium is a shelter for displaced families, its synthetic turf now lined with tents instead of players.
“This is where my coach used to brief me before games,” Yousef says, standing near what used to be the bench area, now a water distribution point. “Now I wait here for water, not for kickoff.”
His routine today involves light, irregular training inside his tent, hoping to preserve a fraction of his fitness. But his dreams of studying sports sciences in Germany and playing professionally are gone.
“Now, I only hope we have something to eat tomorrow,” he tells Al Jazeera. “The war didn’t just destroy fields – it destroyed our futures.”
When he looks at the charred stadium, he doesn’t see a temporary displacement.
“This was not collateral damage. It was systematic. It’s like they want to erase everything about us – even our games.”
Playing organised football out in the open is not a practical option in Gaza anymore. Instead, Yousef Abu Shawarib does fitness training in a tent at Khan Younis Stadium [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
Hope beneath the rubble
Still, like the patches of grass that survived the blasts, some hope remains.
Shadi Abu Armanah, head coach of Palestine’s amputee football team, had devised a six-month plan to resume training.
His 25 players and five coaching staff had been building momentum before the war on Gaza. The team had competed internationally, including in a 2019 tournament in France. Before hostilities began, they were preparing for another event in November 2023 and an event in West Asia set for October 2025.
“Now, we can’t even gather,” Shadi says. “Every facility we used has been destroyed. The players have lost their homes. Most have lost loved ones. There’s nowhere safe to train – no gear, no field, nothing.”
Supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the team had once symbolised resilience. Training sessions were more than drills – they were lifelines. “For amputees, sport was a second chance,” Shadi says. “Now they are just trying to survive.”
Shadi himself is displaced. His home, too, was bombed. “The clubs I worked for are gone. The players are either dead or scattered. If the war ends today, we’ll still need years to bring back even a fraction of what was lost.”
He adds, “I coached across many clubs and divisions. Almost all their facilities have been reduced to rubble. It’s not just a pause – it’s erasure.”
This multi-purpose sporting venue in Khan Younis used to host basketball and volleyball games until the Israeli military demolished it by aerial bombing. In more recent times, it was repurposed as a refugee shelter, but has since been evacuated [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
A systematic erasure
The scope of devastation extends beyond personal loss.
According to Asaad al-Majdalawi, vice president of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, Gaza’s entire sporting infrastructure is on the brink of collapse. At least 270 sports facilities have been damaged or destroyed: 189 completely flattened and 81 partially damaged, with initial estimates of material losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Every major component of Gaza’s sports system has been hit,” al-Majdalawi told Al Jazeera. “The Olympic Committee offices, sports federations, clubs, school and university sports programmes – even private sports facilities have been targeted. It’s a comprehensive assault.”
Among the fallen are high-profile athletes like Nagham Abu Samra, Palestine’s international karate champion; Majed Abu Maraheel, the first Palestinian to carry the Olympic flag at the 1996 Atlanta Games; Olympic football coach Hani al-Masdar; and national athletics coach Bilal Abu Sam’an. Hundreds of others remain injured or missing, complicating accurate assessments.
“This is not just loss – it’s extermination,” al-Majdalawi says. “Each athlete was a community pillar. They weren’t numbers. They were symbols of hope, unity, and perseverance. Losing them has deeply wounded the Palestinian society.”
He warns that beyond the immediate human toll, the interruption of sports activities for a year and a half will result in physical, psychological, and professional regression for remaining athletes. “You lose more than muscle and skill – you lose purpose.”
A lone grandstand remains partially intact in an otherwise completely destroyed Khan Younis football stadium. The venue, once a popular cultural and social hub of the Khan Younis sports community, has now become a shelter for thousands of internally displaced Gazans [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
A global silence
Al-Majdalawi believes the international response has been alarmingly inadequate. When Gaza’s sports community reaches out to global federations, Olympic bodies, and ministers of youth and sport, they’re met with silence.
“In private, many international officials sympathise,” he says. “But at the decision-making level, Israel seems to operate above the law. There’s no accountability. It’s like sport doesn’t matter when it’s Palestinian. The global and international sports institutions appear complicit through their silence, ignoring all international laws, human rights, and the governing rules of the international sports system,” he says.
He believes that if the war ended today, it would still take five to 10 years to rebuild what has been lost. Even that gloomy timeline is based on the assumption that the blockade ends and international funding becomes available.
“We have been building this sports sector since 1994,” al-Majdalawi says. “It took us decades to accumulate knowledge, experience, and professionalism. Now, it’s all been levelled in months.”
As the war continues, the fate of Gaza’s sports sector hangs by a thread. Yet amid the ruins, fathers like Shaker Safi, athletes like Yousef, and coaches like Shadi hold on to one unyielding belief: that sport will once again be a source of hope, identity, and life for Palestinians.
Yousef Abu Shawarib, who has lived as a refugee at Khan Younis football stadium since May 2024, hopes to survive the war and once again play football on these grounds [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.
Governments and NGOs condemn Israel’s interception in international waters of the ship, which sought to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Israel has intercepted a Gaza-bound aid ship, preventing the 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, from reaching the blockaded Palestinian territory.
Israeli forces “forcibly intercepted” the Madleen in international waters overnight about 100 nautical miles (185km) from Gaza, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition NGO said in a statement on Monday. Al Jazeera lost contact with the vessel at 7:00 GMT.
Apart from Thunberg, those taken into custody by Israel are Palestinian French Member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan, Baptiste Andre, Pascal Maurieras, Yanis Mhamdi and Reva Viard from France; Thiago Avila from Brazil; Suayb Ordu from Turkiye; Sergio Toribio from Spain; Marco van Rennes from the Netherlands; Yasemin Acar from Germany; and Omar Faiad, a journalist with Al Jazeera Mubasher, also from France.
Israel has detained the crew for “interrogation”.
Here’s how the world has reacted:
Palestine
The interception of the Madleen is a “flagrant violation of international law”, Hamas said in a statement, calling for the activists on board to be released and saying it holds Israel “fully accountable for their safety”.
“Israel has no legal authority to restrict access to Palestine since such is within the exclusive right of the Palestinian people,” said the rights organisation Al-Haq, which is based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
Iran
“The assault on this flotilla, since it happened in international waters, is considered a form of piracy under international law,” said Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Turkiye
Israel’s interception of the Madleen is a “clear violation of international law” that “once again demonstrates that Israel is acting as a terror state”, Turkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
France
President Emmanuel Macron “has asked that our six French nationals be allowed to return to France as soon as possible,” said the Elysee Palace in a press release. “We have asked to be able to exercise our consular protection over them” and to “visit them”, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot added.
Spain
Spain has summoned Dan Poraz, charge d’affaires at the Israeli embassy in Madrid, reported the Spanish newspaper El Pais and Al Jazeera Arabic, quoting a source at Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Australia
The Jewish Council of Australia has expressed “grave concerns for the activists on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla” and called “on the Australian government to urgently intervene to secure the immediate release of the vessel and safety of the crew”.
United States
“We strongly condemn the cowardly and illegal Israeli attack on the Madleen as it approached Gaza with desperately needed humanitarian supplies,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations said. “We applaud Greta Thunberg and the other activists of the Madleen who bravely risked their safety and freedom to help the starving people of Gaza.”
European Parliament
Israel’s seizure of the Madleen “outside Israeli territorial waters” is a “blatant violation of international law”, said The Left, the European Parliament faction that Hassan belongs to. “The arrest of the crew members and the confiscation of aid intended for a population in immediate humanitarian distress is unacceptable and is clearly part of a wider strategy to starve and massacre Palestinians in Gaza while hiding Israeli war crimes from the world.”
United Nations
“Madleen must be released immediately,” United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese said. “Breaking the siege is a legal duty for states and a moral imperative for all of us. Every Mediterranean port should send boats with aid, solidarity and humanity to Gaza. They shall sail together – united, they will be unstoppable.”
Amnesty International
“As the occupying power (as recognised by the ICJ [International Court of Justice]), Israel has a legal obligation to ensure civilians in Gaza have sufficient food and medicine. They should have let Madleen deliver its humanitarian supplies to Gaza,” said Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, asserting that Israel’s interception of the Madleen “violates international law”.
Israeli attacks at aid distribution sites sending increased number of casualties to hospitals says ICRC.
Gaza’s healthcare system is “extremely fragile” amid the ongoing Israeli war, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned.
The organisation said in a statement on Sunday that the enclave’s hospitals are in urgent need of protection and reinforcement amid Israel’s continued bombardment and blockade. It added that the system is facing growing pressure due to increasing casualty rates from Israeli attacks at aid points.
“In the last two weeks, the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah has had to activate its mass casualty incident procedure 12 times, receiving high numbers of patients with gunshot and shrapnel wounds,” ICRC said in a statement on X on Sunday.
“An overwhelming majority of patients from the recent incidents said they had been trying to reach assistance distribution sites,” it continued.
The healthcare system in Gaza is extremely fragile. To avert preventable deaths, the services of the remaining health-care facilities must be preserved and reinforced. pic.twitter.com/LhPBz6mSpy
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.”
