UN chief says Gaza war in 'cruelest phase' as aid trucks looted

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The UN revealed in its latest situation report that an estimated 81 per cent of Gaza’s entire territory is now within Israeli-declared "militarised zones" or is subject to forced displacement orders by Israeli forces.

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Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank over the past 120 days have killed at least 91 Palestinians, including 13 children, a rights group has said.

The Ramallah-based Al-Haq rights organisation said the military raids and operations have included the use of snipers, airstrikes, reconnaissance drones, and Apache helicopters.

The group added that armed military vehicles and bulldozers have also been used to block off refugee camps in the West Bank.

The death toll includes at least 13 children and three women, Al-Haq reported, adding that there has been significant destruction to infrastructure in Jenin, Tulkarem, Nablus, and Tubas.

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U2's Bono has called for Israel to be "released" from Benjamin Netanyahu and the far-right's grip on power, as hundreds of Palestinians are killed in Gaza in a devastating new Israeli military campaign.

The Irish rock star spoke at the Ivors music awards, where he demanded the release of Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza from the podium, as well as a generic call for peace.

"Hamas, release the hostages. Stop the war. Israel be released from Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right fundamentalists that twist your sacred texts," said Bono, real name Paul Hewson.

"All of you protect our aid workers, they are the best of us."

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Israeli settlers set fire to land east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Wafa reports.

Sources told the agency that under the protection of the Israeli army, the settlers set fire to around 200 square meters of land situated between the villages of Al Mughayyir and Khirbat 'Abu Falah.

Gaza's Health Ministry revealed that over 53,822 civilians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, not including the 11,000 missing presumed dead.

On Friday, Gaza's health ministry said at least 3,673 people had been killed in the territory since Israel broke the ceasefire on 18 March.

Gaza civil defence agency official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP at least 71 people were killed, while "dozens of injuries, and a large number of missing persons under the rubble have been reported as a result of Israeli air strikes" on Friday.

The Israeli military claimed that over the past day, its forces had attacked "military compounds, weapons storage facilities and sniper posts" in Gaza.

"In addition, the (air force) struck over 75 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip," it added.

UN expert Francesca Albanese at the Cannes Festival on Friday called for Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza completely instead of allowing aid to trickle into the war-torn territory.

"They must lift the blockade," the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories said.

The Israeli defence ministry said 107 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza on Thursday, whereas the United Nations used to bring in 500 to 600 lorry-loads per day on average during a six-week ceasefire that broke down in March.

But Albanese said even that amount would not be enough, after UN agencies warned a two-month siege had left its population of more than two million people on the brink of famine.

"Even if we return now to the 500 trucks per day... it wouldn't be sufficient because there are no stocks and the people in Gaza have nothing," she told AFP on the sidelines of the festival.

"Israel needs to get out of Gaza," she added.

Israel's attacks on Gaza's healthcare system have risen by almost 400 percent over the past week, the United Nations revealed.

“[The World Health Organization] tells us that 4 percent of nearly 700 attacks on health care in Gaza since October 2023 were recorded over the past week alone. That’s 28 attacks, or four times the average number of attacks per day," Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said.

Haq adds that over the past week alone, four major hospitals have had to suspend medical services because of hostilities, attacks or displacement orders in their areas, including the Kemal Adan, Indonesia Hammad and European Gaza hospitals.

“At least 94 percent of the hospitals in Gaza are now damaged or destroyed, and half of them are no longer operational.”

Al Jazeera Arabic reports that at least two Palestinians have been killed by an Israeli strike targeting a house in Jabalia. At least 10 others have been injured.

At least 66 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip on Friday, Gaza’s Health Ministry says.

The UK condemned Israeli settler attacks in the town of Bruqin, west of the occupied West Bank city of Salfit, where settlers burned Palestinian homes with at least eight cases of burns.

“UK condemns the latest appalling settler attacks in Bruqin,” the British Consulate General in Jerusalem said on X.

“Those responsible for extremist settler violence must be held to account.”

At least nine civilians have been killed after Israeli strikes targeted homes and tents across the Gaza Strip - Wafa reports.

The agency says three were killed after a strike targeted a home in Khan Younis, while three more were killed after a strike targeted a home in Gaza City. 

At the same time, a civilian was killed after Israeli strikes targeted the Nuseirat refugee camp, and a strike targeting a group of people in Deir al-Balah killed a young woman.

Journalist Bilal al-Hatoum was killed in a strike on the al-Saftawi area.

Israeli settlers torched Palestinian vehicles and houses in the occupied West Bank, Israel's army and villagers said, the latest in a series of attacks on the village of Bruqin, close to the location where a pregnant settler was killed this month.

Palestinian residents in Bruqin, who say they have faced constant attacks and abuse from Israeli settlers nearby, said a large group had shown up during the night, throwing Molotov cocktails and beating anyone in their way.

Akram Sabra, a resident of the village, said he had left his home to watch as dozens, possibly a hundred, people burned cars belonging to him and his family and threw a Molotov cocktail incendiary at his son's house.

"I saw my vehicles were burned and then they beat me on the head and I am still dizzy," he said.

The Israeli military said it had received a report on Thursday that Israeli civilians had vandalised property in the area of the village, in the northern part of the West Bank.

Israeli forces have imposed a strict lockdown in and around Bruqin following the killing of Tzeela Gez, a heavily pregnant resident of the nearby settlement of Bruchin.

The United Nations chief said Friday that Palestinians were enduring "the cruelest phase" of the war in Gaza, where more than a dozen food trucks were looted following the partial easing of a lengthy Israeli blockade.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said "Palestinians in Gaza are enduring what may be the cruelest phase of this cruel conflict", adding that Israel "must agree to allow and facilitate" humanitarian deliveries.

He pointed to snags, however, noting that of the nearly 400 trucks cleared to enter Gaza in recent days, only 115 were able to be collected.

"In any case, all the aid authorised until now amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required," he added in a statement.

"Meanwhile, the Israeli military offensive is intensifying with atrocious levels of death and destruction," he said.

The Israeli military has reported intercepting a projectile launched from Gaza. In a brief statement, the army confirmed that the projectile had entered Israeli airspace before being intercepted.

No casualties were reported.

Police beefed up security at schools and religious buildings across Washington Friday as the US capitol reeled from the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum.

"Around DC, you will see an increased presence of law enforcement officers around the community, you will find us around our faith-based organizations," Metropolitan Police (MPD) Chief Pamela A. Smith told reporters.

"You will see an increased presence around our schools and places like the DC Jewish Community Center. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our Jewish community."

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Friday said Israel has only authorized for Gaza what "amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required" and again signaled that the U.N. won't take part in a new U.S.-backed distribution plan.

"Without rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access, more people will die – and the long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound," Guterres told reporters.

Israel says about 300 trucks of aid have entered Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Gaza on Monday, but Guterres said that so far only about a third of those truckloads have been transported from the crossing to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.

Israel has allowed aid deliveries by the U.N. and other aid groups to briefly resume until a new U.S.-backed distribution model - run by the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation - is up and running by the end of the month. The U.N. says the plan is not impartial or neutral, and that it will not be involved.

"The United Nations has been clear: We will not take part in any scheme that fails to respect international law and the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality," Guterres said.

The U.N. and its partners have a plan to get the aid needed into Gaza, he said.

"The supplies – 160,000 pallets, enough to fill nearly 9,000 trucks – are waiting," Guterres said. "This is my appeal for life-saving aid for the long-suffering people of Gaza: Let's do it right. And let's do it right away.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, has rejected Israel’s claims that European countries are inciting anti-Semitism. In response, he underlined that France is "indefectibly attached to the security of Israel".

In a message shared on X, Barrot stated: "Accusing of encouraging anti-Semitism or [supporting] Hamas whoever defends the two-state solution is absurd and slanderous."

He further clarified that France supports the stance that Hamas should be "disarmed and permanently excluded from the political future of Gaza".

His comments follow Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar’s accusation that European criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is inciting anti-Semitic violence, made after the killing of two Israeli embassy staff members on Wednesday.

pic.twitter.com/sc6WMzABGc

— Jean-Noël Barrot (@jnbarrot) May 22, 2025

Israeli airstrikes killed at least six Palestinians guarding aid trucks against looters, Hamas officials said on Friday, underlining the problems hindering supplies from reaching hungry people in Gaza following Israel's 11-week-long blockade.

A Hamas official said six members of a security team tasked with guarding the shipments were killed. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

A Swiss-based NGO has asked authorities to investigate the activities of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.-backed organisation that plans to oversee a new model of aid distribution in the Palestinian enclave that the UN opposes.

The United Nations has said the GHF's aid plan is not impartial or neutral, and forces further displacement and exposes thousands of people to harm, and that it will not be involved.

The GHF, which has said it hopes to start work in Gaza by the end of May, told Reuters it "strictly adheres" to humanitarian principles, and that it would not support any form of forced relocation of civilians.

TRIAL International, a Switzerland-based NGO, on Friday said it had filed two legal submissions asking Swiss authorities to investigate GHF, which is registered in Geneva.

A May 20 submission to the Swiss Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations, and one on May 21 to the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), requested an investigation into whether the GHF complies with Swiss law and international humanitarian law.

"We're asking Switzerland to exercise their own obligation under the Geneva Conventions to respect international humanitarian law...there are very grave issues at stake," Philip Grant the Executive Director of TRIAL International told Reuters.

TRIAL International said it asked the Swiss FDFA to explain if the GHF had submitted a declaration, in accordance with Swiss law, to use private security companies to distribute aid, and if it had been approved by Swiss authorities.

The GHF told Reuters that though using private security firms represents a change from prior aid delivery frameworks, it would ensure aid is not diverted to Hamas or criminal organizations.

Two Palestinian sources told news agency AFP Friday the leaders of pro-Iran Palestinian factions who were close to former Tehran-backed ruler Bashar al-Assad have left Syria under pressure from the new authorities.

The factions, which enjoyed considerable freedom of movement under Assad, have also handed over their weapons, one of the sources said, amid US demands that Syria's new authorities take steps against Iran-backed Palestinian groups based in the country.

A pro-Iran Palestinian factional leader who left after Assad's December ouster said on condition of anonymity that "most of the Palestinian factional leadership that received support from Tehran has left Damascus", while another still based there confirmed the development.

"The factions have fully handed over weapons in their headquarters or with their cadres" to the authorities, who also received "lists of names of faction members possessing individual weapons" and demanded that those arms be handed over, the first added.

A third Palestinian source from a small faction in Damascus confirmed the arms handover.

Those who have left include Khaled Jibril, son of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) founder Ahmad Jibril, as well as Palestinian Popular Struggle Front secretary-general Khaled Abdel Majid and Fatah al-Intifada secretary-general Ziad al-Saghir.

Israel's minister of defence said Friday that he would seek to bar left-wing politician Yair Golan from reserve duty and forbid him from wearing a military uniform or entering army bases following anti-war remarks.

Golan -- a former major general -- said in a radio interview this week that "a sane country... does not kill babies for a hobby".

Golan later clarified that he was taking aim at the government's policies, not individual soldiers, and warned that Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza could make it a "pariah state".

Defence Minister Israel Katz, accusing the politician of slander, announced on Friday he had "decided to order (the military) to no longer call up Yair Golan for reserve service, and to ban him from wearing the uniform of (the army) and from entering military bases".

He added that Golan's statements "serve the enemies of Israel" and could contribute to international prosecutions of soldiers, saying there was "no place for people like Golan in public life".

Responding to the decision, Golan said: "The last time I wore an (army) uniform, it was October 7, when I went down to the south to save civilians after your government's terrible security failure."

The disarmament of Palestinian camps in Lebanon will begin next month based on an accord with visiting Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, a Lebanese government official told news agency AFP on Friday.

The Lebanese and Palestinian sides agreed "on starting an implementation plan to remove weapons from the camps, beginning mid-June in the Beirut camps, and other camps will follow," the source told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to brief the media.

The New Arab’s Arabic-language sister outlet, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, reported on Friday that Israeli forces killed several members of a displaced Palestinian family as they were fleeing the town of Abasan, east of Khan Younis, after the area was hit by multiple airstrikes earlier in the day.

According to medical sources, emergency crews have been unable to reach the site of the attack to evacuate the victims due to continued bombardment.

More than 50 Palestinians have been killed or remain unaccounted for following an Israeli air strike on a residential building in the Jabalia al-Balad area of northern Gaza, according to Gaza’s Civil Defence on Friday.

Describing the aftermath as a “horrific massacre”, Civil Defence teams reported recovering four bodies and rescuing six people from the rubble of the four-storey building.

However, over 50 individuals are still believed to be trapped beneath the debris.

France's Catherine Deneuve has joined over 900 cinema figures who have signed an open letter denouncing alleged "genocide" in Gaza and the movie industry's failure to speak up about it, organisers told news agency AFP on Friday.

The petition began circulating during the buildup to the Cannes film festival and had garnered around 380 names including "Schindler's List" star Ralph Fiennes when the event kicked off on May 13.

An update issued by organisers Friday included more than 900 names, including Deneuve, British director Danny Boyle and Swedish actor Gustaf Skarsgard.

The initiative, called "Artists for Fatem", was sparked by the killing of Palestinian photojournalist Fatima ("Fatem") Hassouna, who was the subject of a documentary that premiered at Cannes week.

Hassouna, 25, was killed in an Israeli air strike along with 10 relatives in her family home in northern Gaza last month, the day after the documentary was announced as part of the ACID Cannes selection.

"As artists and cultural players, we cannot remain silent while genocide is taking place in Gaza and this unspeakable news is hitting our communities hard," the open letter says.

Other signatories include Juliette Binoche, who is chairing the jury at Cannes, Rooney Mara, Jonathan Glazer, US indie director Jim Jarmusch, "Lupin" star Omar Sy, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Pedro Almodovar and Mark Ruffalo.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is in Cannes to promote a documentary about his life, has also signed the letter, organisers said Friday.

Israel's prime minister said Friday that his pick for the next head of domestic intelligence should be appointed "as soon as possible", adding his nominee, Major General David Zini, would have no hand in an investigation into his associates.

"It is imperative to name a permanent head of the Shin Bet as soon as possible," said a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, which noted the probe into alleged Qatari influence involving the premier's advisers, adding: "the appointed head of the Shin Bet will not be involved at all in these investigations".

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has expressed strong doubts about the effectiveness of continuing the war in Gaza, arguing that it is unlikely to deliver outcomes different from previous conflicts.

In an opinion piece for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Barak stated that further military action would likely worsen Israel’s diplomatic and legal standing, further claiming it would "prompt a wave of anti-Semitism and constitute a death sentence for some or most of the living hostages".

He noted that the conflict would only have been justified if it could lead to a complete defeat of Hamas- an outcome he believes is unrealistic.

Barak instead urged for leadership willing to pursue the immediate release of all hostages, bring an end to the ongoing war, alleviate the humanitarian disaster, remove Hamas from power, and dismantle its operational capabilities in Gaza.

He also criticised proposals for a long-term occupation of Gaza and the forced displacement of its population, describing them as detached from reality and likely to isolate Israel further on the international stage.

Barak concluded by calling for the removal of the current Netanyahu-led administration, which he described as the worst in the country’s history.

A total of 107 aid trucks belonging to the United Nations and other aid groups carrying flour, food, medical equipment and pharmaceutical drugs were transferred on Thursday into the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said.

The number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn has risen to 28, according to Al Jazeera English, citing medical sources.

Palestinian media report that Israeli forces have bombed a residential building in Abasan al-Jadida, located east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, resulting in the deaths of at least three individuals and injuring several others.

The Israeli military’s ongoing offensive in Gaza has led to the deaths of at least 16 people in various attacks across the besieged territory since midnight.

BREAKING: Several civilians reported killed, including children, following an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Dughma family home in the town of Absan Al-Jadida, east of Khan Younis, according to local sources. pic.twitter.com/7NJEOCqOZs

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) May 23, 2025

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed 16 people on Friday across the territory, where Israel has ramped up its military offensive in recent days.

The toll from "Israeli strikes in various areas across the Gaza Strip since midnight" totals 16 dead, agency official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told news agency AFP.

The official said there were also dozens of people wounded in the strikes, which mainly hit the centre and south of the territory.