Gaza: Strikes kill 140 people, Israel to allow 'basic food' into the enclave

The New Arab's live blog on the war in Gaza and other regional developments has now ended, and will resume at 0900am.

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Israel’s High Court of Justice has postponed a hearing set for 21 May on a petition for independent media access to Gaza, The Times of Israel reported on Sunday.

The court did not provide a reason for the postponement or set a new date to hear the petition filed by the Foreign Press Association (FPA), which represents international journalists working in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Israel has prevented all international journalists from reporting independently inside Gaza since the outbreak of the war in October 2023.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Sunday called on Israel to allow the "immediate, massive and unhampered" resumption of aid to Gaza after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced he would allow a "basic amount" in.

"After three months of diplomatic efforts, the Israeli government finally announces the reopening of humanitarian aid to Gaza," Barrot posted on X. "It must be immediate, massive and unhampered."

Israel decided on Sunday to resume the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza through existing channels until a new mechanism is put in place, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X, citing two senior Israeli officials.

Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies, and has blocked all aid to Gaza since March 2, demanding Hamas release all remaining hostages.

Israel will allow some food into Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Sunday, hours after the military announced it had launched a new ground operation in the enclave.

"Israel will allow a basic amount of food for the population to ensure that a hunger crisis does not develop in the Gaza Strip," Netanyahu's office said.

About 10 protesters have been detained by Israeli police while trying to march from the southern city of Sderot towards Gaza calling for an end to the war, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

Alon-Lee Green, national director of the Jewish-Palestinian activist group Standing Together, was reportedly among those detained.

"The arrests are a panicked attempt to silence the growing protest against the killing, abandonment, starvation and destruction," Standing Together said in a statement.

"We will not stop until the war ends and a deal is reached that returns all the hostages and guarantees a safe future for everyone."

The protest, a march from the Sderot train station to the border with Gaza, was planned and approved in advance with police and the army on short notice, in light of Saturday's announcement of a major new offensive.

At least three people were killed when a blast targeted a police station in the eastern Syrian town of Al-Mayadeen on Sunday, the state news agency said, citing a security source.

The explosion also injured several people, the report said, without providing further details. 

The Israeli army on Sunday issued an evacuation order for several areas in Gaza ahead of what it said was an imminent attack.

Addressing Gazans "in the Al-Qarara area, the Salqa municipality, and the south of Deir al-Balah, and the neighbourhoods of Al-Ja'farawi, Al-Suwar, Abu Hadab, and Al-Satar", the army said: "This is a preliminary and final warning before the attack... For your safety, you must move immediately west to the known shelters in Al-Mawasi."

Tens of thousands of red-clad protesters marched through The Hague on Sunday to demand their government do more to halt Israel’s campaign in Gaza, in what organizers called the country’s biggest demonstration in two decades.

Human rights groups and aid agencies — including Amnesty International, Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders — estimated the peaceful crowd at more than 100,000 people, and the streets of The Hague were packed with the old, young and even some babies on their first protest.

"We hope this is a wake-up call for the government," said teacher Roos Lingbeek, attending the march with her husband and their 12-week-old daughter, Dido, who slept in a carrier as her parents brandished a sign simply reading: "STOP."

The march took the young family past the Peace Palace, headquarters of the United Nations’ International Court of Justice, where last year judges ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza.

As the protest wound its way past the court, canals and the seat of the Netherlands' right-wing government, Israeli forces continued to pound northern Gaza, where they have launched new ground operations.

Israel’s security cabinet on Sunday approved plans to construct a security fence on the Jordan-occupied West Bank border, Israeli media reports.

The project will see a multi-layered fence laid along the 425-km border. Construction is expected to begin in June and take three years to complete.

The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza on Sunday has risen to 140, medical sources tell Al Jazeera Arabic.

Israel has now killed more than 300 UNRWA workers in Gaza since the conflict began 19 months ago, the organisation's chief said today.

"Throughout this war, one of the most dreadful updates I regularly receive is the death toll on UNRWA
 staff. Today, that death toll has surpassed the gruesome milestone of 300," Philippe Lazzarini wrote in a post on X.

"The vast majority of staff were killed by the Israeli Army with their children & loved ones: whole families wiped out. Several were killed in the line of duty while serving their communities," he said.

"Those responsible must be held accountable."

A campaign group representing the families of captives' held in Gaza has criticised the Netanyahu government's decision to further escalate the conflict in Gaza.

The Israeli military this afternoon said it had begun an "extensive" ground operation in Gaza under plans announced last week to occupy the entire territory.

"The current policy is killing the living and erasing the dead. Every bombing, every delay, every indecision increases the danger" to the captives, said Hagai Levine, of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

The Israeli army said two projectiles were launched from the Gaza Strip on Sunday, shortly after it announced it had commenced "extensive ground operations" across the besieged Palestinian territory.

"Following the sirens that sounded in Kissufim, two projectiles were identified crossing into Israel from the central Gaza Strip," the army said, adding one was intercepted and the other fell in an open area.

Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility, saying the launches were linked to the new ground operation.

(AFP)

Tens of thousands of protesters marched through The Hague on Sunday demanding a tougher stance from the Dutch government against Israel's war in Gaza.

Organiser Oxfam Novib said around 100,000 protesters had joined the march, most dressed in red expressing their desire for a "red line" against Israel's siege on Gaza, where it has cut off medical, food and fuel supplies.

The march also passed the seat of the International Court of Justice, which is hearing a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide and last year ordered Israel to halt a military assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Oxfam Novib said the Dutch government had ignored what it said were war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, and urged protesters to demand a tougher line.

Dutch Foreign Affairs minister Caspar Veldkamp earlier this month said he wanted the EU to reconsider cooperation agreements it has with Israel.

(Reuters)

The Israeli army said it launched "extensive ground operations" across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as part of a newly expanded campaign that ministers say is aimed at occupying the entire territory and further displacing its population.

The military said that over the past day, both active duty and reservist troops had "begun extensive ground operations throughout the northern and southern Gaza Strip", and claimed it had killed dozens of "terrorists" and dismantled "terrorist infrastructure sites".

The Israeli military has killed more than 450 Palestinians over the past week, the local health ministry said earlier today.

(AFP  and TNA staff)

US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has claimed that the Israeli government is willing to lift its 11-week blockade on Gaza and allow food and aid into the strip.

In an interview with ABC News, Witkoff said the Trump administration "will not allow" the humanitarian situation inside Gaza to deteriorate further.

"I don't think there's any daylight between President Trump's position and Prime Minister Netanyahu's position," he told the broadcaster.

"There are many initiatives that we are working on to address this. There are going to be mobile kitchens that are going to be sent in there. We have trucks with flour waiting at the border. The Israelis have indicated that they're going to begin to allow a lot more of these trucks to get in."

Italian parliamentarians protested on Sunday in front of Egypt's Rafah border crossing with Gaza, calling for aid access and an end to the war in the devastated Palestinian territory.

"Europe is not doing enough, nothing to stop the massacre," Cecilia Strada, an Italian member of the European parliament, told AFP.

The group - including 11 members of the Italian parliament, three MEPs and representatives of NGOs - held signs reading "Stop genocide now", "End illegal occupation" and "Stop arming Israel".

"There should be a complete embargo on weapons to and from Israel and a stop to trade with illegal settlements," Strada said.

A Saudi airline has resumed flights for Iranian hajj pilgrims to the kingdom for the first time in a decade, the latest sign of the warming ties between the countries.

"Flynas resumed Iranian pilgrims flights from Imam Khomeini [airport] in Tehran on Saturday," a Saudi civil aviation authority official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

(AFP)

Israel is committing "clear violations of international humanitarian law" in its ongoing offensive on Gaza, a senior EU official said Sunday.

"Israel’s renewed offensive on Gaza has killed many civilians over the weekend and targeted hospitals and medical staff ... this must end," Hadja Lahbib, EU commissioner for equality, wrote on X.

"We will urgently address the crisis with partners at the [European Humanitarian Forum] tomorrow & Tuesday," she said.

Israel’s renewed offensive on Gaza has killed many civilians over the weekend and targeted hospitals and medical staff - clear violations of international humanitarian law.

This must end.

We will urgently address the crisis with partners at the EHF tomorrow & Tuesday. https://t.co/3g2xvFnbAN

— Hadja Lahbib (@hadjalahbib) May 18, 2025

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 50 people in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory on Sunday.

"According to preliminary figures, at least 50 people have been martyred in the Gaza Strip as a result of ongoing Israeli air strikes since the early hours," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

(AFP)

Some 464 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military strikes on Gaza in the past week, according to a report published by the territory's health ministry.

It also said that 1,418 others had been wounded in the same period between 11 May and 17 May.

(Reuters)

The number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza on Sunday has risen to 132, medical sources tell Al Jazeera Arabic.

All emergency vehicles used by the Gaza Civil Defence will be out of action within three days due to the fuel shortage caused by Israel's blockade, it said in a statement this morning.

Three-quarters of the organisation's vehicles are now unable to operate because of a lack of fuel, it said.

"Our fuel crisis continues and worsens daily, as the Israeli occupation continues to prevent the delivery of even minimal quantities of fuel to operate our vehicles, enabling us to continue our humanitarian services," the statement read.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signalled on Sunday that Israel was open to a deal with Hamas that would include "ending the fighting" in Gaza, laying out conditions for such an agreement.

"Even at this very moment, the negotiation team in Doha is working to exhaust every possibility for a deal - whether according to the Witkoff framework or as part of ending the fighting, which would include the release of all the hostages, the exile of Hamas terrorists, and the disarmament of the Gaza Strip," his office said in a statement.

(AFP)

A White House official has denied reports in Israeli media that Vice President JD Vance will visit Israel next week, according to The Times of Israel.

"Media reports that the vice president will visit Israel are false," the official said, adding that Vance will travel back to Washington on Monday.

The vice president is currently in Rome for Pope Leo's inaugural mass.

A Lebanese soldier was among two people injured in an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon, the country's state news agency reported this morning.

The strike targeted a vehicle near the village of Beit Yahoun.

The death toll from Israel's 19-month war on Gaza has risen to 53,339, with 121,034 others wounded, the local health ministry said this morning.

All hospitals in north are now out of service following Israel's ongoing siege on the Indonesian Hospital, the local health ministry said this morning.

North Gaza's other major medical facilities - the Beit Hanoun Hospital and Kamal Adwan Hospital - were forced to close following Israeli attacks earlier in the war.

US Vice President JD Vance will visit Israel on Tuesday, days after US President Donald Trump declined to travel to the country during his trip to the Middle East last week, Israeli media are reporting.

The Israeli military is planning to force Palestinian civilians into three tightly-controlled areas in Gaza if ongoing talks in Qatar fail to produce a ceasefire agreement, according to The Sunday Times.

A map leaked to the British newspaper by diplomats familiar with the details shows that the military plans to crowd Gaza's 2.2 million people into three zones in Gaza City, Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.

Palestinians would be prevented from moving between the zones, which will be cut off by the Netzarim corridor and a new military zone that separates Khan Younis from central Gaza. Rafah and the far north of Gaza will become closed military zones.

The plans are part of the military's new offensive in Gaza, which the government says is aimed at taking full control of the territory.

Israeli officials have said the eventual goal is to push the entire population towards the south and encourage them to "voluntarily" leave the strip.

Medical sources in Gaza are now saying that at least 125 people have been killed in Israeli attacks so far on Sunday, Al Jazeera reports.

Many children are reportedly among the dead.

Yemen's Houthi rebels said on Sunday they fired two missiles at Israel's main airport, after the Israeli military said it had intercepted one launched from the south.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group targeted Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv with "two ballistic missiles", and vowed to continue strikes until the "siege is lifted" on Gaza, where Israel has been fighting a brutal 19-month war on the Gaza Strip.

The Houthis have vowed to impose an "air embargo" on Israel in response to its conduct in Gaza, and earlier this month forced international airlines to suspend flights after landing a missile inside the perimeter of Ben Gurion airport.

(AFP and TNA staff)

Israeli forces have killed another three journalists in the ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting.

Almost 180 journalists have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza over the past 19 months, making the conflict the deadliest on record for media workers.

Israel's extremist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has demanded that Netanyahu recall his negotiating team from Doha and end ceasefire talks with Hamas. 

"The deal we are hearing about is a grave mistake," the Jewish Power leader said, calling for the Israeli military to further intensify its brutal assault on Gaza.

More than 100 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza on Sunday morning, medical sources on the ground tell Al Jazeera.

At least 44 died in attacks in southern Gaza, while 42 were in the north and 15 in the centre of the strip, the sources say.