Israeli Gaza strikes kill dozens as third aid site opens following 'hellish scenes'

Israel called for the forced evacuation of al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip, the Gaza Health Ministry revealed.

The Israeli army has called for the evacuation of al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip, the Gaza Health Ministry revealed.

Hospital officials say an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza killed 22 people, including 9 women and children.

Lebanon's health ministry said two people were killed in separate Israeli attacks on south Lebanon on Thursday, the latest incidents despite a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The ministry said an "Israeli enemy strike" hit a forested area in Nabatiyeh al-Fawqa, killing one man, while Israeli gunfire on the border town of Kfar Kila killed another.

The Israeli army said it stuck "a Hezbollah terrorist" in southern Lebanon, alleging he was working to restore a site used to manage the group's "fire and defence array".

It did not immediately comment on the shooting in Kfar Kila.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said the man in Nabatiyeh al-Fawqa was a "municipal employee" who had been rehabilitating wells when his motorcycle was struck.

The Czech Republic will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem "at the right moment", Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on Thursday, cooling the likelihood of a near-term move that the government had signalled after the 7 October atacks.

After the attacks, Fiala said the embassy move to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv could come in a matter of months, but on Thursday, he indicated the move was some way off.

"Let's make it clear: The Czech Republic will move the embassy, because it is right, the question is not if but when," Fiala told a hearing in the upper house of the Czech parliament.

He said the move should come at a time when Israel is not in a state of war, and ideally when the Abraham Accords, a series of normalisation agreements between Israel and Arab nations, are widened to include more partners.

"Let's be a little patient, but at the same time ready to make this step as soon as the right moment arrives."

(Reuters) 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told families of captives held in Gaza that Israel has accepted a new ceasefire proposal presented by US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, Israeli media reported on Thursday.

The Palestinian group Hamas stated earlier that it had received the new proposal from mediators and was reviewing it.

(Reuters)

Hamas on Thursday said it was studying a new proposal from Steve Witkoff, after the US envoy said he was optimistic about a possible Gaza ceasefire.

"The leadership of the Hamas movement has received Witkoff's new proposal from the mediators and is currently studying it responsibly, in a manner that serves the interests of our people, provides relief, and achieves a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip," the Palestinian group said in a statement.

Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli strike on the country's south killed one man on Thursday, with Israel saying it struck a member of the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The attack came despite a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese armed group.

The ministry said an "Israeli enemy strike" hit a forested area in Nabatiyeh al-Fawqa, killing one man.

The Israeli army said it had struck "a Hezbollah terrorist" in southern Lebanon, alleging he was working to restore a site used to manage the group's "fire and defence array".

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said the man was a "municipal employee" who had been rehabilitating wells when his motorcycle was struck.

The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation opened a third aid distribution site in the Palestinian enclave on Thursday and said that since it began operations on Monday, it has handed out about 1,838,182 meals.

"Operations will continue scaling across all four sites, with plans to build additional sites across Gaza, including in the northern region, in the weeks ahead," the foundation said in a statement. 

(Reuters)

Israel's approval of 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank is a "deliberate obstacle to Palestinian statehood", Britain's Middle East minister, Hamish Falconer, said on Thursday.

"The UK condemns these actions," he wrote on X. "Settlements are illegal under international law, further imperil the two state solution, and do not protect Israel."

The Israeli government’s approval of 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank is a deliberate obstacle to Palestinian statehood.

The UK condemns these actions. Settlements are illegal under international law, further imperil the two state solution, and do not protect Israel.

— Hamish Falconer MP (@HFalconerMP) May 29, 2025

The family of a Palestinian killed on 22 May have said they intend to sue the Israeli settler who ran him over to death, Wafa reports.

Fuad Alian, 30, from the village of Beit Safafa, was killed in the Katamon area, west of occupied Jerusalem, after Israeli settlers attacked him while he was with his cousin in a public park.

After they told him to leave because they were Arabs, the settlers chased the two with their vehicles, ran them over, killing Alian and wounding his cousin.

Israeli police released one of the men involved, claiming the attack happened for a criminal reason. Alian's family reject the claim, asserting it was a crime motivated by racism.

US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack on Thursday called for a non-aggression agreement between Syria and Israel as a first step towards building relations between the two countries.

Speaking to Saudi channel Al Arabiya in Damascus, Barrack described the long-standing conflict between Syria and Israel, who have technically been at war since 1948, as a "solvable problem" through dialogue, proposing a "non-aggression agreement" between them.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday slammed Israeli attacks on Gaza as "collective punishment of the civilian population", in some of Moscow's strongest criticism of Israel as it steps up its offensive.

Lavrov said "measures taken by Israel" in response to the 7 October attack by Hamas "constitute collective punishment of the civilian population," calling what was happening in Gaza "incomprehensible and indescribable".

Hamas condemned Israel's announcement Thursday that it is establishing 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law.

"This is a blatant defiance of the international will and a grave violation of international law and United Nations resolutions," said a statement from the Palestinian group.

Over 54,249 Palestinians have been killed and over 123,492 have been wounded since Israel launched its war on Gaza on 7 October 2023 - the Gaza Health Ministry revealed.

The toll does not include the 11,000 missing, presumed dead.

Over the past 24 hours, 67 Palestinians were confirmed dead, including three bodies recovered from the rubble, and 184 have been injured.

Pop star Dua Lipa joined over 300 UK celebrities in signing an open letter on Thursday, urging Britain to halt arms sales to Israel, following similar pleas from lawyers and writers.

Actors, musicians, activists and other public figures wrote the letter calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to "end the UK's complicity in the horrors in Gaza".

British-Albanian pop sensation Dua Lipa has been vocal about the war in Gaza and last year criticised Israel's offensive as a "genocide".

Other signatories include actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, and Riz Ahmed, as well as musicians Paloma Faith, Annie Lennox, and Massive Attack.

"You can't call it 'intolerable' and keep sending arms," read the letter to Labour leader Starmer, organised by Choose Love, a UK-based humanitarian aid and refugee advocacy charity.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed 44 people on Thursday, including 23 in an attack on a home in the centre of the Palestinian territory.

"Forty-four people have been killed in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip," civil defence official Mohammad Al-Mughayyir told AFP. "Twenty-three people were killed, others injured and several (are) missing following an Israeli air strike on the Qreinawi family's home east of Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza."

The baby of an Israeli woman killed by a Palestinian gunman in the occupied West Bank two weeks ago has died, the hospital treating the newborn said Thursday.

Schneider Children's Medical Centre announced, "with regret that last night the baby Ravid Chaim, who was born after the terror attack in Samaria (the northern West Bank) about two weeks ago in which his mother, Tzeela Gez, of blessed memory, was murdered, has passed away".

Ravid had been in "serious condition in the neonatal intensive care unit", where doctors had "fought for his life", the hospital added.

"Unfortunately, despite the many efforts, the hospital was forced in recent hours to declare his death."

Tzeela Gez was on her way from her home in the West Bank settlement of Bruchin to a Tel Aviv hospital to give birth when the gunman opened fire on the vehicle she was travelling in with her husband.

Gez, 37, died of her wounds, while her baby was delivered by emergency caesarean section, the hospital that treated them said.

The Israeli military said last week that the shooter had been identified and "eliminated" following a manhunt in the West Bank.

Three Palestinians were injured after Israeli forces raided the village of Al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

A child was injured by a bullet coated in rubber to the neck, while a man and a woman were also injured by rubber bullets, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.

At least 11,000 cancer patients in the Gaza Strip are unable to receive treatment and healthcare due to Israel's ongoing war on the enclave, imposing a blockade on medical aid and supplies, medical sources told Wafa.

The sources said that intravenous chemotherapy and follow-up services for cancer patients have completely stopped.

An Israeli strike on a refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip has killed at least 19 Palestinians on Thursday - Wafa reports.

Israeli forces targeted a home east of Al-Bureij refugee camp.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced Thursday the creation in the occupied West Bank of 22 new settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.

"We have made a historic decision for the development of settlements: 22 new communities in Judea and Samaria, renewing settlement in the north of Samaria, and reinforcing the eastern axis of the State of Israel," the minister said on X, using the Israeli term for the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.

"Next step: sovereignty!" he added.

In a statement on Telegram, the Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the move a "once-in-a-generation decision", saying the initiative had been led by Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz and approved by the security cabinet.

"The decision also includes the establishment of four communities along the eastern border with Jordan, as part of strengthening Israel's eastern backbone, national security and strategic grip on the area," it said.

״לא ארץ נוכריה לקחנו כי אם נחלת אבותינו”.

58 שנים לשחרור יהודה ושומרון; החלטה של פעם בדור

הובלנו החלטה היסטורית עבור ההתיישבות: 22 יישובים חדשים ביהודה ושומרון, חידוש ההתיישבות בצפון השומרון וחיזוק השדרה המזרחית של מדינת ישראל-חומת המגן של מדינת ישראל .

זהו יום גדול להתיישבות…

— בצלאל סמוטריץ' (@bezalelsm) May 29, 2025

Thousands of starved Palestinians stormed a United Nations warehouse in central Gaza on Wednesday, with the World Food Programme reporting two possible deaths in the tumult as Israel and the UN traded blame over the deepening hunger crisis.

AFP footage showed crowds of Palestinians breaking into a WFP warehouse in Deir Al-Balah and taking bags of emergency food supplies as gunshots rang out.

"Hordes of hungry people broke into WFP's Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, Central Gaza, in search of food supplies that were pre-positioned for distribution," WFP said in a statement on X.

"Initial reports indicate two people died and several were injured in the tragic incident," WFP said, adding that it was still confirming details.