Israeli kills over 115 in Gaza as it begins 'expansion' of assault on Gaza

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The UN's International Organisation for Migration said on Saturday that Israel had displaced 19,000 Palestinians from Gaza by Thursday afternoon.

"Many with nothing but the clothes on their backs," the organisation said. 

United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher on Friday said time should not be wasted on an alternative U.S.-backed proposal to deliver aid to Gaza, saying the U.N. has a proven plan and 160,000 pallets of relief ready to enter the Palestinian enclave now.

"To those proposing an alternative modality for aid distribution, let's not waste time. We already have a plan," he said in a statement as Israel blocked the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza for the 75th day in a row.

(Reuters)

Israeli forces killed at least 115 Palestinians on Friday, with the military releasing a statement confirming that it has started the early stages of the "expansion" of the assault on Gaza.

The Israeli army added that it aims to dismantle Hamas and continue to "fulfil the objectives of the war".

 Israel on Friday blasted the United Nations aid chief for asking the U.N. Security Council if it would act to "prevent genocide" in the Gaza Strip, where experts say famine looms after Israel blocked aid deliveries to the Palestinian enclave 75 days ago.

While briefing the 15-member body earlier this week, U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher said: "Will you act – decisively – to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?"

In a letter to Fletcher on Friday, Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon accused him of delivering "a political sermon" and weaponising the word genocide against Israel, questioning under what authority he made what Israel viewed as an accusation.

"You had the audacity, in your capacity as a senior U.N. official, to stand before the Security Council and invoke the charge of genocide without evidence, mandate, or restraint," he wrote. "It was an utterly inappropriate and deeply irresponsible statement that shattered any notion of neutrality."

A spokesperson for Fletcher did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

Under international law, genocide is an intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. This includes through killings, serious bodily or mental harm, and inflicting conditions calculated to bring about physical destruction.

(Reuters)

The Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently displace as many as one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya, NBC News reported on Friday, citing five people with knowledge of the matter.

Citing two people with direct knowledge and a former U.S. official, NBC also reported that the plan is under serious enough consideration that the U.S. has discussed it with Libya's leadership.

In exchange for displacing the Palestinians, the administration would release to Libya billions of dollars of funds the U.S. froze more than a decade ago, according to NBC and citing the same three people.

Israel's negotiating team is set to remain in Doha until at least Sunday, reports on Friday evening said. 

The reports come despite an Israeli official saying no progress has been made in recent rounds of talks.

Axios journalist Barak Ravid said, citing familiar sources, that Qatari mediators have grown increasingly frustrated with Israel's approach.

French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed on Friday that he felt the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was unacceptable, and added he hoped to discuss the matter soon with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump. 

The UN's rights chief on Friday denounced Israel's sharp escalation of attacks in Gaza -- and an apparent push to permanently displace the population -- as amounting to "ethnic cleansing".

"This latest barrage of bombs... and the denial of humanitarian assistance underline that there appears to be a push for a permanent demographic shift in Gaza that is in defiance of international law and is tantamount to ethnic cleansing," Volker Turk said in a statement.

Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned that a clear intensification in attacks this week raised fears the wider Israeli offensive had begun.

"We must stop the clock on this madness," he said, urging all parties, including third states with direct influence, to stop the assault.

Israeli media reported Friday that the military had stepped up its offensive in Gaza following government approval of a plan to retake the territory earlier this month, though the army has yet to formally announce its threatened expansion of the campaign.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes on Friday killed at least 88 people.

Umm Mohammed al-Tatari, 57, told news agency AFP that she was awoken by a pre-dawn attack on northern Gaza.

"We were asleep when suddenly everything exploded around us," she said.

"Everyone started running. We saw the destruction with our own eyes. There was blood everywhere, body parts and corpses."

"There is no safety. We could die at any moment," said 33-year-old Ahmed Nasr, also from northern Gaza.

At the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, footage obtained by the agency showed mourners crying over the bodies of their loved ones.

"They were innocent people," said Mayar Salem. "Only their remains are left... They were my sisters and daughters."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Yemen's Huthi rebels there was "more to come" after the air force struck two rebel-held ports on Friday following Huthi missile attacks on Israel.

"Our pilots now hit successfully two terror ports belonging to the Huthis again. This is a continuation and there is more to come," Netanyahu said in a video statement.

"We are not willing to sit on the sidelines and let the Huthis attack us. We will hit them far more, including their leadership and all the infrastructure that allows them to hit us."

Israel's military confirmed striking the rebel-held Yemeni ports of Hodeida and Salif Friday, saying it "dismantled terrorist infrastructure sites" belonging to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

"These ports are used to transfer weapons and are a further example of the Houthi terrorist regime's systematic and cynical exploitation of civilian infrastructure in order to advance terrorist activities," a military statement said.

"The strikes were conducted after numerous advanced warnings issued by the [Israeli military] to the population in the area."

A senior Hamas official told news agency AFP Friday that the group expects the United States to pressure Israel into lifting its aid blockade of Gaza after the group released a US-Israeli hostage this week.

"Hamas is awaiting and expecting the US administration to exert further pressure on the Netanyahu government to open the crossings and allow the immediate entry of humanitarian aid -- food, medicine and fuel -- to the hospitals in the Gaza Strip," Taher al-Nunu said, adding that aid entry was part of an understanding with US envoys in exchange for Edan Alexander's release.

Palestinian Authority security forces detained a wounded Palestinian named Zaid Hattab in the northern West Bank town of Silat al-Harithiya, west of Jenin, according to local press reports.

The arrest comes shortly after Israeli forces surrounded the town two days prior, leading to confrontations between the military and Palestinian youth.

Israeli forces have issued fresh evacuation orders for Palestinians living in the northern part of Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, according to reports from Arab media.

The Israeli military is said to have dropped leaflets over the area within the last hour, calling on civilians to flee southward towards designated "safe zones."

Negotiations over a ceasefire and the release of captives in Gaza have made no progress, according to Israeli outlet Haaretz, citing sources familiar with the talks in Qatar.

Despite Israel’s intensified military campaign and an alleged assassination attempt on Hamas official Mohammed Sinwar, the Palestinian group has not altered its stance on a US-backed proposal.

One Israeli source quoted by Haaretz said:

"Israel’s position is rigid, Hamas hasn’t folded, the Americans have lost interest, Trump is on his way home, and Witkoff is no longer involved. He’s waiting to hear what we want, and since we don’t want anything, he has nothing left to do."

Hamas has condemned what it described as ongoing attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, accusing them of acting with the backing of the Israeli military.

In a statement released on Telegram, the Palestinian group said that settler violence escalated at dawn, targeting multiple villages in the Salfit governorate and northwest of Nablus.

Hamas called the attacks a dangerous escalation and urged Palestinians to intensify resistance and confrontation in response to what it called settler aggression.

Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on a residential home in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, killing at least seven civilians, according to Al Jazeera English.

President Donald Trump said he did not consult ally Israel about the U.S. decision to recognize Syria's new government, despite deep Israeli suspicion of President Ahmed al-Sharaa's administration.

"I didn't ask them about that. I thought it was the right thing to do. I've been given a lot of credit for doing it. Look, we want Syria to succeed," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, shortly after departing Abu Dhabi at the close of a four-day Middle East trip.

Trump said on Tuesday he would order the lifting of sanctions on Syria, a major policy shift before meeting Sharaa.

Gaza rescuers said Israeli strikes and shelling on Friday killed 74 people in the war-battered Palestinian territory, updating a previous toll.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Basal reported "74 martyrs as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombardment across the entire Gaza Strip since last night until this moment," most of them in the north of the Palestinian territory, after the agency earlier reported more than 50 dead.

Catherine Russell, head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), condemned on Friday the killing of children in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes, calling on the world to be shocked by the deaths of 45 children in just two days.

She criticised the widespread indifference to the loss of young lives in Gaza.

"More than 1 million children in Gaza face the risk of starvation. They are deprived of food, water and medicine," Russell said in a post on X.

"Nowhere is safe for children in Gaza," she added.

It is unconscionable that over 45 children have reportedly been killed in airstrikes in Gaza in two days.

This should shock the world but is largely met with indifference.

Nowhere is safe for children in Gaza. This horror must stop. pic.twitter.com/f0h6E57iTn

— Catherine Russell (@unicefchief) May 15, 2025

Hollywood heavyweights Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Riz Ahmed and Guillermo del Toro have added their names to a letter condemning the film industry's silence on what it called "genocide" in Gaza, the organisers confirmed Friday.

The petition, signed by more than 370 actors and filmmakers, also denounced Israel's killing of Fatima Hassouna, the young Gaza photojournalist featured in the documentary "Put Your Soul in Your Hand and Walk", which premiered at the Cannes film festival Thursday.

The organisers of the letter said the French actor Juliette Binoche, who is chairing the jury at Cannes, also added her name to the letter, along with Rooney Mara, US indie director Jim Jarmusch and "Lupin" star Omar Sy.

Binoche had initially seemed to pull back from supporting it as the festival opened on Tuesday, instead delivering a tribute to Hassouna, who was killed with 10 members of her family the day after she learned the film would be shown at Cannes.

"She should have been here tonight with us," an emotional Binoche said at the opening ceremony.

🎙️La photographe palestinienne Fatma Hassona, 25 ans, a été tuée par une frappe israélienne à Gaza. Elle avait appris la veille de sa mort que le film dont elle est l'héroïne serait présenté @Festival_Cannes. Sa réalisatrice, Sepideh Farsi, bouleversée, lit l'un de ses poèmes. pic.twitter.com/u8a61qGAjG

— Pauline Paccard (@PaulinePaccard) April 24, 2025

New York University said it would deny a diploma to a student who used a graduation speech to condemn Israel’s attacks on Palestinians and what he described as U.S. “complicity in this genocide.”

Logan Rozos's speech Wednesday for graduating students of NYU’s Gallatin School sparked waves of condemnation from pro-Israel groups, who demanded the university take aggressive disciplinary action against him.

Universities across the country have faced tremendous pressure to crack down on pro-Palestinian speech or risk funding cuts from President Donald Trump’s administration, which has equated criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Rozos, an actor and member of the Gallatin Theater Troupe, was selected by fellow students to give the liberal art program's address. He said he felt a moral and political obligation to speak to the audience about what he called the atrocities in Palestine.

“The genocide currently occurring is supported politically and militarily by the United States, is paid for by our tax dollars and has been livestreamed to our phones for the past 18 months,” he said.

Here's the grad speech that NYU is now withholding the student's diploma for:

"As I search my heart today in addressing you all…the only thing that is appropriate to say in this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine." https://t.co/Ngy64yAqJT pic.twitter.com/gDnbJTHmPS

— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) May 15, 2025

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 75 following a series of Israeli airstrikes since dawn on Friday, according to sources cited by Al Jazeera Arabic.

Of the fatalities, 67 were reported in Gaza City and the northern areas of the Strip.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II renewed his call on Friday for an urgent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip during a phone conversation with US Vice President JD Vance.

According to Jordan’s official Petra news agency, the king stressed the need to immediately reinstate the ceasefire, ensure the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and halt ongoing escalations in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

He also underlined the importance of establishing a political framework to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution.

Israeli settlers have launched attacks on Palestinian-owned vehicles in various locations across the occupied West Bank.

According to reports, the incidents took place in the towns of Bruqin, to the west of Salfit, and in the Ramin Plain area, east of Tulkarem.

The Quds News Network further reports that Israeli settler militias targeted the Masoudiya water well, northwest of Nablus, setting fire to the guard’s vehicle.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he was returning to Washington after wrapping up his Gulf tour.

"Let's see what happens with Russia and Ukraine," he said, referring to Russia-Ukraine talks taking place in Turkey.

Trump said he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin "as soon as we can set it up". 

Donald Trump on Friday said the United States would have the situation in Gaza "taken care of", telling reporters that people were starving in the besieged Palestinian territory.

"We're looking at Gaza. And we're going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving," the president told reporters during the final leg of his Gulf tour.

Israel's main group representing families of hostages still being held in Gaza said Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was missing an "historic opportunity" to get them released, as US President Donald Trump concludes a visit to the region.

"The hostages' families woke up this morning with heavy hearts and great concern in light of reports about increased attacks in Gaza and the imminent conclusion of President Trump's visit to the region," the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

"Missing this historic opportunity would be a resounding failure that will be remembered in infamy forever," the group added.