Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
NOTE: The Gaza Health Ministry’s daily casualty figures are based on the number of dead and wounded Palestinians brought to hospitals, and does not include victims that are under the rubble or elsewhere, where ambulance and civil defense crews can not reach them.
Israeli air strikes killed at least 54 people in Gaza on Monday.
A four-month-old infant, Yousef al-Najjar, has reportedly died as a result of malnutrition. Local media say the infant weighed just 3.3 pounds when he died, less than one-fourth of the average weight for his age (disturbing video here).
Netanyahu says new offensive in Gaza focused on consolidating seizure of territory
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has said a new “intensified” offensive in Gaza, codenamed “Gideon’s Chariots” [read about the significance of the name here] will involve Israeli troops holding on to seized territory and significant displacement of the population.
Speaking after officials said Israel’s security cabinet had approved a plan for “conquering” the Gaza Strip and establishing a “sustained presence” there, Netanyahu posted a video on X in which he said Israeli soldiers would not go into Gaza, launch raids and then retreat.
“The intention is the opposite of that,” he said. “[Gaza’s] Population will be moved, for its own protection.”
Brig Gen Efi Dufferin, the chief Israeli military spokesperson, said in a statement shortly afterwards that Operation Gideon’s Chariots, as the new offensive has been named, would “include a wide-scale attack and the movement of the majority of the strip’s population, this is to protect them in an area sterile of Hamas. And continued airstrikes, elimination of terrorists, and dismantling of infrastructure.”
The plan, which was unanimously approved at a security cabinet meeting late on Sunday, goes beyond any aims so far outlined by Israel for its offensive in the devastated Palestinian territory and is likely to prompt deep international concern and fierce opposition.
“This will inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza,” said a spokesperson for António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general. “Gaza is, and must remain, an integral part of a future Palestinian state.”
US Senator Bernie Sanders called the plan “despicable.”
RELATED:
Israeli army chief warns Netanyahu that expanding Gaza offensive could endanger hostages
Israel’s “plan” for distributing aid in Gaza deemed “unworkable, dangerous, and potentially illegal” – but supported by Trump
Israel has also now gone public with its plan to allow some aid into Gaza, which has been brought to “the brink of catastrophe”, aid officials say, by two months of Israel’s tight blockade of food, fuel, medicine and everything else.
The scheme involves creating big distribution sites run by private contractors in the south of Gaza, to which vetted representatives of each Palestinian family would travel to pick up food parcels. Israeli troops would guard the bases, likely to be situated in a vast zone up to 5km wide now being cleared along the border with Egypt.
The scheme has been dismissed as unworkable, dangerous and potentially illegal under international law by leading humanitarian organizations. There has been no mention either of who might provide healthcare, sanitation, water, fuel and everything else necessary for life in the territory.
Policy papers outlining and advocating the imposition of a military administration on Gaza have been circulating among senior officials in Israel for more than a year. Netanyahu continues to dismiss out of hand the possibility of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises partial authority in the occupied West Bank, governing the territory. Nor has he outlined any other kind of future political settlement in Gaza. The likely result, should the new offensive go ahead, would be that Israeli troops end up the de facto rulers of much of Gaza and its 2.3 million inhabitants (continue reading here).
The US on Monday voiced support for an Israeli plan to take charge of humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza.
In response to Anadolu’s inquiry, a US State Department spokesperson welcomed the plan, calling it a response to calls for “creative solutions” to ensure aid reaches civilians.
“This administration wants a better life for Gazans, and creative solutions like this are part of President (Donald) Trump’s inspirational vision,” the spokesperson added.
RELATED: Israel plans to reoccupy Gaza indefinitely. Here’s what that actually means.
People wait in line for hours in hopes of getting something to eat, but often go home empty-handed.
Palestinians who haven’t been killed by Israel’s bombs are now slowly dying from lack of food. (screenshots)
Netanyahu’s aid distribution scheme sounds like a “military strategy,” not a humanitarian plan
Israel’s push for control of aid distribution in the Gaza Strip is a condition for lifting its more than two-month blockade, leading Gaza toward famine. According to its proposal, Israeli soldiers would guard the periphery of the aid distribution hub, where about 60 trucks of food would be allowed into the strip per day — a mere tenth of the volume permitted during the ceasefire. Under the plan, the American military contractors would handle the aid distribution from there. All existing soup kitchens and distribution centers would be shuttered.
In general, having outside private military contractors in a war zone comes with a host of legal ambiguities. The rules governing their conduct — and the legal framework protecting them — are often poorly defined. That these American contractors would apparently report to Israel, a foreign government, in a territory it reportedly plans to capture and occupy no less, only further muddies the waters.
“Private military contractors continue to push the legal boundaries of using civilians in combat zones. The ambiguity of which jurisdiction cover these contractors — Israeli, Palestinian, U.S. — is being hidden by who is paying the contract,” former Blackwater contractor Morgan Lerette, the author of Guns, Girls, and Greed: I Was a Blackwater Mercenary in Iraq, told Responsible Statecraft.
“Aside from the danger, putting armed U.S. civilians in an active battlefield to feed locals, is reminiscent of Somalia in 1993. We can only hope it doesn’t end in a similar fashion,” Lerette explained, referencing the infamous “Black Hawk Down” battle where clashes between U.S. and Somali forces in a densely populated Mogadishu neighborhood lead to heavy civilian casualties.
The United Nations and some aid partners involved in Gaza rejected the latest Israeli aid plan in a joint statement yesterday, alleging it “contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic — as part of a military strategy.”
Journalist Hind Khoudary reports that, under Israel’s intensified blockade of Gaza, families are going days without food—letting their children starve just to keep them alive. pic.twitter.com/XT22xku1UL
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) May 5, 2025
‘Complete limbo’: Gaza’s morgues unable to identify thousands of dead bodies
Thousands of unidentified bodies have been brought to Gaza’s morgues, which, without access to DNA testing, are forced to bury them without names.
“The situation is devastating for their families on so many levels,” said Maha Hussaini, strategy director of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
With hundreds of Palestinians killed across Gaza every week – and 11,000 more already missing and presumed dead – the need for a sophisticated identification process in the Strip is “overwhelming”, added Hussaini.
But Israel is not even letting in heavy equipment to retrieve bodies from the rubble, let alone equipment to identify them, she said, calling it part of a strategy to “keep the situation unlivable.”
As thousands of Palestinian children across Gaza face starvation two months into Israel’s most recent complete blockade on humanitarian aid into the enclave, members of the Israel Defense Forces allegedly used one recent attack on a residential area as a prop in their celebration of one soldier’s impending fatherhood.
In a video posted to social media on May 5—with the soldiers reportedly sharing it on their own accounts—the IDF members can be heard cheering and laughing as a building in a civilian area is leveled by an Israeli bombing, leaving blue smoke rising from the rubble in the distance.
The smoke signified that the soldier’s expected child is a boy—and the troops, members of the military that’s often called by Israel and its allies “the most moral army in the world,” gave no indication that they were thinking of any civilians who could have been in the bombed area as they laughed loudly at the “gender reveal” (continue reading here).
NOTE: Israel’s military leaders have instructed their soldiers not to film their “revenge videos” – but not to stop these crimes. The reasoning appears to be to protect the soldiers from legal action over allegations of involvement in war crimes in Gaza, when they travel abroad.
RELATED: (Washington Post) Revenge, fire and destruction: A year of Israeli soldiers’ videos from Gaza
President Trump says US will help ‘people of Gaza get some food’
US President Donald Trump said the US will provide food for Palestinians after the Israeli blockade of food and water entered its third month, CNN reported on Monday.
When asked by reporters at the White House about Israeli plans for an expanded assault on Gaza, Trump did not directly respond to the question but spoke about plans to provide food: “We’re going to help the people of Gaza get some food. People are starving, and we’re going to help them get some food….Hamas is making it impossible because they’re taking everything that’s brought in”.
NOTE: President Trump is perpetuating a myth: Israeli officials have provided no evidence that Hamas is stealing aid. On the contrary, Israeli news outlets have reported that the Israeli military itself is behind the looting of aid trucks. Trump is also ignoring the fact that Israel halted all aid over two months ago.
10 Gaza prisoners released from Israel in ‘critical’ condition
Israel released on Monday 10 Palestinian prisoners from Gaza, said to be in “critical” health conditions, a day after one Palestinian inmate died.
The released prisoners from the northern Gaza Strip had been arrested during the war, which started on 7 October 2023.
The Prisoners’ Information Office in Gaza reported in a statement that 10 prisoners released from the Israeli Sde Teiman prison had arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, in “critical” health condition due to the arbitrary measures taken against them by the prison administration.
The Israeli army had released dozens of Palestinians from Gaza in the past months without any prior coordination or agreement with the Palestinian side.
There are no exact figures about the number of Gazans held by Israel, but estimates suggest that their numbers are in the thousands.
NOTE: In April 2024, an unnamed doctor described in harrowing detail the conditions at Sde Teiman, including limb amputation due to handcuff injuries and prisoners forced to defecate in diapers. Further investigations by Middle East Eye, CNN and the New York Times found widespread examples of abuse at the center.
NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred From Sitting Final Exams
New York University School of Law barred 31 pro-Palestine law school students from campus facilities and demanded that they sign away their right to protest in exchange for being allowed to return. If the students — deemed “personae non grata,” or PNG — don’t renounce their right to protest on campus, they will be unable to sit for final exams.
“You may not participate in any protest activity or disruptive activity on Law School property,” says the so-called “Use of Space Agreement” sent to the students, which explicitly lays out conditions for being allowed to return to key campus buildings during the school’s “exam period.”
The law students, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid further repercussions from the school, are accused of participating in sit-ins, a time-honored form of nonviolent demonstration that is allowed according to NYU policy. The sit-ins on March 4 and April 29 took place, respectively, at the school’s Bobst Library and outside the office of the law school dean.
Barring the students from campus and demanding they refrain from protesting represents a dramatic escalation against NYU students involved in demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza — breaking with school policy and upending precedents for disciplinary procedures, said seven of the PNG students who spoke with The Intercept, as well as other NYU students and faculty (continue reading here).
Trump’s education sec’y blocks grant funding for Harvard in all caps
The US Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was ending billions of dollars in research grants and other aid unless the school accedes to a list of demands from the Trump administration that would effectively cede control of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university to the government.
The news was delivered to Dr Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a deeply partisan letter from Linda McMahon, the education secretary, which she also posted on social media.
“This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek grants from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon wrote.
The text of McMahon’s letter, much like a Truth Social post from Donald Trump, is littered with all-caps words. “Where do many of these ‘students’ come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country – and why is there so much HATE?”
The main reason for the crackdown on Harvard is the school’s rejection of a long list of demands from the Trump administration’s antisemitism taskforce, prompted by campus protests against Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. McMahon also accuses the university of “a systematic pattern of violating federal law” (continue reading here).
MORE NEWS ON PROTESTS, ARRESTS, DEPORTATIONS, CRACK-DOWNS:
The Guardian: Michigan AG drops all charges against seven pro-Palestinian protesters
Mondoweiss: Meet the fired Microsoft employees challenging the company’s complicity in the Gaza genocide
Al Jazeera: Kehlani concert at NYC’s Central Park cancelled after singer supported Palestine
MORE NEWS:
Anadolu Agency: Gaza-bound aid ship attacked off Malta awaits permission to dock
Anadolu Agency: Israel demolishes over 150 Palestinian structures in occupied West Bank in April
Middle East Monitor: Palestinian prisoner rights group: Israel arrested 550 Palestinians in April, 52 Children
The Cradle: International airlines halt flights to Tel Aviv due to Yemeni air blockade
The Guardian: Palestinian activist Issa Amro says home raided ‘in revenge’ for appearing in Louis Theroux documentary
The Guardian: Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha wins Pulitzer prize for commentary
Anadolu Agency: Spain to boost funding for UN investigation into war crimes in Gaza
The New Arab: “Gaza: Medics Under Fire” documentary postponed by BBC
Middle East Monitor: Pope’s final wish: his car to become a mobile clinic for Gaza’s children
IMEMC Daily Reports
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – MAY 5, 2025:
- At least 53,582 Palestinians killed, 127,145 injured – including:
- at least 52,615 killed in Gaza (~15,600 children)
- at least 967 killed in the West Bank (~196 children)
- at least 118,752 injured in Gaza
- at least 8,393 injured in the West Bank
According to Palestinian authorities, during the ceasefire Jan. 19- March 18 2025, Israeli attacks killed at least 170 Gazans, and Israel committed at least 962 ceasefire violations.
Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 14,000 more are still buried under rubble.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – May 5, 2025: ~1,595 – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 413 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
- “Deprivation by Design”: Israel Intensifies Mass Killing Campaign in Gaza With Starvation and Daily Strikes
- The Vach brothers: creators of October 7 lies, and Israel’s first family of genocide
- Israel’s False Paramedics Story Exemplifies Its Information War Against Palestinians
- Mohsen Mahdawi: I Was Detained for My Beliefs. Who Will Be Next?
- In roadside Gaza attack, Israel kills 4-year-old girl and other children
- On the Day He Was Fired as National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz Used an Israeli App to Archive Signal Messages
- Israel closure orders deny education to 800 Palestinians in Occupied East Jerusalem: UN
- I was forced to burn my beloved books to survive in Gaza
- Israel carrying out ‘live-streamed genocide’ in Gaza, Amnesty says
- Regarding New JFK Disclosures, State Department Refuses to Acknowledge Israel’s Nukes
- They staged protests for Palestine. The consequences have been life-changing
- Biden Officials Admit They Never Pressured Israel for Ceasefire
- Commentary: Are You Tired of Hearing About Antisemitism?
- Israeli Opposition Leader Accuses Netanyahu of Plotting Assassinations
- How the creation of the ‘New Antisemitism’ was used to shield Israel and attack the Left
- Israel attacks make over 90 percent of Gaza’s agricultural land ‘unusable’
- The Starvation of Gaza
- How Israel’s war on Gaza has cut Palestinian life expectancy
- Why Hamas will not surrender
