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.
Israel killed 42 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip in air strikes on Monday, health officials said.
Risk of famine across all of Gaza, new report says
Populations across the Gaza Strip are at risk of famine as fighting has surged again, border crossings are still closed, and food is dangerously scarce. Hunger and malnutrition have intensified sharply since all aid was blocked from entering on 2 March, reversing the clear humanitarian gains seen during the ceasefire earlier this year.
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) snapshot released today, 470,000 people in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger (IPC Phase 5), and the entire population is experiencing acute food insecurity. The report also projects an alarming 71,000 children and more than 17,000 mothers will need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition. At the beginning of 2025, agencies estimated 60,000 children would need treatment.
“Families in Gaza are starving while the food they need is sitting at the border. We can’t get it to them because of the renewed conflict and the total ban on humanitarian aid imposed in early March,” said the UN World Food Programme’s Executive Director Cindy McCain. “It’s imperative that the international community acts urgently to get aid flowing into Gaza again. If we wait until after a famine is confirmed, it will already be too late for many people.”
The IPC snapshot for Gaza projects that renewed military operations, the ongoing complete blockade, and the critical lack of supplies needed for survival could push food insecurity, acute malnutrition and mortality levels past the famine thresholds in the coming months.
The vast majority of children in Gaza are facing extreme food deprivation as confirmed by 17 UN agencies and NGOs in the IPC report. Coupled with the severely limited access to health services and critical shortages of clean water and sanitation, rapid increases in acute malnutrition are expected in North Gaza, Gaza and Rafah governorates.
Malnutrition rates are rising in Gaza and hunger could have lasting impacts on “an entire generation”, the World Health Organization’s representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory said on Tuesday.
Rik Peeperkorn said he had seen children in clinics who looked years younger than their age.
“Without enough nutritious food, clean water and access to health care, an entire generation will be permanently affected,” Peeperkorn told a press briefing by video link from Deir al-Balah, warning of poor health, stunting and impaired cognitive development.
Additional details from the IPC report:
- About 1.95 million people, or 93 percent of Gaza’s population, are living with acute food shortages.
- Among them are 244,000 people, or 12 percent of the population, who are experiencing the most severe, or “catastrophic”, food shortages.
- IPC’s October analysis had said 133,000 people were in the “catastrophic” category, which refers to famine conditions or the fifth level of the monitor’s five-level scale.
- About 470,000 people, or 22 percent of the population, are projected to fall into the catastrophic category by the end of September, with more than a million more at “emergency” levels, the fourth level on the IPC’s scale.
- “From 11 May to the end of September 2025, the whole territory is classified in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), with the entire population expected to face Crisis or worse acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above),” the report said.
NOTE: Israeli officials have claimed that Gaza has plenty of food – so much that the blockade is an opportunity to reduce obesity. Others insist, without evidence, that Hamas has been stealing aid. On the contrary, Israeli news outlets have reported that the Israeli military itself is behind the looting of aid trucks.
“We have thousands of children affected by acute malnutrition. This must stop. The humanitarian aid must enter at scale inside Gaza.” – UNICEF’s Jonathan Crickx
A new report shows that children in Gaza are at risk of famine amid fighting, closed border crossings & food scarcity. pic.twitter.com/7VLsclydSq
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) May 12, 2025
Hamas frees soldier Edan Alexander as Gaza faces bombardment, famine risk
Hamas has released Edan Alexander, a dual United States-Israeli national and soldier, as it seeks to revive ceasefire negotiations and bring an end to Israel’s punishing blockade on the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed on Monday evening that it had facilitated the soldier’s transfer. An image was released showing Alexander with Hamas members and a Red Cross official.
Hamas said it had released Alexander as a goodwill gesture towards US President Donald Trump, who is visiting Arab Gulf nations this week.
Fighting briefly stopped to allow for the handover after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would permit safe passage for the release (continue reading here).
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, thanked Trump for his role in Edan’s release but also claimed credit was due to Israeli forces and his own government’s military strategy.
“This was achieved thanks to our military pressure and the diplomatic pressure applied by President Trump. This is a winning combination,” he said in a statement.
The Israeli leader has insisted throughout the war that military pressure is the best way to ensure that the hostages return home, even as Trump stepped up calls for a deal to end the conflict (continue reading here).
Hamas has rejected the Israeli prime minister’s claim that military pressure helped secure the release of a US-Israeli soldier from Gaza.
“The return of Edan Alexander is the result of serious communications with the US administration and the efforts of mediators, not a consequence of Israeli aggression or the illusion of military pressure,” Hamas said in a statement.
The group added that Netanyahu is “misleading his people”.
Photos indicate that Edan Alexander is in good condition.
Israel is currently holding over 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in inhumane conditions where many are systematically tortured – 400 of them are children, 35 are women, and over 3,500 are administrative detainees – being held without charge or trial. Administrative detention is intended to be used only in “exceptional” circumstances, but Israel uses it widely. Read more here.
RELATED:
Hostages of Israeli revenge in the Gaza Strip: Testimonies of 100 released Palestinian detainees reveal crimes of torture, cruel treatment.
Contrasting reality: Treatment of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners
Israel says it will hold off intensified attacks on Gaza
Israel will carry on with its plan to ramp up the war on Gaza, but it won’t launch it until after Trump’s visit to the Middle East, to allow for a potential new ceasefire deal to emerge, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
Al-Aqsa guards thwart attempt by colonists to bring animal sacrifice to the mosque’s courtyards
The guards of Al-Aqsa Mosque Monday thwarted an attempt by colonists to bring an “animal sacrifice” into its courtyards through Bab al-Ghawanmeh.
Local sources reported that colonists stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque through Bab al-Ghawanmeh—one of its gates—in possession of a small lamb. Al-Aqsa guards pursued them and thwarted their attempt to offer it in Al-Aqsa on the second Passover holiday.
594 colonists stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque today, performing provocative Talmudic rituals in its courtyards, amid restrictions on worshippers.
RELATED: Why is Jewish worship at al-Aqsa Mosque so controversial?
Israel approves new method of land theft in West Bank
Israel’s security cabinet yesterday approved a decision aimed at implementing large-scale land registration in the West Bank for the first time since the territory came under occupation in 1967, the Palestinian Information Centre reported.
This Israeli decision would lead to the final registration of property rights in Area C of the West Bank – the area placed under exclusive Israeli control according to the Oslo Accords. This violates international law and is expected to deepen discrimination against Palestinians, who are likely to face significant challenges in proving their land rights.
Additionally, the security cabinet instructed the Israeli occupation’s military establishment to halt “by any means at its disposal” a parallel land registration process initiated by the Palestinian Authority (PA). Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the decision would strengthen illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The term “land registration” refers to the official recording of property rights following a process of mapping and verification of ownership claims. Once finalised, the registration, known in Palestine as Tabu, is very difficult to contest. As part of the process, any land without documented ownership claims is transferred to the Israeli occupation state (continue reading here; learn about home demolitions here).
I was with Shireen Abu Akleh when she was murdered. Was justice served when her murderer was killed?
Three years ago, on May 11, 2022, Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead by an Israeli soldier in the Jenin refugee camp, by a bullet that was neither the first fired at Palestinian journalists, nor the last.
On that terrible day, we were a group of journalists — Shireen, Ali al-Samoudi, Mujahid al-Saadi, and I. We were doing our job, clearly marked as press. Then the shooting started. Ali was shot in the shoulder. Mujahid, in a moment, jumped over a wall and stood above us, shouting down, “Pull her away!” I stayed behind the tree, trying to survive the hail of bullets and to reach Shireen, who had collapsed beside me after being shot.
Since then, the list of journalists killed in Gaza has grown to over 214. Here in the West Bank, my colleagues are thrown in prison. Six months ago, Israeli forces arrested Mujahid, and about a week ago, they also arrested Ali. Both were placed under what is known as administrative detention — arrest without charge or trial. And through it all, the world remains deafeningly quiet.
On the third anniversary of her martyrdom, I write to Shireen — not just as a memory, but as a presence that still lingers in every word spoken for truth, in every word from Gaza, Jenin, and across Palestine. I write to all the martyrs whose voices were silenced too soon, and to those who still stand to speak when the world chooses silence (continue reading here).
RELATED: Who Killed the Christian American journalist? And why did Biden cover it up?
Republicans Sneak Nonprofit Killer Bill Into the Tail End of Trump’s 389-Page Tax Plan
To advance President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax cuts, House Republicans on Monday unveiled a proposal that could hand him a powerful new tool to go after his political enemies.
The House Ways and Means Committee will meet Tuesday for a mark-up session of the 389-page draft plan, a massive bundle of draft amendments central to the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that aims to cut trillions of dollars in government spending.
Among those amendments, buried on page 380 of the draft, is a section that would enable Trump’s secretary of the Treasury to denounce any nonprofit as a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip it of its tax-exempt status.
“This seems to just give the president a tool to go after his political enemies and fulfill some of the darker elements of the Project 2025 agenda,” said Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council.
A previous version of the clause — dubbed the “nonprofit killer bill” — was introduced in 2023. Critics viewed that legislation as a bipartisan expression of pro-Israel policy and opposition to pro-Palestinian speech (continue reading here).
Google Worried It Couldn’t Control How Israel Uses Project Nimbus, Files Reveal
Before signing its lucrative and controversial Project Nimbus deal with Israel, Google knew it couldn’t control what the nation and its military would do with the powerful cloud-computing technology, a confidential internal report obtained by The Intercept reveals.
The report makes explicit the extent to which the tech giant understood the risk of providing state-of-the-art cloud and machine learning tools to a nation long accused of systemic human rights violations and wartime atrocities. Not only would Google be unable to fully monitor or prevent Israel from using its software to harm Palestinians, but the report also notes that the contract could obligate Google to stonewall criminal investigations by other nations into Israel’s use of its technology.
And it would require close collaboration with the Israeli security establishment — including joint drills and intelligence sharing — that was unprecedented in Google’s deals with other nations.
A third-party consultant Google hired to vet the deal recommended that the company withhold machine learning and artificial intelligence tools from Israel because of these risk factors.
Three international law experts who spoke with The Intercept said that Google’s awareness of the risks and foreknowledge that it could not conduct standard due diligence may pose legal liability for the company. The rarely discussed question of legal culpability has grown in significance as Israel enters the third year of what has widely been acknowledged as a genocide in Gaza — with shareholders pressing the company to conduct due diligence on whether its technology contributes to human rights abuses (continue reading here).
RELATED: What Google’s largest-ever acquisition of an Israeli software company tells us about Big Tech’s complicity in genocide
Gaza aid flotilla stranded after Israeli attack as Malta blocks repairs
A week after an Israeli strike targeted the Freedom Flotilla on its way to break the blockade on Gaza, one of its ships remains stranded in international waters near Malta with its crew still onboard.
The vessel, al-Ḍamīr, suffered damage on 2 May during what organizers call a deliberate Israeli attack in international waters. Since then, Malta has refused to allow the ship to dock for repairs, drawing sharp criticism from human rights activists and flotilla organizers.
Palestinian-American human rights lawyer Huwaida Arraf, a founding member of the International Solidarity Movement and one of the flotilla’s organizers, accused the Maltese government of complicity.
“We have received reports suggesting that Israel pressured Malta to deny us entry,” she said. “If true, this demands a full investigation.”
Arraf described Malta’s refusal to let the damaged ship dock as both a legal and moral failure.
“They ignored our distress calls after the attack. Cyprus responded first, but couldn’t help. Eventually, a nearby tugboat helped us extinguish the fire,” Arraf said.
Turkey has since evacuated six of its nationals from the vessel via its embassy in Malta, but the remaining 12 crew members have chosen to stay onboard. Arraf says leaving the ship would risk its confiscation and jeopardize the mission.
“We didn’t want to abandon the cargo or the cause,” she said.
Last week, Malta proposed carrying out repairs at sea, a move Arraf dismissed as “theatrical”. She said the repairs cannot be completed safely in open waters. “They should let us dock, plain and simple. Anything else is a smokescreen.”
She accused Mediterranean states of bowing to Israeli and US pressure. “They’re not only refusing to send aid to Gaza. They’re stopping us from doing it too. That’s complicity in a crime.”
RELATED: From USS Liberty to Rachel Corrie: Israel’s Attacks on U.S. You Probably Didn’t Know About
NEWS ON PROTESTS, ARRESTS, DEPORTATIONS, CRACK-DOWNS:
Al Jazeera: Mohsen Mahdawi to Al Jazeera: Detention won’t stop me, I draw strength from Palestine’s struggle
MORE NEWS:
Palestine Chronicle: Inside the Torture Cells: How Israel is ‘Slowly Killing’ Palestinian Resistance Leaders
Anadolu Agency: Over 600 media figures urge BBC to air shelved Gaza medics documentary
Middle East Monitor: Israel approves new method of land theft in West Bank
Al Jazeera: Movie stars condemn ‘genocide’ in Gaza before Cannes Festival
IMEMC Daily Reports
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – MAY 12, 2025:
- At least 53,875 Palestinians killed, 128,114 almo injured – including:
- at least 52,908 killed in Gaza (~15,600 children)
- at least 967 killed in the West Bank (~196 children)
- at least 119,721 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 12, 2025: ~1,598 – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 414 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel.
By one count, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 204 Palestinian journalists and media workers; Palestinians have killed 4 Israelis (other groups have tallied between 170 and 263 Palestinian journalists killed – depending on the criteria used).
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)
- US Gaza pier op was more than a flop, it was a gigantic hazard
- To my newborn son: I am absent not out of apathy, but conviction
- What Google’s largest-ever acquisition of an Israeli software company tells us about Big Tech’s complicity in genocide
- ‘Tortured, starved, and even killed’: How Israeli forces have accelerated arrest campaigns against Palestinian children since genocide began
- Knesset Debate Reveals Not Everyone Thinks Starving Gazan Children Is a Bad Thing
- US-Hamas talks show that peace is possible
- Why many Americans are unaware of the massive event in Gaza BEFORE October 7th
- 15 Family Members Killed in Israeli Strike on Gaza; Only Seven-year-old, His Mother Survived
- Israel Targets Gaza’s Last Lifeline for Food and Escalates Civilian Killings amid Widespread Famine
- Israel Must Let International Journalists Into Gaza: Our Call as Foreign Press Association Members
- Israel is starving Gaza to death, and still the world does nothing
- The Trump Administration Is Hiding American Casualties of War
- Inside Waltz’s Ouster: Before Signalgate, Talks With Israel Angered Trump
- “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
