Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
The bodies of 79 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday, with 211 wounded.
Among the dead were at least five Palestinians by an Israeli attack that targeted people gathering around a truck carrying flour in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza.
The Israeli army says jets struck 100 targets in Gaza over the past 24 hours. One of the targets was reportedly a rocket launcher that was used to fire at southern Israel the previous day.*
*NOTE: Israel has consistently bombed civilian locations, claiming that Hamas fighters were present, then failed to produce evidence, or used unnecessarily destructive bombs.
RELATED: Palestinian doctor receives the charred remains of her nine children following an Israeli air strike on her home in southern Gaza
‘Situation on the ground in Gaza has not improved’
Ahmad al-Najjar, a Gaza resident and journalist, says a very limited number of aid trucks managed to reach southern Gaza after they were allowed into the enclave by Israeli forces.
“The situation on the ground has not improved in any way, and it has not got better for the starving families here,” he told Al Jazeera from Khan Younis.
He stressed that the bakeries, where the trucks carrying flour are supposed to go, are located in the areas recently designated as “military zones” by Israel, and have closed.
“Basically, nothing has changed, and families did not receive the bread they have been expecting,” al-Najjar said. “On top of that, these bakeries are almost in central Gaza, but many families cannot go there.”
Israel continues to close crossings, enforce systematic starvation: Gaza government
Other than about 100 trucks of aid this week, Israel has continued to close the crossings for the 84 consecutive days, the Government Media Office in Gaza said on Saturday, rejecting Israeli media claims that aid is delivered to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip daily.
In a statement, it said Israel “is disabling more than 90 percent of the Strip’s bakeries, reflecting its policy of engineering starvation,” adding, “hundreds of thousands of tons of humanitarian aid have piled up outside Gaza and have been damaged or spoiled due to Israel’s refusal to allow their entry for many months.”
The office confirmed that Israel’s starvation policy has led to the death of 326 Palestinians over the past 80 days amid the ongoing genocide.
During the 84-day siege and closure, at least 46,200 aid and fuel trucks were scheduled to enter Gaza to meet the population’s basic needs.
RELATED: Al-Awda Hospital’s Supply of Medicine Totally Burned Due to Israeli Bombing
Cooking in Gaza is now a toxic affair
We used our last drop of cooking gas in the middle of Ramadan. Like all other families in Gaza, we turned to firewood. I remember my mother saying, “From today, we cannot even make a cup of tea for suhoor.”
That is because starting a fire, having even a flicker of light at night could attract a drone or a quadcopter, resulting in an air strike or a barrage of bullets. We don’t know why light at night is targeted, but we know we don’t have the right to ask.
[During the day] Thick, black smoke hangs heavy in the air – not the smoke of death from missiles, but the smoke of life that kills us slowly.Each morning, we wake up coughing – not a passing cough, but a deep, persistent, choking cough that rattles through our chests (continue reading here].
US-led aid distribution in Gaza postponed to Monday or Tuesday
Originally set to begin on Sunday, the delay is due to logistical reasons, Israeli outlet Ynet reported.
Three aid distribution points have been established in the enclave: In Rafah, between the Morag and Philadelphi axes, and on the Saladin axis, the outlet said.
The aid will be distributed to Palestinians through family representatives, Ynet reported.
RELATED:
What is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and why has it been criticized?
How Netanyahu’s Office Chose a U.S. Firm With No Aid Experience to Run Gaza Food Project Behind Israeli Army’s Back
Israeli military uses human shields in Gaza systematically, soldiers and former detainees tell the AP
The only time the Palestinian man wasn’t bound or blindfolded, he said, was when he was used by Israeli soldiers as their human shield.
Dressed in army fatigues with a camera fixed to his forehead, Ayman Abu Hamadan was forced into houses in the Gaza Strip to make sure they were clear of bombs and gunmen, he said. When one unit finished with him, he was passed to the next.
“They beat me and told me: ‘You have no other option; do this or we’ll kill you,’” the 36-year-old told The Associated Press, describing the 2 1/2 weeks he was held last summer by the Israeli military in northern Gaza (continue reading here).
NOTE: Israel’s use of Palestinians as human shields has been widely reported for many months, for example: the Guardian, Al Jazeera, and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Years earlier, reports were filed by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International; Defense for Children International also revealed the Israeli military’s use of a child as a human shield.
As far back as 2005, the Israeli supreme court ruled that the use of the human shield procedure in raids is illegal and a violation of international law – this ruling followed at least 1,200 incidents in the previous five years. Clearly, the practice has become widespread again.
RELATED:
In Gaza, Almost Every IDF Platoon Keeps a Human Shield, a Sub-army of Palestinian Slaves
U.S. Media’s Doublespeak: Israelis Live in “Densely Populated Areas,” Palestinians Are “Human Shields”
What are Israel’s obligations under international law?
UN chief Guterres has reminded Israel that it has obligations as the occupying power in Gaza, including to ensure that the needs of the occupied Palestinian population are met.
What exactly are Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law?
The Fourth Geneva Convention, which lays out rules for the protection of civilians during armed conflict, states that an occupying power “has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population”.
“It should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate,” it says.
Occupying powers also have an obligation “to the fullest extent” possible to maintain medical and hospital establishments. They must also facilitate “relief schemes” if the occupied population does not have access to adequate supplies.
The UN and the world’s top human rights groups have said for months that Israel is not only failing to supply adequate food, water, medicine and other needed supplies to people in Gaza, it is impeding deliveries of humanitarian assistance.
RELATED: Israel Kills Yaqeen Hammad, Gaza’s Child Journalist
“Genocide deniers’ dumbest talking point”
Palestinian journalist Muhammad Shehada writes on X: “Gaza famine is caused by Hamas stealing food” Stealing it for what?
“To buy weapons” US Amb. says.
FROM WHERE? Walmart? Gaza is fully sealed off.
“To sell on the blackmarket” he says.
AND DO WHAT WITH THE MONEY? Only thing to buy is FOOD They can’t use the money to buy a bombed house (92% of homes destroyed). They can’t use the money go on vacation in the Deir Al-Balah riviera. They can’t store the money in banks (Israel destroyed every single bank in Gaza, except one administrative office that doesn’t take any deposits or make any withdrawals). Nothing goes into Gaza except food & medicine.
So Hamas would steal food to sell in order to buy food?!? Do those propagandists hear themselves?
The only documented organized systematic looting happening in Gaza right now is by Israeli-backed criminal gangs who enjoy full protection from the IDF & operate in Rafah (where no Palestinian is allowed).
Joe Biden’s humanitarian envoy David Satterfield admitted in February 2024 that “No Israeli official has…come to the administration with specific evidence of diversion or theft of assistance delivered by the UN in center & south of Gaza since October 21 [2023].”
Israel’s own ambassador to the EU, Haim Regev, had said in mid-October 2023 that “there’s no evidence EU aid went to Hamas.” UN April 2025: “there is no evidence of large-scale aid diversion.”
Israel subjects Gaza to the world’s most meticulous surveillance in history, yet they NEVER presented a single piece of evidence showing Hamas looting aid.
None-stop (sic) drone & satellite surveillance of every inch of Gaza, eavesdropping on every phone call & message, yet nothing!
PS. Every UN agency & serious expert says the only way to stop looting (inc by criminal gangs) is to flood Gaza with aid; then there would be no value in looting food when it’s abundant & available to all.
ALSO FROM MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Trump’s Extremely Dangerous and Dystopian Gaza Aid Plan
WEST BANK HEADLINES:
(For background on the West Bank, read this and this)
