A new aid system in Gaza has started operations, a US-backed group says

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military offensive take shelter in tents near Gaza's seaport, in Gaza City May 26, 2025. (REUTERS)
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military offensive take shelter in tents near Gaza's seaport, in Gaza City May 26, 2025. (REUTERS)
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Updated 27 May 2025
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A new aid system in Gaza has started operations, a US-backed group says

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military offensive take shelter in tents near Gaza's seaport, in Gaza City May 26, 2025.
  • The UN and aid groups have pushed back against the new system, which is backed by Israel and the United States

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: A new aid system in Gaza opened its first distribution hubs Monday, according to a US-backed group that said it began delivering food to Palestinians who face growing hunger after Israel’s nearly three-month blockade to pressure Hamas.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is taking over the handling of aid despite objections from United Nations. The desperately needed supplies started flowing on a day that saw Israeli strikes kill at least 52 people in Gaza.
The group said truckloads of food — it did not say how many — had been delivered to its hubs, and distribution to Palestinians had begun. It was not clear where the hubs were located or how those receiving supplies were chosen.
“More trucks with aid will be delivered tomorrow, with the flow of aid increasing each day,” the foundation said in a statement.
The UN and aid groups have pushed back against the new system, which is backed by Israel and the United States. They assert that Israel is trying to use food as a weapon and say a new system won’t be effective.
Israel has pushed for an alternative aid delivery plan because it says it must stop Hamas from seizing aid. The UN has denied that the militant group has diverted large amounts.
The foundation began operations a day after the resignation of its executive director. Jake Wood, an American, said it had become clear the foundation would not be allowed to operate independently. It’s not clear who is funding the group, which said it had appointed an interim leader, John Acree, to replace Wood,
The organization is made up of former humanitarian, government and military officials. It has said its distribution points will be guarded by private security firms and that the aid would reach a million Palestinians — around half of Gaza’s population — by the end of the week.
Under pressure from allies, Israel began allowing a trickle of humanitarian aid into Gaza last week after blocking all food, medicine, fuel or other goods from entering since early March. Aid groups have warned of famine and say the aid that has come in is nowhere near enough to meeting mounting needs.
Hamas warned Palestinians on Monday not to cooperate with the new aid system, saying it is aimed at furthering those objectives.
Airstrikes hit shelter
The Israeli airstrikes killed at least 36 people in a school-turned-shelter that was hit as people slept, setting their belongings ablaze, according to local health officials. The military said it targeted militants operating from the school.
Israel renewed its offensive in March after ending a ceasefire with Hamas. It has vowed to seize control of Gaza and keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed, and until it returns the remaining 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, from the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the 2023 attack. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed around 54,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It says more than half the dead are women and children but does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Israel says it plans to facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of over 2 million people in Gaza, a plan rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community.
Israel’s military campaign has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and internally displaced some 90 percent of its population. Many have fled multiple times.
Rescuers recover charred remains
The strike on the school in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City also wounded dozens of people, said Fahmy Awad, head of the ministry’s emergency service. He said a father and his five children were among the dead. The Shifa and Al-Ahli hospitals in Gaza City confirmed the overall toll.
Awad said the school was hit three times while people slept, setting fire to their belongings. Footage circulating online showed rescuers struggling to extinguish fires and recovering charred remains.
The military said it targeted a militant command and control center inside the school that Hamas and Islamic Jihad used to gather intelligence for attacks. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in residential areas.
A separate strike on a home in Jabalya in northern Gaza killed 16 members of the same family, including five women and two children, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies.
Palestinian militants meanwhile fired three projectiles from Gaza, two of which fell short within the territory and a third that was intercepted, according to the Israeli military.
Ultranationalists march in east Jerusalem, break into UN compound
Ultranationalist Israelis gathered Monday in Jerusalem for an annual procession marking Israel’s 1967 conquest of the city’s eastern sector. Some protesters chanted “Death to Arabs” and harassed Palestinian residents.
Police kept a close watch as demonstrators jumped, danced and sang. The event threatened to inflame tensions that are rife in the restive city amid nearly 600 days of war in Gaza.
Hours earlier, a small group of protesters, including an Israeli member of parliament, stormed a compound in east Jerusalem belonging to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which Israel has banned. The compound has been mostly empty since January, when staff were asked to stay away for security reasons. The UN says the compound is protected under international law.

 


Drone attack targets Tawke oilfield in Iraq’s Kurdistan

Drone attack targets Tawke oilfield in Iraq’s Kurdistan
Updated 3 min 15 sec ago
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Drone attack targets Tawke oilfield in Iraq’s Kurdistan

Drone attack targets Tawke oilfield in Iraq’s Kurdistan
BAGHDAD: A drone attack targeted Norwegian oil and gas firm DNO's oilfield in Tawke in the Zakho Administration area of northern Iraq on Thursday, according to the Kurdistan region's counter-terrorism service.
It is the second attack on the DNO-operated field amid a wave of drone attacks that began early this week.

PHOTO GALLERY: Massive demonstrations in Aleppo in rejection of foreign intervention in Syria’s internal affairs

PHOTO GALLERY: Massive demonstrations in Aleppo in rejection of foreign intervention in Syria’s internal affairs
Updated 7 min 4 sec ago
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PHOTO GALLERY: Massive demonstrations in Aleppo in rejection of foreign intervention in Syria’s internal affairs

PHOTO GALLERY: Massive demonstrations in Aleppo in rejection of foreign intervention in Syria’s internal affairs

Israel’s airstrikes blew up part of Syria’s defense ministry and hit near the presidential palace as it vowed to destroy government forces attacking Druze in southern Syria and demanded they withdraw.

People took to the streets of Aleppo in rejection of foreign intervention in Syria’s internal affairs.


Two dead, several injured in raid on Catholic church in Gaza

Two dead, several injured in raid on Catholic church in Gaza
Updated 27 min 31 sec ago
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Two dead, several injured in raid on Catholic church in Gaza

Two dead, several injured in raid on Catholic church in Gaza
  • The strike damaged the Holy Family Church, the only Catholic Church inside the Palestinian enclave

GAZA CITY: Two women were killed and several people were injured following a strike which hit the Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip, doctors at the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City said on Thursday.
The strike damaged the Holy Family Church, the only Catholic Church inside the Palestinian enclave.
The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Israeli Defense Forces said it was looking into the matter.
Italy’s ANSA news agency said six people were seriously injured, while parish priest Father Gabriele Romanelli, who used to regularly update the late Pope Francis about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, suffered light leg injuries.
“Israeli raids on Gaza have also hit the Holy Family Church,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a statement.
“The attacks against the civilian population that Israel has been carrying out for months are unacceptable. No military action can justify such an attitude,” she added.


Yemen’s Houthis claim missile attack on Israel airport

Yemen’s Houthis claim missile attack on Israel airport
Updated 48 min 8 sec ago
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Yemen’s Houthis claim missile attack on Israel airport

Yemen’s Houthis claim missile attack on Israel airport
  • Israel has carried out several air strikes on Yemen, including on the port city of Hodeida earlier this month

Yemen’s Houthis claimed a missile launched at Israel’s main civilian airport, after the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from the Arabian Peninsula country.
The Houthis targeted Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv with a “Zulfiqar ballistic missile” and drone, military spokesman Yehya Saree said late Wednesday.
In the video statement, he also announced drone attacks on military targets and the southern Israeli port of Eilat.
The Houthis have launched repeated missile and drone attacks against Israel since the Gaza war began in October 2023, sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel, claiming solidarity with Palestinians.
In response, Israel has carried out several air strikes on Yemen, including on the port city of Hodeida earlier this month.
The Israeli military had said that “following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, one missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted.”
Early on Wednesday, pro-government forces in Yemen said they seized “750 tons of weapons” en route from Iran to the Houthis.
US Central Command hailed the operation, calling it “the largest seizure of Iranian advanced conventional weapons in their history.”
Tarek Saleh, who heads the Yemeni National Resistance Forces, said in a post on X that the seizure included “naval and air missile systems, an air defense system, modern radars, drones, monitoring devices, anti-tank missiles, B-10 artillery, tracking lenses, sniper rifles, ammunition, and military equipment.”
Earlier this month, the Houthis resumed deadly attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, targeting ships they accuse of having links to Israel, to force Israel to end the Gaza war.


Fire at mall in Iraq leaves at least 60 dead, officials say

Fire at mall in Iraq leaves at least 60 dead, officials say
Updated 17 July 2025
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Fire at mall in Iraq leaves at least 60 dead, officials say

Fire at mall in Iraq leaves at least 60 dead, officials say
  • “We have compiled a list of 59 victims whose identities have been confirmed, but one body was so badly burned that it has been extremely difficult to identify,” a city health official told Reuters

BAGHDAD: A massive fire in a hypermarket in Al-Kut city in eastern Iraq has left at least 60 people dead and 11 others missing, the city’s health authorities and two police sources told Reuters on Thursday.
Videos circulating on social media showed flames engulfing a five-story building in Al-Kut overnight as firefighters tried to contain the blaze.
Reuters could not independently verify the videos.
“We have compiled a list of 59 victims whose identities have been confirmed, but one body was so badly burned that it has been extremely difficult to identify,” a city health official told Reuters.
“We have more bodies that have not been recovered still under fire debris,” city official Ali Al-Mayahi told Reuters.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known, but the province’s governor said initial results from an investigation would be announced within 48 hours, the state news agency (INA)reported.
“We have filed lawsuits against the owner of the building and the mall,” INA quoted the governor as saying.