In a statement posted on X, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wrote: Over the past week, the IAF conducted a preliminary wave of strikes, striking over 670 Hamas terror targets throughout Gaza to disrupt enemy preparations and support ground operations. The IAF continues to provide consistent support to operating troops in Gaza. Thus far, the troops eliminated dozens of terrorists, dismantled terrorist infrastructure sites above and below ground, and are currently being deployed in key positions within Gaza. The IDF will continue to operate against the terrorist organizations in Gaza as required, in order to defend Israeli civilians. The Israeli military says it has begun extensive ground operations throughout northern and southern Gaza as part of a new assault on the territory. The Israeli ground forces are being supported by the county’s air force. More details soon… Israeli airstrikes killed at least 130 Palestinian people across Gaza overnight, health officials said on Sunday in an updated death toll (see more details in our opening post). As the Guardian’s international security correspondent, Jason Burke, notes in this story, Israel has put forward a plan to distribute humanitarian assistance from a series of hubs in Gaza run by private contractors and protected by Israeli troops. The US has backed the plan, which has been described as unworkable, dangerous and potentially unlawful by aid agencies because it could lead to the forced mass transfer of populations. The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that “we’re in a race against time to avoid famine” in Gaza. Israel imposed a blockade on the devastated Palestinian territory in early March, cutting off all supplies including food, medicine, shelter and fuel in what has been condemned as the collective punishment of the civilian population in Gaza. Despite the overwhelming evidence, the Israeli government claims there is “no shortage” of food in Gaza and has accused Hamas of looting aid. It says it imposed the blockade to pressure Hamas and secure the return of the remaining hostages. “We call on the international community to act urgently to get aid flowing again. If we wait until after a famine is confirmed, it will already be too late for too many,” the WFP said in a post on X. Israel’s war, which has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and driven most of the population from their homes, has left the territory almost entirely reliant on international aid. Amid Israel’s blockade, most community kitchens have now shut down. The main food providers inside Gaza – the UN’s WFP and World Central Kitchen — say they are out of food. Vegetables and meat are inaccessible or unaffordable. Crowds queue for hours for a small scoop of rice. The Gaza health ministry says 464 Palestinian people have been killed in Israeli military strikes on Gaza in the past week. It also said that 1,418 others had been injured in the same period between 11 May and 17 May. Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments on a potential deal with Hamas comes as Israel intensifies its war in Gaza with a new offensive named “Gideon’s Chariots,” in which Israel says it plans to seize territory, displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Gaza’s south (in a proposal that would effectively amount to ethnic cleansing) and take greater control over the distribution of aid. Israel has said the escalation of its assault is meant to increase pressure on Hamas, in order to agree to a temporary ceasefire that would free the remaining Israeli hostages, though this in itself wouldn’t necessarily end the war. Hamas, which has been the sole ruler in the Gaza Strip since 2007, says it wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a pathway to ending the war as part of any new ceasefire deal. But talk from Israeli officials of aiming to “conquer” the strip and establish a sustained presence there are at odds with Hamas’ position. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just indicated that Israel is open to a deal with Hamas that would include “ending the fighting” in Gaza. “Even at this very moment, the negotiation team in Doha is working to exhaust every possibility for a deal - whether according to the (US special envoy Steve) Witkoff framework or as part of ending the fighting, which would include the release of all the hostages, the exile of Hamas terrorists, and the disarmament of the Gaza Strip,” his office said in a statement. “Thanks to (Netanyahu’s) policy of exerting military and diplomatic pressure, the government has so far succeeded in bringing home 197 hostages, and is doing everything possible to return the 58 remaining captives,” the prime minister’s office said. A senior Israeli official said there has been little progress in the (indirect) talks so far in the Qatari capital of Doha. In an earlier post, we reported on the dire situation at the Indonesian hospital, which is reportedly under siege by Israeli forces. Now Gaza’s health ministry has said that all public hospitals in the north of the territory were “out of service”. “The Israeli occupation has intensified its siege with heavy fire around the Indonesian hospital and its surroundings, preventing the arrival of patients, medical staff, and supplies - effectively forcing the hospital out of service,” the ministry said. “All public hospitals in the North Gaza governorate are now out of service,” it added. The Indonesian hospital’s director, Marwan al-Sultan, told Al Jazeera earlier that anyone who moves is being shot at and confirmed that the hospital can no longer provide services for patients. As a reminder, South Africa has taken Israel to the UN’s top court and accused it of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel denies the charges. Here are some examples of who else has accused Israel of genocide. Previously, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said she believed Israel had committed “acts of genocide” in Gaza. Following an investigation, Amnesty International said in a report published in December that Israel had “committed prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction” with the “specific intent to destroy Palestinians” in the territory. The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) has stated “there is a legally sound argument that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza”, following research and analysis of evidence. Similarly, Human Rights Watch (HRW) declared that “Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide”. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been under an international arrest warrant since November over allegations of war crimes in Gaza. He denies the allegations. More high profile figures have come out accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jewish people in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. As my colleague Sam Jones notes in this story, the former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell accused the Israeli government of committing genocide in Gaza and “carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since the end of the second world war in order to create a splendid holiday destination”. Earlier this month, the former diplomat accused Israel of violating all the rules of conflict and of using the starvation of Gaza’s civilian population as a “weapon of war”. “Three times more explosive power has been dropped on Gaza than was used in the Hiroshima bomb,” he said. “And for months now, nothing has been getting into Gaza. Nothing: no water, no food, no electricity, no fuel, no medical services. That’s what [Benjamin] Netanyau’s ministers have said and it’s what they’ve done.” He added: “We all know what’s going on there, and we’ve all heard the objectives stated by Netanyau’s ministers, which are clear declarations of genocidal intent. Seldom have I heard the leader of a state so clearly outline a plan that fits the legal definition of genocide.” At least 53,339 Palestinian people have been killed and 121,034 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday. “There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the roads,” the health ministry wrote in its latest update on Telegram. Helena Smith is a Guardian correspondent Over in Greece, leftist groups and unions this weekend stepped up criticism of Israel staging another mass march in support of Palestinians in Athens. Days after protestors gathered to commemorate the ‘Nakba’ catastrophe that forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes during the 1948 Middle East war that gave birth to the state of Israel, demonstrators were back on the streets, denouncing the brutal offensive waged by the Israeli army in Gaza. “Greece is very near the Middle East and it feels the pain of the Palestinians,” said one woman requesting anonymity. “It’s appalling what the (centre-right) Greek government is doing, supporting Netanyahu’s criminal regime. Israel should be internationally isolated, right now that is the only moral thing to do. ” Marching towards the Israeli embassy, protestors called for the liberation of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza strip where widespread famine looms. They also called for the “exemplary punishment” of Israel’s war crimes before the international criminal court. The Israeli military said this morning it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen toward Israel, where sirens sounded in several areas. The Iranian backed Houthi rebel group said they had targeted Israel’s main airport, Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, with two ballistic missiles in an overnight operation. “The operation was carried out with two missiles, one a hypersonic Palestine 2 missile and a Zulfiqar missile,” the Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said during a televised news conference. He said the attack “successfully achieved its goal” after sirens had sounded across central Israel, sparking panic and reportedly sending hundreds of thousands to seek shelter in the middle of the night. The Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians being killed by Israeli forces in its assault on Gaza. Israel has carried out airstrikes in response, including one on 6 May that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sana’a and killed several people. Gaza’s health ministry has issued a statement accusing Israel of “intensifying its systematic campaign to target hospitals”. “After putting the European Gaza hospital out of service a few days ago, the Israeli occupation has intensified its targeting and siege of the Indonesian hospital in the northern Gaza Strip since dawn today,” it said. The territory’s health ministry described a “state of panic and confusion” among patients in the Indonesian hospital and said two patients were injured while trying to leave the hospital. The Gaza healthcare system is barely operational because of repeated Israeli bombardment and raids on hospitals, with the blockade on aid supplies exacerbating the crisis. “Hospitals are overwhelmed with the growing number of casualties, many are children, several cases of amputations and the hospitals, which have been hit repeatedly by the occupation, are struggling with shortages of medical supplies,” Khalil Al-Deqran, Gaza’s health ministry spokesperson, told Reuters by phone. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure on both the domestic and international front, has been accused of manipulating Israel’s war on Gaza to ensure his own political survival. The Israeli leader is on trial for corruption charges and his opponents say he is deliberately finding reasons to prolong the assault so he can cling on to power as prime minister. This includes shattering the January ceasefire deal with Hamas by launching a deadly wave of airstrikes on the territory in March, which families fear makes the return of Israeli hostages (alive) less likely. Netanyahu said at the time that the wave of deadly airstrikes that violated the terms of the ceasefire was “only the beginning”, adding that Israeli forces would strike Hamas with “increasing force” and future ceasefire negotiations would “only take place under fire”. A temporary first phase of the fragile ceasefire agreement, that came into effect in mid January, ended at the start of March. Hamas wanted to move to an agreed second phase, under which Israel would be required to negotiate an end to the war and withdrawal of its troops from Gaza, and Israeli hostages still held there would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners. But talks on the second stage were at an impasse amid Israel’s demand that the first phase be extended until mid-April. As we mentioned in the opening post, there were ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Qatar, which has acted as a mediator throughout the war, on Saturday. According to BBC News, Hamas agreed to release nine hostages in exchange for a 60-day truce and Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners from detention. Citing an official, the outlet reported that the deal would see entry of 400 aid trucks a day into Gaza and the evacuation of medical patients from the devastated territory. A Palestinian official close to the talks said: “Hamas is flexible about the number of hostages it can free, but the problem has always been over Israel’s commitment to end the war.” Israel has reportedly asked for proof of life of the hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza. It has not responded publicly to the proposal, but optimism over an agreement is low. On Saturday morning, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said in a statement: With the launch of Operation Gideon’s Chariots in Gaza, led with great force by IDF command, the Hamas delegation in Doha announced a return to negotiations on a hostage deal, contrary to the intransigent stance they had taken up until that moment. At least 101 Palestinian people have been killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since dawn, according to Al Jazeera. Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli airstrikes on Sunday killed at least 33 people, more than half of them children. The Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis said it received the bodies of 20 people who were killed in multiple overnight Israeli airstrikes that hit houses and tents sheltering displaced families in the so-called “safe zone” of al-Mawasi. In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah. One Israeli airstrike in the Zweida town killed seven people, including two children and four women. The second hit an apartment in Deir al-Balah, killing two parents and their child, the hospital said. Hundreds of Palestinian people have been killed by the Israeli military since Saturday, including at hospitals and refugee camps. The attacks are seen by many as part of efforts by Israel to displace Palestinians from the Strip and equivalent to ethnic cleansing as aid into the territory is blocked and residents forcibly removed from their homes. The relentless bombing campaign came after Israel announced an intensification of its assault on Gaza late on Friday, in what it claimed was a fresh effort to force Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, to release hostages. Hamas is believed to still hold around 57 of about 250 hostages seized in its October 2023 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people. On Saturday, Hamas confirmed a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks with Israel was under way in Doha. A group official, Taher al-Nono, told Reuters both sides were discussing all issues without “pre-conditions”. He added: The Hamas delegation outlined the position of the group and the necessity to end the war, swap prisoners, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and allowing humanitarian aid and all the needs of the people of Gaza back into the strip. Israel is yet to respond publicly to the proposed deal. Humanitarian officials, meanwhile, say Gaza is on the brink of catastrophe as food and fuel runs out due to a total Israeli blockade imposed on 2 March, which has also cut off critical vaccines and medical supplies.
Author: Yohannes Lowe (now) and Tom Bryant (earlier)