Four Palestinians killed storming U.N. food warehouse in Gaza

Sydney Morning Herald

28-05-2025

A UN envoy compared the limited aid being allowed into Gaza to 'a lifeboat after the ship has sunk.' Sigrid Kaag, acting U.N. special coordinator for the Mideast, told the U.N. Security Council that people facing famine in Gaza 'have lost hope'.
'Instead of saying 'goodbye,' Palestinians in Gaza now say, 'See you in heaven,'' Kaag said Wednesday.
On Tuesday, thousands of Palestinians broke through fences around the distribution site where thousands had gathered.
The distribution hub outside Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah was opened Monday by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has been slated by Israel to take over aid operations.
The Israeli military, which guards the site from a distance, said it fired only warning shots to control the situation. The foundation said its military contractors guarding the site did not open fire. The Red Cross Field Hospital said the 48 people who were wounded suffered gunshot wounds, including women and children.
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The U.N. and other humanitarian organisations have rejected the new aid system, saying it will not be able to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.3 million people and that it allows Israel to use food to control the population. The organisations have also warned of the risk of friction between Israeli troops and people seeking supplies.
Israel says it helped establish the new aid mechanism to prevent Hamas from siphoning off supplies, but it has provided no evidence of systematic diversion, and U.N. agencies say they have mechanisms in place to prevent it while delivering aid to all parts of the territory.
GHF says it has established four hubs, two of which have begun operating in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah. It said about eight truckloads of aid were distributed at the hubs on Wednesday without incident. About 600 trucks entered Gaza every day during a ceasefire earlier this year.
The GHF sites are guarded by private security contractors and have chain-link fences channelling Palestinians into a what resemble military bases surrounded by large sand berms. Israeli forces are stationed nearby in a military zone separating Rafah from the rest of the territory.
The U.N. and other aid groups have refused to participate in GHF's system, saying it violates humanitarian principles. They say it can be used by Israel to forcibly displace the population by requiring them to move near the few distribution hubs or else face starvation, a violation of international law.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that 'there was some loss of control momentarily' at the Rafah distribution point, adding that 'happily, we brought it under control'.
He repeated that Israel plans to move Gaza's entire population to a 'sterile zone' at the southern end of the territory while troops fight Hamas elsewhere. Netanyahu has also vowed to facilitate what he refers to as the voluntary emigration of much of Gaza's population to other countries, a plan for what Palestinians and others view as forcible expulsion.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu said his country killed senior Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, the brother of Yahya Sinwar, one of the masterminds of the militant group's Oct. 7, 2023, attack, who was killed by Israeli forces last year.
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Speaking before parliament, Netanyahu included Sinwar in a list of Hamas leaders killed by Israeli forces, apparently confirming his death in a recent airstrike in Gaza.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas still holds 58 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive. Most of the rest were released in ceasefire deals or other agreements. Israeli forces have rescued eight and recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry says women and children make up most of the dead, but it does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.
In other developments on Wednesday, Israel carried out airstrikes on the international airport in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, destroying the last plane belonging to the country's flagship airline. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said it was the last plane used by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
The strikes came after Houthi rebels fired several missiles at Israel in recent days, without causing casualties. The Israeli military said it destroyed aircraft used by the rebels. It was not immediately clear if anyone was killed or wounded in the strikes.
The airport said the last plane belonging to the country's flagship carrier, Yemenia, had been destroyed. The airline did not say if anyone was wounded.
Houthi-backed Yemeni President Mahdi al-Mashat visited the airport on Wednesday and said his group would not back down from its support of people in Gaza until the siege ends, according to SABA Yemen News Agency.