Fourth Israeli soldier dies by suicide in two weeks, army confirms
In a statement issued on Sunday, the army said Dan Phillipson, a trainee originally from Norway, died after shooting himself last Tuesday at a training facility in southern Israel. He later succumbed to his injuries in hospital.
Israeli media report that 19 soldiers have died by suicide since the beginning of the year, including 42 since the war on Gaza began.
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Middle East Eye
4 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
At least 90 killed by Israel in Gaza on Wednesday
At least 90 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Wednesday, the vast majority from Israeli air strikes, health officials said. Twenty of the victims were aid seekers at the sites of the US-Israeli food distribution project, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The United Nations said 1,000 Palestinians scrambling for food have been killed at GHF sites since May.
Gulf Today
10 hours ago
- Gulf Today
Israeli forces kill over 1,000 aid-seekers in Gaza since May: UN
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food in the Gaza Strip, mostly near aid sites run by an American contractor, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday. More than 59,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says that more than half of the dead are women and children. The UN and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes killed 25 people across Gaza, according to local health officials. Desperation is mounting in the Palestinian territory of more than 2 million, which experts say is at risk of famine because of Israel's blockade and nearly two-year offensive. A breakdown of law and order has led to widespread looting and contributed to chaos and violence around aid deliveries. Men walk carrying sacks of flour in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday. AFP Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid - without providing evidence of widespread diversion - and blames UN agencies for failing to deliver food it has allowed in. The military says it has only fired warning shots near aid sites. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed American contractor, rejected what it said were "false and exaggerated statistics' from the United Nations. The Gaza Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, said Tuesday that 101 people, including 80 children, have died in recent days from starvation. The deaths could not be independently verified, but UN officials and major international aid groups say the conditions for starvation exist in Gaza. During hunger crises, people can die from malnutrition or from common illnesses or injuries that the body is not strong enough to fight. Israel eased a 2½-month blockade in May, allowing a trickle of aid in through the longstanding UN-run system and the newly created GHF. Aid groups say it's not nearly enough. Dozens of Palestinians lined up Tuesday outside a charity kitchen in Gaza City, hoping for a bowl of watery tomato soup. The lucky ones got small chunks of eggplant. As supplies ran out, people holding pots pushed and shoved to get to the front. Smoke rises after an explosion in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border, on Tuesday. Reuters Nadia Mdoukh, a pregnant woman who was displaced from her home and lives in a tent with her husband and three children, said she worries about being shoved or trampled on, and about heat stroke as daytime temperatures hover above 90 F (32 C). "I do it for my children," she said. "This is famine - there is no bread or flour.' The UN World Food Program says Gaza's hunger crisis has reached "new and astonishing levels of desperation.' Ross Smith, the agency's director for emergencies, told reporters Monday that nearly 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and a third of Gaza's population is going without food for multiple days in a row. MedGlobal, a charity working in Gaza, said five children as young as 3 months had died from starvation in the past three days. "This is a deliberate and human-made disaster," said Joseph Belliveau, its executive director. "Those children died because there is not enough food in Gaza and not enough medicines, including IV fluids and therapeutic formula, to revive them.' Mourners react during the funeral of Palestinians, including aid seekers, killed in Israeli attacks, according to medics, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, on Tuesday. Reuters The charity said food is in such short supply that its own staff members suffer dizziness and headaches. Of the 1,054 people killed while trying to get food since late May, 766 were killed while heading to sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to the UN human rights office. The others were killed when gunfire erupted around UN convoys or aid sites. Thameen al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the UN rights office, says its figures come from "multiple reliable sources on the ground,' including medics, humanitarian and human rights organizations. He said the numbers were still being verified according to the office's strict methodology. Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces regularly fire toward crowds of thousands of people heading to the GHF sites. The military says it has only fired warning shots, and GHF says its armed contractors have only fired into the air on a few occasions to try to prevent stampedes. A joint statement from 28 Western-aligned countries on Monday condemned the "the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians.' Demonstrators hold signs, during a protest demanding an end to the war in Gaza and the release of all hostages, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Tuesday. Reuters "The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,' read the statement, which was signed by the United Kingdom, France and other countries friendly to Israel. "The Israeli government's denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable.' Israel and the United States rejected the statement, blaming Hamas for prolonging the war by not accepting Israeli terms for a ceasefire and the release of hostages abducted in the fighter-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the fighting. Hamas has said it will release the remaining hostages only in return for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. Israel says it will keep fighting until Hamas has been defeated or disarmed. Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people Tuesday across Gaza, according to local health officials. One strike hit tents sheltering displaced people in the built-up seaside Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties. The Israeli military said that it wasn't aware of such a strike by its forces. Israeli activists gather at HaBima Square for a protest march towards the Israeli defence ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv on Tuesday denouncing the ongoing food shortage and forced displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. AFP The dead included three women and three children, the hospital director, Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, told The Associated Press. Thirty-eight other Palestinians were wounded, he said. An overnight strike that hit crowds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City killed eight, hospitals said. At least 118 were wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. "A bag of flour covered in blood and death," said Mohammed Issam, who was in the crowd and said some people were run over by trucks in the chaos. "How long will this humiliation continue?' The Israeli military had no immediate comment on that strike. Israel blames the deaths of Palestinian civilians on Hamas, because the fighters operate in densely populated areas. Israel renewed its offensive in March with a surprise bombardment after ending an earlier ceasefire. Talks on another truce have dragged on for weeks despite pressure from US President Donald Trump. Hamas-led fighters abducted 251 people in the Oct. 7 attack, and killed around 1,200 people. Fewer than half of the 50 hostages still in Gaza are believed to be alive. Associated Press
Middle East Eye
12 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
US contractor recounts gruesome details of Gaza aid delivery
A US mercenary unloaded an entire can of pepper spray into the face of a Palestinian man picking noodles off the ground, and other contractors shot into crowds of starving people trying to collect food in Gaza, a US security contractor told Israeli media. Those are just some of the harrowing details that a 25-year-old contractor who recently worked for a security firm guarding distribution sites for the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) shared with Israel's Channel 12 news in an interview aired on Tuesday. The man, whose face was blurred and voice distorted to protect his identity, said he was a US military veteran who had deployed 12 times to four different war zones, but never saw such violence carried out against unarmed civilians as that by Israeli soldiers and US mercenaries in Gaza. 'I have never in my entire military career... have I been a part of, allowed, or bystander to the use of force against unarmed innocent civilians. Ever. And I'm not going to do it now,' he said. 'There is no fixing this,' he said. 'Put an end to it.' New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while trying to access food in Gaza since the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations, the United Nations said on Tuesday. GHF distribution sites are guarded by two US security firms: Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) and UG Solutions. SRS is run by a former high-ranking CIA officer and tied to a US private equity firm in Chicago, Middle East Eye has reported. Both companies have come under scrutiny for the violence unfolding at aid sites where starving Palestinians are trying to collect food. The Associated Press reported earlier this month that American contractors guarding the sites are using live ammunition and stun grenades against Palestinians. The GHF told MEE on Thursday that while some of its aid workers had been attacked and injured en route to the sites, there have been "no incidents or fatalities at or in the immediate vicinity" of any of the sites. The spy, private equity baron and ghost of a Trump donor: The revolving door behind a Gaza mercenary firm Read More » The former contractor interviewed by Channel 12 recounted similar atrocities. 'There was a man who was on the ground. He was on his hands and knees and he was picking up individual noodles,' he said. 'This guy wasn't armed. He wasn't a threat. This UG contractor sprayed an entire can of pepper spray on to this guy's face. That's lethal.' In another case, the contractor recounted standing next to a Palestinian woman hit by a stun grenade: 'She collapsed, fell to the ground. That was the moment I knew I couldn't continue.' The man also said that US contractors were firing live rounds at starving Palestinians. Job adverts for US mercenaries going to Gaza have called for applicants with weapons training and experience in 'warfare tactics'. 'As the Palestinians were finishing getting the aid that was on the site, the UG Solutions personnel began shooting in their direction, shooting at them, shooting at their feet,' he said. Israeli troops have admitted to deliberately shooting and killing unarmed Palestinians waiting for aid in the Gaza Strip, following direct orders from their superiors. The US and Israeli-backed GHF was established to supplant the UN in distributing aid in Gaza. Only a trickle of food has entered the enclave, and some Palestinians, including children, are dying of hunger. The contractor said Israeli engineers who planned the GHF sites did not appear to consider humanitarian factors or accessibility. 'If the UN method had the amount of support and security and coordination that GHF is getting, the UN process would be very successful,' he said.
