A New Aid System in Gaza Has Started Operations, a U.S.-Backed Group Says
The Associated Press
Walaa Al-Kilani, center, mourns her mother and brother, who were killed when an Israeli military strike hit a school sheltering displaced residents, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Monday, May 26, 2025.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A new aid system in Gaza opened its first distribution hubs Monday, according to a U.S.-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 U.N. 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 U.N. 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% 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 U.N. 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 U.N. says the compound is protected under international law.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Mainichi
2 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Bill Emmott: China shifting from 'wolf warrior' diplomacy in style swap with US
By Bill Emmott, independent writer, lecturer and international affairs consultant A few years ago, the talk was about China's "wolf warrior" diplomacy, a term used to describe the aggressive, often coercive style being used by Chinese ambassadors all over the world but especially in the Indo-Pacific. It felt as if the Chinese government simply didn't care about whether other governments liked China or not. This year, however, the Chinese style seems to have changed. To some extent, in fact, that wolf-warrior style has been taken over by the United States. This swapping of styles was displayed clearly at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue of Indo-Pacific defence and security ministers that was hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank of which I have the honour of being chairman, in Singapore from May 30 to June 1. Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, did not use the term "wolf" but in his powerful speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue he talked frequently about reintroducing "the warrior ethos" into the American military and to America's deterrence posture in the region. Unusually for a U.S. Secretary of Defense, he referred specifically to the threats being posed by China in the region and named that country not just as China but as "Communist China," an ideological style rarely heard since the end of the Cold War 35 years ago. This message was perfectly welcome from the point of view of the Indo-Pacific countries, especially traditional security allies such as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, and other partners in South-East Asia. For decades, the region has been happy to have American warriors helping to keep the peace. But now that American peacekeeping has "wolf" elements attached, albeit chiefly in an area of policy that is outside Secretary Hegseth's remit, trade and other things are feeling less comfortable. Under President Joe Biden's administration, countries often complained that America was not paying sufficient attention to trade and foreign investment, even while it was strengthening its security commitments. Since January, under Donald Trump's administration the complaints have reversed: The huge import tariffs he imposed on countries in the region on his so-called "Liberation Day" of April 2 represent far more attention than the region wanted. In fact, they represent a severe economic blow. Questioned about this at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Secretary Hegseth simply avoided answering by saying that trade was his boss's responsibility, not that of the Department of Defense. He also, however, stated that Trump's foreign policy approach was that America should not be telling other countries what they should be doing -- yet his trade policy appears to many in the region to be doing exactly that. The interesting thing is that instead of attending the Singapore event and exposing that contradiction, China chose to stay away and keep its head down. Unlike in recent years, China chose not to send its minister of national defense, nor even any senior military officers from the People's Liberation Army, and gave no explanation for its seemingly last-minute decision. Each time a Chinese official asked a question, however, it was one about tariffs or about America's treatment of the 10 (soon to be 11 with Timor-Leste joining) members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The intention seemed to be to exploit the contradiction in America's approach, but to do so quietly and gently rather than in the wolf-warrior style. This lower-key, more genuinely diplomatic policy was also shown by the fact that one day before the Shangri-La Dialogue China unveiled a new multilateral institution of its own, to be based in Hong Kong: the International Organization for Mediation. A convention to establish the new organization was signed by 30 countries, notably including Indonesia. The likely work of the new organization remains unclear, except that the convention says that it will aim to help resolve international disputes through mediation rather than through existing legal bodies such as the International Court of Justice. It is also not yet clear what sort of disputes might benefit from this mediation, but it is reasonable to suppose that one potential candidate might be the frontier dispute between two ASEAN members, Cambodia and Thailand, a recurrent dispute which led to an exchange of gunfire on May 28 and the death of a Cambodian soldier. Policy contradictions are not unique to the United States. China says that this new organization will aim to reinforce the principles of the United Nations Charter of 1945. Yet the most flagrant breach of those principles in recent years has been the invasion and seizure of Ukraine's sovereign territory by Russia, which is China's strategic partner "without limits," according to the Joint Statement issued by China and Russia three weeks before the attempted military takeover of Ukraine in February 2022. Furthermore, there are no signs of a condemnation by China of Russia's breach of the U.N. Charter nor of China proposing the use of its new mediation organization to try to bring an end to that deadly war. According to Kaja Kallas, the European Union's chief representative for foreign and security policy, China is the source of 80% of Russia's imports of dual-use goods that it needs for its war. Nor has China commented publicly on Russia's use of North Korean troops to fight alongside its own army in this war on the European continent. The other contradiction in China's position is that in the South China Sea, its own navy and coastguards are the most frequent cause of disputes over territorial waters and the reefs beneath them. China is confronting military and civilian ships from the Philippines on a daily basis, and it has ignored a 2016 ruling by the International Court of Arbitration in the Hague over those waters and the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. If China chooses during the coming months or years to try to test the "warrior ethos" Secretary Hegseth talked about at the Shangri-La Dialogue, it is likely to do so over its dispute with the Philippines in the South China Sea, to see what Trump's America is willing to do under the terms of its Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951 with the Philippines. Such a test would risk raising the U.S.-China confrontation to a new and dangerous level. Until and unless such a test happens, what we are seeing looks like a new stage in Chinese diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific: to be quiet, to sound cooperative and to provide a market for regional exports that is easier to access than the United States. The "wolf warrior" has, for the time being, been superseded by the friendly, quite reasonable-sounding neighbourhood mediator. Let's see how long this phase lasts.
Japan Today
12 hours ago
- Japan Today
Princess Kako receives medal in Brazil
Princess Kako meets with Sao Paulo Gov Tarcisio de Freitas at the Bandeirantes Palace in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Friday. By SAO PAULO Japan's Princess Kako, a niece of Emperor Naruhito, received the highest order of Brazil's state of Sao Paulo on Friday during her 10-day 11-day trip to the South American nation. Her trip also marks the 130th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The younger daughter of Crown Prince Fumihito and Crown Princess Kiko arrived on Thursday in Sao Paulo. She held appointments with members of the Japanese community on Friday and finished her schedule at a dinner with Governor Tarcisio de Freitas at the state government palace. She was awarded the Order of the Ipiranga at a closed ceremony. Princess Kako is welcomed to the Bunkyo Brazilian Society of Japanese Culture in Sao Paulo on Friday. Image: AP/Andre Penner Princess Kako will visit another seven cities, including Rio de Janeiro and capital Brasilia, where she is expected to meet President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Speaking to de Freitas, she made reference to the first Japanese immigrants arriving in the city of Santos in 1908 after a gruesome trip through the seas. On the first day of her trip, she visited the memorial to pioneer Japanese immigrants at Sao Paulo's Ibirapuera Park. 'I felt that the immigrants made an enormous effort to adapt to Brazil, and still today are very active in different areas. The fact that Brazil sheltered the Japanese community made the connections between the two countries to become deeper,' the princess said. Today, Brazil has the largest population of people of Japanese descent in the world, estimated at about 2.7 million. About half of those live in Sao Paulo state, official figures show. Emperor Naruhito has no male children, which makes his brother Akishino, Princess Kako's father, the first successor in line. Japan's tradition does not allow women to take the throne. Princess Mako, who is Princess Kako's older sister, was the last member of Japan's imperial family to visit Brazil. She traveled to 13 cities of the South American nation in 2018. © 025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Yomiuri Shimbun
13 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
They Served the Nation. Now, These Veterans Say They're Protesting to Save It.
Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post Participants at a 'Protect Our Veterans' rally in Huntsville, Alabama, in March. As soon as he was old enough to enlist, there was little doubt in Reed Radcliffe's mind that he would serve his country. His father was in the Navy. His grandfather, too. Now, decades later, as he watches President Donald Trump's administration rapidly overhaul the federal workforce and propose deep cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs, he said there was little doubt in his mind that he wanted to voice his disapproval. 'A lot of the people I served with are 100 percent disabled,' said Radcliffe, 68, who spent two decades in the Navy. 'What if they lose their care? What if they served the country but can now no longer make ends meet?' So this week he drove from St. Louis to D.C. to be among the thousands of veterans from across the country expected to pour onto the National Mall for a rally Friday afternoon that organizers say is a grassroots push 'to defend our American values, protect civil servants and restore dignity to public service.' Veteran-led protests will occur at hundreds of locations across dozens of states to protest the Trump administration's VA cuts. Veterans, who make up a disproportionate share of the federal workforce, are feeling the brunt of the rapid push to shrink the federal workforce, stirring ire in a reliable political base for Republicans. 'I didn't think I'd be doing this at my age, but I can't stand by,' said Radcliffe, who said the Unite for Veterans rally will be the first time he has protested in the nation's capital. He made a sign for the occasion: 'In America we shouldn't have to defend democracy from the president.' Organizers are expecting 10,000 to 20,000 participants and say speakers will include Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois), a combat-wounded Iraq War veteran; former congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), an Air National Guard veteran; and former congressman Conor Lamb (D-Pennsylvania), a Marine Corps veteran. Massachusetts punk rock band Dropkick Murphys is also scheduled to perform. Friday marks 81 years since D-Day, when allied forces landed on the beach in Normandy and invaded northern France during World War II. Next week, the National Mall will host a multimillion-dollar celebration honoring the Army's 250th birthday, including a day-long festival, fireworks and a parachute jump. Dozens of tanks will roll, and thousands of soldiers from across the country will march in a parade at a time when the service is cutting some programs to fund Trump's priorities. The celebration will occur on Trump's 79th birthday. Christopher Purdy, one of the rally's organizers, considers the parade to be a waste of money, but he said it is not the focus of Friday's action. 'This is not about the parade. This is about the veteran community and honoring the sacrifices of veterans,' said Purdy, who served for eight years in the National Guard and deployed to Iraq in 2011. Morale is plummeting inside VA as tens of thousands of employees prepare for deep staffing cuts, raising alarms among staffers, veterans and advocates who fear the reductions would severely damage care and benefits for millions of the nation's former service members. VA Secretary Douglas A. Collins has signaled plans to shrink the agency's workforce by 15 percent, or about 83,000 employees. Thousands of employees across VA's health and benefits systems have opted for early retirement, The Washington Post previously reported after reviewing internal data. Many of these employees said they are opting to leave out of fear that they would be laid off. Marine veteran Stephanie Schroeder, 42, said that in recent months, she has found herself having to console VA employees tasked with taking care of her because they fear losing their jobs. 'One of them even broke down in tears saying she knew she was next and she didn't know how she would be able to pay her bills,' she said. 'It's absolutely horrible that these employees who make sacrifices to work at VA caring for veterans are being treated like this.' She comes from a family of veterans and is proud to be the first woman in her family to join the military. Schroeder is the chair of the women's veterans caucus at Common Defense, a veteran-led organization, and is traveling from North Carolina to attend the rally in the hope of shining a light on the diminishing quality of care. 'Under President Biden, we were finally making progress,' she said. 'Now Trump is blowing the whole system up.' Rayven Greer, who served a year in the Navy and is 'sixth-generation military,' said she is carpooling from Pittsburgh to attend the D.C. rally. She uses a cane to walk, but said she didn't want that to stop her from marching. The stakes feel too high. 'As an LGBTQ veteran myself, I've already had care taken away,' said Greer, 30. She said she recently lost her therapist and is struggling to find another. 'Cuts aren't just going to affect me; they are going to affect my parents, my siblings, my family,' she said. 'Their lifeline, essentially, in the middle of rural Pennsylvania is the VA.'
