Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza as controversy and concern grow over humanitarian aid
Cindy McCain says aid trucks to Gaza are a "drop in the bucket as to what's needed"
Israeli strikes killed at least 52 people in the Gaza Strip on Monday, including some 36 in a school-turned-shelter that was struck as people slept, igniting their belongings, 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.
The strike on the school in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City also wounded more than 55 people, said Fahmy Awad, head of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry's emergency service. He said a father and his five children were among the dead. He said the school was hit three times while people slept, setting their belongings ablaze.
Palestinians comb the area following an Israeli airstrike at dawn on a school in the al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City that killed at least 31 people on May 26, 2025.
Dawoud Abo Alkas / Anadolu via Getty Images
The Israeli military said it had 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, adding that "numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians," according to French news agency AFP.
Israel says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of its over 2 million inhabitants, a plan that has been 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.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the 2023 terrorist attack. More than half the hostages have been returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals, eight have been rescued, and Israeli forces have recovered the remains of dozens more.
The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza, rendering entire neighborhoods uninhabitable. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to shelter in schools and squalid tent camps for well over a year.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed around 54,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. It says more than half the dead are women and children but does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Growing concern over food shortages in Gaza
Israel began allowing some humanitarian aid into Gaza last week after blocking all food, medicine, fuel or other goods from entering for 2-1/2 months. But aid groups say the supplies that have come in are nowhere near enough to meet the mounting needs of the enclave's residents.
U.N. World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Sunday on the CBS News' "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that the number of aid trucks allowed to enter Gaza last week was only a "drop in the bucket" compared to what's needed to stave off potential famine in the Palestinian territory.
A new aid system, supported by Israel and the United States but rejected by U.N. agencies and other aid groups, is expected to begin operations as soon as Monday, despite the resignation of the American who was supposed to lead the effort, who said it would not be able to operate independently.
Israel plans to roll out the new aid distribution system, run by a group known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and made up of former humanitarian, government and military officials, to set up distribution points guarded by private security firms. Israel has long accused Hamas of siphoning off aid supplies brought into Gaza, without providing evidence.
Palestinians, struggling with hunger due to an Israeli blockade, wait in line to receive hot meals distributed by charity organizations in Jabalia Refugee Camp, in Gaza City, Gaza, May 17, 2025.
Mahmoud ssa/Anadolu/Getty
The foundation said in a statement that it would begin delivering aid Monday and would reach a million Palestinians — around half of Gaza's population — by the end of the week.
U.N. agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the planned U.S.-backed system, saying it would force even more displacement, fail to meet local needs and violate humanitarian principles that prohibit a warring party from controlling humanitarian assistance. They also say there is no evidence of systematic diversion of aid by Hamas or other armed groups.
Jake Wood, the American heading the foundation, unexpectedly resigned Sunday, saying it had become clear that the foundation would not be allowed to operate independently. It's not clear who is funding the group. The foundation said in a statement Monday that it would "not be deterred" by Wood's resignation and would begin its delivery as planned.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
21 minutes ago
- CNN
Gaza Aid Operation Pauses After Days Of Deadly Shootings - The Lead with Jake Tapper - Podcast on CNN Audio
Gaza Aid Operation Pauses After Days Of Deadly Shootings The Lead with Jake Tapper 87 mins Despite Elon Musk trashing his bill, President Trump is moving on and meeting with Senate Republicans. Can he keep them all together? Plus, what Trump says Putin told him about Ukraine's two surprise attacks this week and Russia's clear plans to respond.
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Shooting of Israeli embassy staffers underscores US ‘era of violent populism'
The killing of two staff of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC comes as the war in Gaza has splintered the American body politic alongside the ongoing rise in political violence. A shooter, identified as Elias Rodriguez, shot the two people, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, outside the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday after they left an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee. Rodriguez reportedly chanted 'free, free Palestine' while being detained by security. This is the latest act of violence in a string of incidents that have affected Jewish, Arab and Muslim communities in the US. A man in Illinois attacked a six-year-old and his mother, both Palestinian American, and killed the boy in 2023 soon after Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel, and three Palestinian students were shot in Vermont in November 2023. Reports of antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism have soared since the war began. But an uptick in violence is not uniquely associated with the war in Gaza. It's a feature of this 'era of violent populism', said Robert Pape, director of the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats. Between assassination attempts on Donald Trump, ongoing threats of violence against a wide swath of government officials including judges, and an arson attack against the Pennsylvania governor, Wednesday's shooting was not one that happened in isolation. 'This is a chronic illness in our country,' Pape said. 'This is not a set of isolated events.' People who commit acts of political violence often believe they will be celebrated by some portion of the public that supports the same goals, he said. The alleged killer's supposed manifesto nods at this. 'They think about how they want to be perceived and what they want the news to be saying about them afterwards,' said Liliana Mason, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University. 'And it's a very kind of self-oriented set of motivations.' 'We know that this guy screamed Free Palestine. He probably thought that he was doing something political. But also, there are plenty of people who think we should free Palestine, who are not going to go murder a couple people.' A small portion of the pro-Palestinian movement has formally embraced the language of armed resistance, but the vast majority of those protesting against the war have been non-violent. In the day since the shooting, condemnations have come from all sides of the political spectrum, including from politicians who have opposed US involvement in the war and joined pro-Palestinian protests. It also sparked a debate over the distinction between antisemitism and anti-Israel political violence, in part because it remains unclear what the perpetrator knew about his victims. 'My heart breaks for the loved ones of the victims of last night's attack in DC,' said Rashida Tlaib, a congresswoman who is Palestinian American. 'Nobody deserves such terrible violence. Everyone in our communities deserves to live in safety and in peace.' Trump offered condolences to the loved ones of the couple killed in the attack. 'These horrible DC killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!' he wrote on Truth Social. 'Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.' Jews in the US have said it is another example of the menace they are facing as people protest against the war. Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania whose residence was the target of an antisemitic arson earlier this year, said he was 'heartbroken and horrified' by the attack. 'May their memories be a blessing and a call to action for each of us,' he wrote on social media. A writer in the conservative Jewish publication Commentary wrote that Jewish institutions would quickly work to increase security and that 'Jews will be arming ourselves'. Pape's surveys have tracked a growing acceptance of using violence to achieve political goals across the political spectrum. A poll he conducted in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League in spring 2023, before the Gaza war began, found that Americans who are highly antisemitic were three times more likely to support violence to achieve political aims than the general population. (The Anti-Defamation League is known for tracking antisemitism, but its methods have come under scrutiny for conflating antisemitism and anti-Zionism.) But the killings also show that the US is a 'tinderbox' and that political violence is a slippery slope, said Pape. People tend to compartmentalize political violence – if there's an act of violence against Jews, it's only a Jewish issue, the thinking goes, he said. But violence tends to beget more violence, and more acceptance of violence. His surveys in 2024 found increasing support for violence against Trump alongside support for violence in favor of Trump, stemming in part from a belief that the electoral and political systems won't address their grievances. 'The more political violence there is against Trump, the more there will be political violence against Democratic leaders like Josh Shapiro,' Pape said. 'The more there's political violence against Josh Shapiro, the more there will be antisemitic political violence. These are not compartmentalized issues.' Meanwhile, it's not only those in the Jewish and Palestinian communities who are being affected, but also those who have taken part in demonstrations associated with the war in Gaza. Police have used force against protesters on campuses and off, seeking to quash the mass movements that have sprung up around the globe. Thousands of students have been arrested, suspended, kicked out of colleges, lost financial aid, had their degrees withheld. Others who were in the US on visas have seen their immigration threatened and face deportation. The killings in Washington will probably lead to further crackdowns by the Trump administration on the pro-Palestinian cause. Pape's most recent survey, earlier this month, showed 39% of Democrats agreed that using force was justified to remove Trump from office and that only 44% of Republicans opposed Trump using the US military to stop protests. 'We can sleepwalk into martial law pretty easily,' Pape warned.
Newsweek
41 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Trump Escalates Feud With Harvard Over International Students in New Order
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The White House escalated its battle with Harvard University on Wednesday as President Donald Trump signed a proclamation blocking nearly all foreign students from entering the United States to attend the prestigious Ivy League institution. The Context Trump's move comes after a federal judge blocked his administration from revoking Harvard's ability to enroll international students. Harvard and other Ivy League schools have drawn Trump's ire since he took office in January over pro-Palestinian student activism on campus. His administration has accused the schools of allowing antisemitism and facilitating the spread of pro-Hamas propaganda by permitting the campus protests, which free-speech advocates say are protected by the First Amendment. What To Know "I have determined that the entry of the class of foreign nationals described above is detrimental to the interests of the United States because, in my judgment, Harvard's conduct has rendered it an unsuitable destination for foreign students and researchers," Trump said in his Wednesday order. The president's directive stems from Harvard's refusal to submit to the administration's demands to change its hiring and admission policies and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, among other issues. Trump's battle with the Cambridge, Massachusetts, university has also intensified in recent days after the school refused his administration's request for records related to foreign students' misconduct. Students from Harvard University's Kennedy School attend the all-university commencement on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 29. Students from Harvard University's Kennedy School attend the all-university commencement on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 29. VCG via AP Images This story is developing and will be updated as more information becomes available.
