Gaza relief distribution remains suspended as bombings continue
Medics in Gaza said 55 people in total were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the enclave on Saturday.
At least 15 Palestinians were killed and 50 wounded by airstrikes in the Gaza City district of Sabra in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, local health authorities said.
More than one missile landed in the area. The target seemed to have been a multi-floor residential building, but the explosion damaged several other houses nearby, according to witnesses and media.
Israel has warned people to evacuate the nearby district of Jabalia, saying it was going to strike there after rockets were launched by militants in the vicinity.
Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion on Saturday. Reuters
The Israeli military said it had uncovered 'an underground tunnel route, including a command and control center from which senior Hamas commanders' operated beneath the European Hospital compound in southern Gaza.
It added that it had located several bodies of militants whose identities were 'under examination.'
The Israeli government and military said last month it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas' Gaza chief, but Hamas did not confirm his death.
AID GROUP
: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the US- and Israeli-backed aid group, said on Saturday it was unable to distribute assistance to Palestinian civilians, blaming threats by Hamas, which Gaza's dominant group denied.
Displaced Palestinians carrying their belongings in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip on Saturday. AP
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the GHF said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticised by humanitarian organisations for alleged lack of neutrality, said it was unable to distribute any humanitarian aid on Saturday because Hamas had issued 'direct threats' against its operations.
'These threats made it impossible to proceed today without putting innocent lives at risk,' the GHF said in a statement in which it also said it intended to resume aid distribution 'without delay'.
A Hamas official told Reuters he had no knowledge of such 'alleged threats'.
An APC maneuvers on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border on Saturday. Reuters
On Wednesday, the GHF suspended operations and asked the Israeli military to review security protocols after Palestinian hospital officials said more than 80 people had been shot dead and hundreds wounded near distribution points between June 1-3.
Eyewitnesses blamed Israeli soldiers for the killings. The Israeli military said it fired warning shots on two days, while on Tuesday it said soldiers had fired at Palestinian 'suspects' who were advancing towards their positions.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Saturday that Gaza's hospitals only had fuel for three more days and that Israel was denying access for international relief agencies to areas where fuel storages designated for hospitals are located.
There was no immediate response from the Israeli military or COGAT, the Israeli defence agency that coordinates humanitarian matters with the Palestinians.
ISRAELI HOSTAGE
: The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday, as Nattapong Pinta's body was held by a Palestinian group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Gaza on Saturday. Reuters
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel's military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
ROME PROTEST:
Hundreds of thousands of people marched through the streets of Rome on Saturday to protest the war in Gaza, in a rally called by opposition parties denouncing the government's alleged 'complicity' in the conflict.
Protestors hold placards as they join a demonstration called by Italian opposition parties in support of Palestinians in Gaza, in Rome on Saturday. AFP
'Stop the massacre, stop complicity!' read a wide banner held by protestors at the start of the march, amid a sea of red, white and green Palestinian flags, peace flags and 'Free Palestine' signs.
The peaceful protest attracted a massive crowd estimated by organisers at 300,000 people. Police later said those estimates were 'largely confirmed', according to Italian news agency AGI.
AID SHIP
: An aid ship with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, is nearing Gaza, having reached the Egyptian coast, organisers said on Saturday.
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