Week-old baby killed in Israeli strike as aid fails to reach Palestinians
Israeli strikes have killed at least 45 people in Gaza, including several women and a week-old infant, hospital officials said.
The fresh strikes overnight into Wednesday come as Israel's war on Hamas shows no signs of relenting, despite a surge in international anger over the country's widening offensive.
Advertisement
Israel began allowing dozens of humanitarian trucks into Gaza on Tuesday, but the aid has not yet reached Palestinians in desperate need, according to aid groups.
Just a three-hour drive from
#Gaza
, food for 200,000 people, medicine for 1.6 million, blankets, hygiene kits and school supplies sit waiting.
Meanwhile, people in Gaza are in need of everything.
Supplies need to enter. Now.
pic.twitter.com/8W5N60n0yn
— UNRWA (@UNRWA)
May 21, 2025
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday evening that although the aid has entered Gaza, aid workers were not able to bring it to distribution points where it is most needed, after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies onto separate trucks and workers ran out of time.
Internal notes circulated among aid groups on Wednesday said that no humanitarian trucks had left Kerem Shalom, the border crossing in southern Gaza that is operated by Israel.
The notes said 65 trucks moved from the Israel side of the crossing to the Palestinian side, but had not made it into Gaza.
Advertisement
'We need this aid to enter now.
It has to go to people who are desperate.'
As the first trucks of humanitarian assistance are finally allowed to enter Gaza, our
@UNRWA
colleague takes us to a warehouse in Amman, Jordan, where supplies have been held up due to the blockade.
pic.twitter.com/9r03HY3irB
— United Nations (@UN)
May 20, 2025
The Israeli defence body that oversees humanitarian aid to Gaza said trucks were entering into Gaza on Wednesday morning, but it was unclear if that aid was able to continue into Gaza for distribution.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said they waited several hours to collect aid from the border crossing in order to begin distribution but were unable to do so on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the UK suspended free trade talks with Israel over its intensifying assault, a step that came a day after the UK, Canada and France promised concrete steps to prompt Israel to halt the war.
Separately, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc was reviewing an EU pact governing trade ties with Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza.
Advertisement
Israel's relentless assault is facing pressure from allies (AP)
Israel says it is prepared to stop the war once all the hostages taken by Hamas return home and Hamas is defeated, or is exiled and disarmed.
Hamas says it is prepared to release the hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the territory and an end to the war.
It rejects demands for exile and disarmament.
Israel called back its senior negotiating team from ceasefire talks in the Qatari capital of Doha on Tuesday, saying it would leave lower-level officials in place instead.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes continued to pound Gaza.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israel recently ordered new evacuations pending an expected expanded offensive, 24 people were killed, 14 of them from the same family. A week-old infant was killed in central Gaza.
Intensified Israeli ground operations and new evacuation orders in
#Gaza
are stretching the health system beyond the breaking point.
In northern Gaza, Indonesian, Kamal Adwan, and Al Awda hospitals, along with three primary care centers and four medical points, are within the…
pic.twitter.com/ecEWxfViNK
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros)
May 20, 2025
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes but has said it is targeting Hamas infrastructure and accused Hamas militants of operating from civilian areas.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Advertisement
The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel's retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swathes of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
Meanwhile, two of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals have been encircled by Israeli troops, preventing anyone from leaving or entering the facilities, hospital staff and aid groups said this week.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian people have died (AP)
The Indonesian hospital and al-Awda hospital are among the region's only surviving medical centres.
Israeli authorities issued evacuation orders last Friday for large parts of northern Gaza ahead of attacks intended to pressure the Hamas militant group to release more hostages. New evacuation orders followed on Tuesday.
Both hospitals as well as another and three primary health care centres are within the evacuation zone, though Israel has not ordered the evacuation of the facilities themselves.
Another two hospitals and four primary care centres are within a 1,000 yards of the zone, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organisation.
Israeli military operations and evacuation orders 'are stretching the health system beyond the breaking point,' he said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
23 minutes ago
- The Independent
Israel vows to prevent an aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists from reaching Gaza
Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that Israel wouldn't allow anyone to break its naval blockade of the Palestinian territory, which he said was aimed at preventing Hamas from importing arms.
Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Iran obtains ‘vast quantity' of secret Israeli military plans
Iran has acquired thousands of secret Israeli nuclear and defence documents, according to its state TV broadcaster. An IRIB report on Saturday claimed: 'Iran's intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime '. It said a mission to obtain the material - including documents, images and videos - was carried out 'a while ago'. Ronen Solomon, an Israeli intelligence analyst, told The Telegraph: 'I don't believe this latest information was gathered by Israelis, I think it's been stolen by hacking, more likely by a big group like Anonymous for Justice.' Mr Solomon said he suspected the operation took place last year. 'Usually when someone steals something like this and sells it on the dark network, it takes time for someone to buy it as the price negotiation and authentication takes time,' he added. A Microsoft report last year said Israel had become the top target of state-backed Iranian cyberattacks, overtaking the US. Israel has not commented on the claims. 'We don't know if it's information which is scientific or operational, and it could maybe be something like details of the supply chain, but it could also be a psychological operation,' Mr Solomon said. Dozens of Israeli citizens have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Iran, with Tehran launching an unprecedented wave of operations aimed at intelligence gathering and assassinating the Jewish state's top political and military figures. Last month, two Israeli men were arrested on suspicion of spying in the home town of Israel Katz, the defence minister. Mr Katz said he believed the men had been involved in 'an Iranian plot to harm me as defence minister of the State of Israel'. Sites such as the operating rooms of Israel's Iron Dome air defence system and the secretive nuclear site in Dimona, have been at the centre of Iran's secret operations. Oded Ailam, the former head of Mossad's counter-terrorism unit, said Iran has discarded the slow, resource-heavy methods of classical espionage, in which individual insiders are recruited over a long period of time. He said Iran had instead turned to aggressive mass campaigns on social media, with thousands of Israelis approached in one fell swoop. 'Messages like 'Want to earn some easy cash?' now pepper the digital landscape. No serious screening or background checks, just a Telegram or email message offering money for a 'simple task'. Track a senior figure. Snap a photo of a base. Willing to try? You're in,' he explained. 'This is Iran's version of digital marketing applied to espionage: blanket targeting, no filters. And like any marketing effort, only a tiny fraction need to respond for the campaign to succeed. To Tehran, even a one per cent success rate from a thousand messages is worth it. It's a chillingly rational approach: volume will eventually produce the quality they seek. And sadly, it works.' In April, Israeli Moti Maman, 73, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for having contacts with Iranian intelligence and travelling twice to Iran while Israel was fighting Tehran's proxies in Gaza and across the region. He is appealing the sentence, but many in Israel have called for an even harsher punishment. Since the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza, Israel has been under fire from Iran's proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and the occupied West Bank. Last month, CNN reported that, according to US intelligence chiefs, Israel was weighing an attack on Iran's nuclear sites. It came as US and Iran talks over Tehran's nuclear programme stalled over the issue of uranium enrichment. The US wants Iran to halt all enrichment as the UN's nuclear watchdog says Tehran has enough to make multiple warheads, while Iran says its programme is for civilian uses only and exerts its right to enrich, despite having broken international regulations in doing so.
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Why were so many Thai farmers among the hostages held by Hamas?
Israel says it has retrieved the body of a 35-year-old Thai hostage who was abducted into Gaza during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war. Nattapong Pinta was among 31 Thais taken by the Hamas militant group. Thailand's foreign ministry in a statement Saturday confirmed that Pinta, the last Thai hostage in Gaza, was confirmed dead. It said the bodies of two others have yet to be retrieved. The ministry has said 46 Thais have been killed during the war. Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive by Hamas. They were among tens of thousands of Thai workers in Israel. Here's a look at what they were doing. Why are there so many Thais in Israel? Israel once relied heavily on Palestinian workers, but it started bringing in large numbers of migrant workers after the 1987-93 Palestinian revolt, known as the first Intifada. Most came from Thailand, and Thais remain the largest group of foreign agricultural laborers in Israel today, earning considerably more than they can at home. Thailand and Israel implemented a bilateral agreement a decade ago to ease the way for workers in the agriculture sector. Israel has come under criticism for the conditions under which the Thai farm laborers work. A Human Rights Watch report in 2015 said they often were housed in makeshift and inadequate accommodation and 'were paid salaries significantly below the legal minimum wage, forced to work long hours in excess of the legal maximum, subjected to unsafe working conditions and denied their right to change employers.' A watchdog group found more recently that most were still paid below the legal minimum wage. How many Thai nationals work in Israel? There were about 30,000 Thai workers, primarily working on farms, in Israel prior to the attack by Hamas. In the wake of the attack, some 7,000 returned home, primarily on government evacuation flights, but higher wages than those available at home have continued to attract new arrivals. The Thai ambassador to Israel, Pannabha Chandraramya, recently said there are now more than 38,000 Thai workers in the country. What happened after some left? Faced with a labor shortage in the wake of the exodus, Israel's Agriculture Ministry announced incentives to try to attract foreign workers back to evacuated areas. Among other things, it offered to extend work visas and to pay bonuses of about $500 a month. Thailand's Labor Ministry granted 3,966 Thai workers permission to work in Israel in 2024, keeping Israel in the top four destinations for Thais working abroad last year. Thai migrant workers generally come from poorer regions of the country, especially the northeast, and even before the bonuses, the jobs in Israel paid many times what they could make at home.
