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Protesters gather in Tel Aviv on June 28, 2025. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]
Tens of thousands of people rallied across Israel on Saturday, calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, according to local media reports, Anadolu reported.
Demonstrations were held in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities, according to the Haaretz newspaper.
Protests followed a 12‑day conflict between Israel and Iran, which erupted June 13 when Tel Aviv launched airstrikes on Iranian military, nuclear and civilian sites, killing at least 606 victims and injuring 5,332, according to the Iranian Health Ministry.
Tehran launched retaliatory missile and drone strikes, killing at least 29 people and wounding more than 3,400 in Israel, according to figures released by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The conflict came to a halt under a US-sponsored ceasefire that took effect June 24.
On the heels of getting Tel Aviv and Tehran to sing a deal, US President Donald Trump said Friday that a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will be reached soon.
“I think it’s close,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked how close his administration is to a deal on a Gaza ceasefire.
Israeli officials expressed surprise Saturday at those remarks, affirming there are no indications of any change in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s positions, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
Hamas has repeatedly affirmed its readiness to release Israeli hostages “all at once” in exchange for an end to Israel’s genocidal war, the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
But Netanyahu, who is wanted by international justice officials, insists on partial deals and evades signing a deal by imposing new conditions, including the disarmament of Palestinian factions.
According to the Israeli opposition, Netanyahu currently insists on reoccupying Gaza to serve his political interests, particularly maintaining his hold on power.
Israeli officials estimate that Trump seeks to leverage the momentum following the end of the Israel-Iran confrontation to achieve an additional political accomplishment.
In May, the US president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff presented a proposal to Hamas that included the release of half of the living Israeli hostages and half of those killed within seven days of the start of a potential agreement, in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire.
Tel Aviv estimates that there are 50 Israeli hostages in Gaza, including 20 alive. There are more than 10,400 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, suffering from torture, starvation and medical neglect, which has resulted in many deaths, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights and media reports.
Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive against Gaza since October 2023, killing more than 56,400 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Charity organizations distribute food to Palestinians at Nusierat Refugee Camp in Gaza City, Gaza on June 26, 2025. [Hassan Jedi – Anadolu Agency]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered a halt to aid deliveries to northern Gaza after far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich threatened to quit the coalition, citing unverified claims that Hamas was looting humanitarian supplies.
Smotrich reportedly made the ultimatum during a cabinet meeting, referencing a widely circulated video on social media showing armed men atop aid trucks. Although the footage was quickly seized upon by pro-government figures including former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Israel’s own military has been unable to confirm that the gunmen were affiliated with Hamas.
Haaretz cited media outlets in the Gaza Strip who reported that the gunmen are not Hamas operatives, but security guards sent by tribal leaders to protect aid truck convoys from looting. The aid documented in the video reached its destination – the UN warehouses in the Gaza Strip – and was distributed to residents
Despite this, Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant ordered the army to submit a “plan of action” within 48 hours to prevent what they described as Hamas “taking control of the humanitarian aid entering northern Gaza and stealing it from civilians.”
Israel has continually blamed Hamas for the looting of aid and used it as a justification to bypass UN aid distribution mechanisms to install the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Observers have stressed that the worsening aid crisis has been driven not by Hamas but by criminal gangs—some empowered by Israel itself. Among them is the militia led by Yasser Abu Shabab, a figure named in UN documents for systematically looting aid. His group has been armed and supported by Israel in an apparent effort to establish a post-Hamas order in the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli security source, quoted in Yedioth Ahronoth, warned that the plan is failing. Abu Shabab’s group, active near Rafah, has struggled to assert control or fulfil Israel’s expectations, and internal divisions have complicated their operations.
In a public statement, the Abu Shabab militia paradoxically demanded an “immediate solution” to the problem of aid theft—despite being implicated in it. The group offered vague promises about a new distribution mechanism but gave no details.
Israel’s reliance on criminal gangs and tribal militias to manage aid distribution has failed to bring order. Although the US-funded GHF remains the main agency overseeing aid deliveries, the presence of armed groups has contributed to worsening insecurity.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, over 500 Palestinians have been killed in the past month during Israeli shooting at food distribution centres, as crowds gathered in desperation.
On Wednesday, 74 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, 33 of them while waiting for food. The total Palestinian death toll since October 7 now exceeds 56,000.
Aid agencies have repeatedly warned that the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is deepening, with mass starvation looming. In June alone, over 1,600 children were hospitalised for severe malnutrition.
A Palestinian woman mourns people killed in an Israeli attack on makeshift tents for displaced civilians in Gaza City, Gaza on June 4, 2025. (Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images
“We cannot continue to watch what is happening,” said Mirjana Spoljaric. “It’s surpassing any acceptable legal, moral, and humane standard.”
The president of one of the world’s top humanitarian groups said in an interview Wednesday that nearly 20 months after Israel began its relentless assault on Gaza, the international community is watching “a type of warfare… that deprives civilians of their dignity entirely.”
Jeremy Bowen, international editor for BBC News, asked International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) president Mirjana Spoljaric about comments she made last month when she visited Gaza, several weeks into Israel’s total blockade on humanitarian aid, and declared that the enclave had been transformed into “hell on Earth.”
“Has anything changed?” asked Bowen.
“It has become worse,” replied Spoljaric. “Humanity is failing in Gaza… We cannot continue to watch what is happening. It’s surpassing any acceptable legal, moral, and humane standard.”
"The fact that we are watching people being entirely stripped of their human dignity should really shock our collective conscience."
Mirjana Spoljaric, ICRC President, shared with @BowenBBC about the dire situation for civilians in Gaza and made a call for leaders to act now👇🏽 pic.twitter.com/aF99fzcGWP
Spoljaric’s latest remarks came a week after the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began its aid operations, with proponents claiming the private company staffed by U.S. security contractors would save the lives of Gaza residents who have faced increasing starvation and malnutrition since the current blockade began in March—while ensuring Hamas did not steal or divert the aid. The United Nations has said there is no evidence Hamas has systematically diverted relief from civilians.
Fears about the GHF’s plan—expressed by aid organizations, the U.N., and the former executive director who resigned the day before operations began—have been proven correct since the group opened its distribution sites in southern Gaza last week. At least 27 Palestinians were killed Tuesday at one of the aid sites when the Israel Defense Forces opened fire—yet another incident of the IDF killing of people trying to obtain aid.
The ICRC said its field hospital in Rafah received “a mass casualty influx of 184 patients” early on Tuesday morning.
“This includes nineteen cases who were declared dead upon arrival and eight more who died due to their wounds shortly after,” said the group. “The majority of cases suffered gunshot wounds. Again, all responsive patients said they were trying to reach an assistance distribution site.”
Mohamed Zidan, the husband of a woman named Reem al-Akhras who was killed in Tuesday’s mass shooting, said the GHF operation was “not humanitarian aid—it’s a trap.”
“She went to bring us some food, and this is what happened to her,” her son Zain Zidan told Al Jazeera.
Journalist Rania Khalek condemned corporate news outlets for their reports of “conflicting accounts” as Israel said that the IDF fired only at “several suspects moving toward them.”
“Outrageous,” said Khalek. “The Israelis are proven liars, their narrative should not be given any legitimacy. CNN continues to cover for genocide, shameful.”
"The fact that we are watching people being entirely stripped of their human dignity should really shock our collective conscience."
Mirjana Spoljaric, ICRC President, shared with @BowenBBC about the dire situation for civilians in Gaza and made a call for leaders to act now👇🏽 pic.twitter.com/aF99fzcGWP
Israeli forces also opened fire at one of the sites on Sunday, killing 20 people and wounding hundreds who had walked an average of 9.3 miles to the distribution hub, hoping to carry home food boxes weighing about 44 pounds, with enough food to last about three days before they would need to make the trek—and avoid IDF soldiers stationed at the sites—again.
On Wednesday, the GHF said its four distribution sites would be closed for the day to improve “organization and efficiency,” while the IDF warned Palestinians to stay away from the sites and the roads leading to them, saying they had been designated “combat zones.”
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres demanded an independent inquiry into the killing of Palestinians at food distribution sites.
“It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food,” Guterres said.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported Wednesday that at least 94 Palestinians had been killed and 440 had been wounded in Israel’s attacks across the enclave in the past 24 hours.
In her interview with the BBC, Spoljaric said that the destruction of more than 90% of Gaza’s housing units, the risk of famine for the entire population, and the forced displacement of 90% of Palestinians in the enclave represent “a people being entirely stripped of its human dignity.”
“There is no excuse for depriving children of their access to food, health, and security,” said Spoljaric. “There are rules in the conduct of hostilities that every party to every conflict has to respect.”
Spoljaric called on international leaders to take all available actions to stop “a type of warfare that shows utmost disrespect for civilians.”
“Today we are in it,” she said. “Today we can reverse it. We can save lives today.”
Few U.S. officials have called for an end to the government’s support for the IDF, and the U.S. continues to repeat Israel’s claim that it is acting in self-defense and targeting Hamas rather than civilians.
Several European leaders in recent weeks have harshly criticized Israel’s intensified military campaign in Gaza and its humanitarian aid blockade, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul suggesting the country could soon impose arms export sanctions.
“It’s important to act now,” said Spoljaric. “State leaders are under an obligation to act.”
Original article by republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) launched the Madleen, a civilian ship now sailing toward Gaza carrying humanitarian aid and international human rights defenders in direct defiance of Israel’s illegal and genocidal blockade. (Photo: Courtesy of the FFC)
“We are doing this because no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” says humanitarian Greta Thunberg, “because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity.”
Many people, armed only with moral and political convictions, would be too intimidated to confront an army or navy directly. But not all.
Twelve nonviolent human-rights activists with the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) are currently sailing a small boat, the Madleen, to Gaza. They hope to create a humanitarian sea corridor through Israel’s illegal blockade. If all goes well, they should arrive this weekend, with “baby formula, flour, rice, diapers, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, medical supplies, crutches, and children’s prosthetics.”
They know the danger. Ten volunteers were killed by Israeli commandos when they boarded the Mavi Marmara in 2010. But, as Greta Thunberg said before she embarked last Sunday, “We are doing this because no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying, because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity.”
How Palestinians See It
The history is important, and one does not have to approve of Hamas’ attack against Israeli civilians in October 2023 to understand that.
During the Nakba in 1948, at least 750,000 Palestinians were violently displaced from their homelands by Zionist paramilitaries and nascent Israeli forces. As Palestinian-Canadian Samah Al-Sabbagh recently told a crowd, those who survived that colonial onslaught left their “homes, land, olive groves, even the freshly baked bread.”
The occupation has never stopped, and now the violence is more high-tech and all-inclusive in its reach. In Gaza, bombs (largely supplied by the United States) have destroyed homes, apartment buildings, schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, churches, and more—leaving thousands buried under rubble. Adding to that nightmare, doctors report the intentional killing of children with high-velocity bullets that can destroy surrounding tissues and organs.
The death toll is staggering. As of May 27, 2025, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reports that at least 54,056 people, including at least 17,400 children, have been confirmed as killed in Gaza since October 2023.
For those still living, Israel’s stranglehold on international humanitarian aid has created widespread malnutrition and starvation, with babies and children the most vulnerable. “One in five people in Gaza, about 500,000 people, faces starvation, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification platform said on May 12,” according to the UN. Indeed, the UN calls Gaza the “hungriest place on Earth.”
Israel and its fellow perpetrators, including the United States, refuse to take seriously the rulings by the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, much less the many human-rights groups decrying genocide, and less still the students and people in the streets making a ruckus for justice.
Perhaps the perpetrators think that ignoring the voice of the people will make it stop, that heartbroken people will give up their moral and legal agency. They should think again.
A Global Civil Society Initiative of Unarmed Civilians
Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American lawyer and activist. She has worked with the International Solidarity Movement, the Free Gaza Movement, and more recently the FFC. Her rationale for sending small, unarmed boats in nonviolent direct actions against Israeli policy? “Our governments have failed. And so the people are taking action.”
Lawyers Arraf and Luigi Daniele assert that there is a strong legal basis for citizens taking action, as world governments ignore their “clear and urgent humanitarian obligations.”
Included in the aid they brought were 200 pairs of hearing aids—far short of the 9,000 requested—because so many children were experiencing hearing loss as a result of Israel’s sonic booms.
Two years later, on May 31, 2010, the Israeli navy swarmed the Mavi Marmara. This ship was part of a larger flotilla, carrying nearly 700 people, which was attempting to deliver 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Israelis killed 10 activists—one died after being comatose for four years—and wounded fifty more.
Although the UN Human Rights Council declared the attack illegal—and despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s apology to Turkey, whose citizens were killed—Israel continued its oppressive blockade.
Between 2010 and 2024, the FFC continued to challenge the siege. But “all ships were pirated by the IOF, and participants were assaulted, kidnapped, interrogated, imprisoned, and/or deported.” (“IOF” identifies the IDF as an occupation force.)
By May 2, 2025, the FFC had prepared their next attempt. The ship was named Conscience as an appeal to the world’s conscience. It was sitting in international waters near Malta, waiting for the volunteers to board and set out for Gaza. But the crew heard drones, and Conscience was struck by two explosives.
“The bombing was a deliberate act of aggression and intimidation,” the FFC wrote on their website. “Four crew members were injured, the ship was set ablaze, communications were severed, and the vessel was left adrift and taking on water. The attack occurred in European waters, in violation of international law.”
Madleen: Never Give Up
The activists say of the Madleen, “She may be small, but her mission is powerful: To break the silence. To challenge Israel’s illegal blockade through nonviolent direct action. To stand firmly and unapologetically, with Gaza.”
The Madleen set sail on June 1, one day after the fifteenth anniversary of the murderous assault on the Mavi Marmara. Activists gathered in Catania, Sicily, in preparation for their launch. The boat is named for Gaza’s first gender-role-defying fisherwoman; she personifies FFC’s steadfastness.
The ship’s namesake, Madleen, fell in love with the sea as a young child. When she was only 13 years old, she took over her injured father’s fishing boat and became the main breadwinner for her family. Although Madleen’s focus was on her family’s survival—not politics—she shared the fishermen’s encounters with Israeli patrols. She recounted, “They often directly attacked my boat. They stole my fishing nets more than once. The thing was that each time they attacked me, I would get a little stronger. I never gave up.”
Years later, she hopes her two daughters will become “two strong fisherwomen.”
May Madleen and the activists happily meet in Gaza this month. And may this stubbornly committed “civil society initiative of unarmed civilians” help the world see that legal and moral obligations are not overridden by governments’ corrupt colonial agendas.
To that end, the FFC asks that people raise their voices and contact the media and government officials to express support for breaking the siege against Gaza.
Readers can track the progress of the Madleen in real time and explore ways to support the FFC’s work. They promise: “We sail until Palestine is free.”
A Palestinian boy walks among the rubble of a home destroyed by Israeli bombing in Jabalia, Gaza, Palestine on May 29, 2025. (Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)
“The pattern suggests not an effort to neutralize a threat, but a deliberate campaign to dismantle and depopulate Gaza—a process of forced displacement which is a war crime.”
Israel’s U.S.-backed mass displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip “is entirely erasing Gaza,” a leading international charity said Thursday as the United Nations’ Middle East peace envoy warned that ongoing airstrikes, forced starvation, and general despair have plunged the embattled coastal enclave into “an abyss.”
Since unilaterally breaking a cease-fire on March 2, “Israel issued nearly one displacement order every two days, strangling people into isolated areas covering less than 20% of the Gaza Strip,” Nairobi, Kenya-based Oxfam International noted.
“Combined with deliberate deprivation, this reveals a strategy not of targeting militants, but of dismantling and erasing Gaza itself,” Oxfam added. Some Israeli leaders have explicitly called for Gaza’s “erasure” to avenge the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“People are so exhausted, many would rather face death than flee again.”
“For over 600 days, Israel has been saying it’s targeting Hamas, but it is civilians who have been corralled, bombed, and killed en masse every day,” said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
“The displacement orders follow a clear and calculated pattern: using the threat of violence to herd civilians into ever-shrinking zones of confinement,” Khalidi added. “This isn’t counterterrorism, as Israel alleges—it’s the systematic clearing of Gaza through militarized force into enclaves of internment.”
📽️ WATCH: This map visualizes #Gaza’s systematic erasure. Since breaking the ceasefire, Israel issued nearly one displacement order every two days, strangling people into isolated areas covering less than 20 percent of the Gaza Strip. Find out more: oxf.am/3Hbshlz
Oxfam analyzed Israel’s more than 30 displacement orders, which, combined with Israel Defense Forces (IDF)-designated “no-go zones,” cover more than 80% of the 141-square mile Gaza Strip.
“The sheer scale and relentless frequency of these orders have made it virtually impossible for people to find refuge,” the charity said. “The pattern suggests not an effort to neutralize a threat, but a deliberate campaign to dismantle and depopulate Gaza—a process of forced displacement which is a war crime.”
As Oxfam noted:
In just the last week (15–20 May), over 160,000 people were displaced—part of a broader total of nearly 600,000 people displaced since March 18, many of them repeatedly. One of the most significant recent orders, issued on 20 May, covered 34.9 square kilometers, roughly 10% of Gaza’s land area, that affected 150,000–200,000 people in North Gaza’s Beit Lahia and Jabalia. The effect of such orders on already-displaced populations has been devastating.
“Imagine trying to move with four children or an elderly parent in the middle of the night, with no transport and nowhere to go,” said Oxfam gender adviser Fidaa Alaraj, who has been displaced with her family several times. “People are so exhausted, many would rather face death than flee again.”
Fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including extermination and forced starvation—recently said that Israel will control all of Gaza after Operation Gideon’s Chariots, a campaign to conquer, ethnically cleanse, and indefinitely occupy the strip.
Far-right members of Netanyahu’s Cabinet and the Israeli Knesset want to permanently seize Gaza and reestablish Jewish-only apartheid colonies in the coastal enclave, which U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed taking over and turning into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
“There is one essential condition: We must not reach a situation of famine, both from a practical standpoint and a diplomatic one,” Netanyahu said on May 19. “People simply won’t support us.”
While 82% of Israelis surveyed in a recent poll said they supported the ethnic cleansing of Gaza—and nearly half backed a biblical genocide of Palestinians—much of the world is aghast at Israel’s annihilation of the strip, which has left more than 191,000 people dead, maimed, or missing and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, often more than once.
Meanwhile, the famine against which Netanyahu warned looms larger than ever as hundreds of Gazans, mostly children and the elderly, have recently died from malnutrition and lack of medical care, according to local officials.
On Thursday, Sigrid Kaag, the interim U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, warned that Gazans are “being starved and denied the very basics” by Israel, which in March tightened an already crippling “complete siege” of Gaza. The blockade has been cited in the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice.
“The entire population of Gaza is facing the risk of famine,” she warned, likening the trickle of aid allowed into the strip by Israel to offering “a lifeboat after the ship has sunk.”
Kaag highlighted the despair pervasive among Gazans, who she said bid farewell not by saying, “Goodbye, see you tomorrow,” but rather with the words “see you in heaven.”
“Death is their companion. It’s not life, it’s not hope,” she said.
“Since the collapse of the ceasefire in March, civilians have constantly come under fire, confined to ever-shrinking spaces, and deprived of lifesaving relief,” Kaag added. “Israel must halt its devastating strikes on civilian life and infrastructure.”
“This annihilation campaign and the bloodshed must end.”
Echoing Kaag’s remarks, Oxfam’s Khalidi said that “this annihilation campaign and the bloodshed must end. It is long past time for Western governments and other influential powers to move beyond statements and apply meaningful pressure on Israel to lift the siege and abandon any designs on annexing Gaza.”
“Peace cannot be brokered on the ruins of Gaza nor the theft of Palestinian land,” she stressed. “Ahead of the Two-State Solution Summit planned in New York next month, world leaders must urge Israel to lift the siege and abandon any annexation plans of Gaza or the West Bank.”
“What’s at stake is not only Palestine’s future,” Khalidi argued, “but the integrity of every nation that claims to uphold international law.”
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
