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antónio guterres
Israeli Strike on Gaza Home Kills at Least 50 Palestinians
Most of the victims are reportedly women and children, including a 1-month-old infant.
May 23, 2025
Gaza officials said Friday that an Israel Defense Forces airstrike targeting a home in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave killed at least 50 people, mostly women and children, while separate IDF strikes killed aid workers and other civilians, and deadly starvation continued.
Local and international media including Al Jazeerareported 50 or more people were massacred when the IDF bombed the home of the Dardouna family in the northern city of Jabalia al-Balad late on Thursday. Victims reportedly include a 1-month-old infant and Dr. Ibrahim Dardouna, a physician at the Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli Baptist hospitals, both of which have been severely damaged by Israeli bombing and other attacks.
Drop Site Newsreported that people who survived the initial bombing but were buried beneath the ruins of the four-story home could be heard pleading for help. Neighbors and other first responders desperately dug through the rubble with their bare hands, as Israeli occupation forces have blocked most heavy equipment from entering Gaza and bombed bulldozers and other vehicles already in the strip.
Warning: The following video contains images of death.
Medical sources told Al Jazeera that a total of 84 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes in recent hours. Victims include six aid workers reportedly slain in an IDF strike in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
"These individuals were performing purely humanitarian duties by securing two trucks carrying vital medicines and medical supplies for the health sector, to ensure their delivery to hospitals in devastated areas," Gaza's Government Media Office (GMO) said in a statement reported by Middle East Monitor.
"Targeting them is a full-fledged crime that exposes the true intent of the occupation to disrupt the flow of humanitarian and medical aid and to create chaos and insecurity in line with its plan to starve the population and deny treatment to the sick," GMO added.
On Thursday, Palestinian officials said that more than 300 people have died from malnutrition and lack of medicine caused by Israel's bombing and siege. Israel's blockade was tightened in March at the start of an intensified offensive that has killed or wounded more than 13,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Since October 7, 2023—when Israel launched its assault in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack in which more than 1,100 Israelis and others were killed and upward of 250 others were kidnapped—Israeli forces have killed at least 53,822 Palestinians in Gaza, while wounding over 122,000 others. More than 14,000 Gazans are also missing and feared dead and buried beneath rubble.
Israel's conduct in the 595-day war is under investigation by the International Court of Justice as a possible genocide. The ICJ has issued three provisional orders for Israel to stop attacking Gaza and allow entry of humanitarian aid into the strip. Critics accuse Israel of ignoring all three orders.
Almost all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, often multiple times, by invading Israeli forces. IDF troops are currently waging Operation Gideon's Chariots, an effort to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse large swaths of Gaza. Members of fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet, the Israeli Knesset, and others have advocated the ethnic cleansing and Jewish recolonization of Gaza.
The latest Israeli attacks came as Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, claimed Friday that "great progress" is being made toward a new cease-fire agreement and the release of the 23 hostages still being held by Hamas. Israel unilaterally abrogated a January cease-fire in March.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Friday that "Palestinians in Gaza are enduring what may be the cruelest phase of this cruel conflict," while chiding the international community for "watching in real time" asr "families are being starved."
Officials in some of Israel's allied countries including the United States have grown increasingly frustrated at Israel's refusal to allow more than a trickle of aid to enter Gaza.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday denounced the recent IDF strikes on Gaza as "unjustifiable and unacceptable" and urged Israel to stop bombing so that food and other humanitarian aid can reach those who need it.
On Friday, Germany—which has been one of Israel's staunchest supporters—reiterated its opposition to Trump's plan to forcibly expel up to 1 million Palestinians from Gaza and send them to Libya.
"The German government's position on this is very clear," German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Christian Wagner
told reporters in Berlin. "There must be no expulsion, direct or indirect, of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. I have also explained this very clearly to our Israeli partners and friends during my visit, and this is the basis of our future policy."
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UN Chief Demands 'Lifesaving Aid for the Long-Suffering People of Gaza'
He also took aim at Israel's aid plan, saying that "we will not take part in any scheme that fails to respect international law and the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality."
May 23, 2025
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday stressed the dire need for a major influx of "lifesaving aid for the long-suffering people of Gaza," where Palestinians are dying from not only U.S.-backed Israeli bombings but also malnutrition and lack of medicine.
"Palestinians in Gaza are enduring what may be the cruelest phase of this cruel conflict," Guterres told reporters. "For nearly 80 days, Israel blocked the entry of lifesaving international aid. As the world's leading hunger assessment found, the entire population of Gaza is facing the risk of famine. Families are being starved and denied the very basics. All with the world watching in real time."
"Israel has clear obligations under international humanitarian law," he noted. "It must treat civilians humanely, with respect for their inherent dignity. It must not forcibly transport, deport, or displace the civilian population of an occupied territory. And as the occupying power, it must agree to allow and facilitate the aid that is needed."
"Without rapid, reliable, safe, and sustained aid access, more people will die—and the long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound."
In March, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, then ditched a fragile cease-fire with Hamas, which governed the coastal enclave for nearly two decades. In recent days, Israeli officials have finally allowed "a trickle of aid" into the territory, Guterres acknowledged, explaining that while almost 400 trucks were cleared for entry through the Karem Abu Salem crossing, supplies from only 115 trucks have been able to be collected "and nothing has reached the besieged north."
In a Friday statement, the U.N.'s World Food Program announced that 15 of its trucks transporting critical food supplies "were looted late last night in southern Gaza, while en route to WFP-supported bakeries."
"Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity," WFP said. "We need support from the Israeli authorities to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster, more consistently, and transported along safer routes, as was done during the cease-fire."
"WFP cannot safely operate under a distribution system that limits the number of bakeries and sites where Gaza's population can access food," the program added. "WFP and its partners must also be allowed to distribute wheat flour and food parcels directly to families—the most effective way to prevent widespread starvation."
Guterres similarly emphasized that "all the aid authorized until now amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required," and called out "staggering" obstacles imposed by Israeli officials, from "strict quotas" on goods the U.N. distributes to prohibitions on "other essentials—including fuel, shelter, cooking gas, and water purification supplies."
He said that without safety and security mitigation measures for U.N. convoys, "and in the absence of the rule of law and a desperate population after months of blockade, and totally insufficient supply entering, the risk of security incidents and looting remains high. Meanwhile, the Israeli military offensive is intensifying with atrocious levels of death and destruction."
Due to Israeli military actions, "four-fifths of the territory of Gaza is a no-go zone" for the enclave's Palestinian residents," Guterres noted. "And so, beyond questions about the particular number of trucks at any particular moment, it is important to stay fixed on the big picture. And the big picture is that without rapid, reliable, safe, and sustained aid access, more people will die—and the long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound."
Already, Gaza officials put the death toll at 53,822 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, though thousands more are presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble.
The U.N. chief also took aim at Israel's U.S.-supported aid plan, saying that "we will not take part in any scheme that fails to respect international law and the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality."
As Reutersreported Friday:
Israel has allowed aid deliveries by the U.N. and other aid groups to briefly resume until a new U.S.-backed distribution model—run by the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—is up and running by the end of the month...
Israel said its blockade had been aimed in part at stopping Palestinian militants Hamas from diverting and seizing aid supplies. Hamas has denied stealing aid. The GHF plan involves using private security contractors to transport aid to so-called secure hubs for distribution by civilian humanitarian teams.
"The United Nations and our partners have a detailed, principled, operationally sound five-stage plan—supported by member states—to get aid to a desperate population," Guterres highlighted. "We have the personnel, the distribution networks, the systems, and community relationships in place to act. The supplies—160,000 pallets, enough to fill nearly 9,000 trucks—are waiting."
In addition to demanding "full humanitarian access," the U.N. leader reiterated his call for "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages" and a "permanent cease-fire" in Gaza.
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Gaza Mourns Beloved Child Singer Hassan Ayyad, Killed in Israeli Airstrike
The 14-year-old boy was one of numerous children slain by Israeli bombing since Monday in what UNICEF has called "the most dangerous place in the world to be a child."
May 06, 2025
A famed 14-year-old singer was among scores of Palestinians killed by Israel Defense Forces airstrikes across the Gaza Strip since Monday as bombing and starvation fueled by Israel's ongoing siege continued to ravage the coastal enclave.
Hassan Ayyad—who was known for his songs about life and death in Gaza during Israel's genocidal assault and siege—was killed in an IDF airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp. Video shared widely on social media showed Ayyad singing in a haunting voice, sometimes accompanied by his father, Alaa Ayyad.
"The child who sang of death has now joined those he mourned."
"Gaza is dying, blind in the eyes of America," Ayyad intones in one clip. "With the warplanes, we tasted the flavor of death, an airstrike from land and sea. They blocked the crossings—people are dying from hunger. Bear witness, world, to what they've done."
Reacting to the boy's killing, Alaa Ayyad told Palestinian journalist Essa Syam that "Hassan was my heat, my soul, my son... my only son."
"What can I tell you about Hassan? Hassan is everything," Ayyad continued. "I ask everyone to pray for mercy for his soul."
Responding to Ayyad's killing, Gaza journalist Mahmoud Bassam wrote Monday on the social media site X that "Hassan was martyred moments ago in an Israeli airstrike, raising the death toll to over 60 since dawn."
"The child who sang of death has now joined those he mourned—his farewell was as noble as his words," Bassam added.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday that at least 22 people including numerous children were killed and more than 50 others wounded when Israeli airstrikes targeted a school-turned-shelter, this one in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
"The Bureij massacre is a heinous war crime that requires the prosecution of the occupation's leaders in international courts as war criminals," Hamas, which rules Gaza and led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, said in a statement.
More than 185,000 Palestinians have been killed, wounded, or left missing by Israel's 578-day assault and siege on Gaza. Most of the territory's more than 2 million inhabitants have also been forcibly displaced, often multiple times, while mass starvation is rampant due to Israel's tightened blockade.
Israeli officials said Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump does not object to Operation Gideon's Chariots, a full-scale invasion, conquest, and ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip that Israel is expected to launch after Trump visits the Middle East later this month.
On Tuesday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he envisions Gaza "entirely destroyed" and ethnically cleansed of its more than 2 million inhabitants.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday that Israeli forces have killed at least 16,278 children in Gaza since October 2023—a rate of one child killed every 40 minutes. The ministry said it has recorded 57 children who have died from malnutrition amid Israel's "complete siege" of Gaza, which has fueled mass starvation and illness and is part of an International Court of Justice genocide case against Israel led by South Africa.
Last year, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts. This, after the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) called Gaza the "world's most dangerous place to be a child."
A 2024 survey of more than 500 Gazan children conducted by the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management and supported by the War Child Alliance
found that nearly all children in the embattled Palestinian enclave believed their death was imminent—and nearly half said they wanted to die.
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