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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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UN Chief 'Alarmed' by Israel's Gaza Conquest Plan—But Minister Says No Concerns From Trump
"I don't feel that there is pressure on us from Trump and his administration," said Ze'ev Eklin. "They understand exactly what is happening here."
May 05, 2025
The office of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday condemned Israeli Cabinet ministers' vote to capture the entire Gaza Strip amid Israel's ongoing genocidal assault, while a prominent Knesset lawmaker claimed that U.S. President Donald Trump would not object to his far-right government's plans to indefinitely occupy the Palestinian enclave.
Fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Security Cabinet unanimously approved Operation Gideon's Chariots, an expansion of the 577-day onslaught that has left more than 185,000 Gazans dead, wounded, or missing and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. The Israel Defense Forces said Saturday that it was calling up tens of thousands of reservists ahead of the planned offensive.
An unnamed Israeli official toldThe Times of Israel that the plan involves the "conquering of Gaza," indefinitely occupying the Palestinian territory, and forcibly expelling its inhabitants to the southern part of the strip in order to defeat Hamas and secure the release of all remaining hostages kidnapped on October 7, 2023.
The official said the plan won't be implemented until after Trump's scheduled visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates later this month.
"We are occupying Gaza to stay—no more going in and out."
Discussing the plan, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that "we are occupying Gaza to stay—no more going in and out."
"This is a war for victory, and it's time we stop fearing the word occupation," he added. "We will settle the battle with Hamas—we will not surrender; they will."
The conquest, ethnic cleansing, and recolonization of Gaza is a top objective of many far-right Israelis. Last July, the International Court of Justice—which is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel—found that the country's 58-year occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible.
Guterres' office warned Monday that the planned Israeli offensive would have catastrophic consequences for Gaza's embattled population.
"I can tell you that the secretary-general is alarmed by these reports of Israeli plans to expand ground operations and prolong its military presence in Gaza," Guterres spokesperson Farhan Haq said at a press briefing, adding that the operation "will inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza."
"What's imperative now is an end to the violence, not more civilian deaths and destruction," Haq stressed. "Gaza is, and must remain, an integral part of a future Palestinian state."
European Union spokesperson Anouar El Anouni also expressed deep concern over Operation Gideon's Chariots, which he said "will result in further casualties and suffering for the Palestinian population."
"We urge Israel to exercise the utmost restraint," El Anouni added.
Asked about the Israeli plan, Trump declined to comment on its military aspects and said the U.S.—which provides Israel with diplomatic support and billions of dollars in armed aid—would help deliver food to Palestinians, who humanitarian groups say are facing imminent famine amid Israel's tightened blockade of Gaza. The Washington Postreported Monday that "American contractors" would be hired to distribute aid in the strip.
"We're going to help the people of Gaza get some food," Trump told reporters on Monday. "People are starving, and we're going to help them get some food."
Israeli Cabinet Minister Ze'ev Elkin claimed Monday that Trump—who in February proposed a U.S. takeover of Gaza—would not object to Operation Gideon's Chariots.
"I don't feel that there is pressure on us from Trump and his administration—they understand exactly what is happening here," Elkin said.
Some critics of Israel's planned conquest of Gaza accused Netanyahu of impeding the hostages' release by unilaterally breaking a January cease-fire agreement with Hamas.
"The Israeli hostages would now have been free, along with hundreds of innocent Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons, had indicted war criminal Netanyahu not chosen to violate the cease-fire deal he had signed," former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakissaid on social media Monday. "Lest we forget..."
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UNRWA Chief Accuses Israel of Torturing Staff as US Backs Ban on Agency at World Court
Nearly 300 UNRWA workers have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023, and dozens of other agency staffers have alleged torture during Israel Defense Forces detention.
Apr 30, 2025
As the International Court of Justice this week weighs an Israeli ban on a United Nations agency that provides lifesaving aid in Gaza, the program's leader called out attacks on its workers while the United States defended Israel—the recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance.
The ICJ is holding a week of hearings in The Hague, Netherlands following the U.N. General Assembly's December passage of a Norwegian-led resolution asking the tribunal, which is also known as the World Court, for an advisory opinion on Israel's legal obligation to "ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population."
Among the 38 nations and three regional blocs scheduled to address the 15 ICJ judges, only the United States and Hungary have so far defended Israel, whose forces have killed nearly 300 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) workers during their nearly 19-month annihilation of Gaza.
"An occupational power retains a margin of appreciation concerning which relief schemes to permit," U.S. State Department legal adviser Joshua Simmons argued before the court Wednesday, referring to Israel's 58-year occupation of Palestine, which the ICJ ruled an illegal form of apartheid in a June 2024 advisory opinion.
"Even if an organization offering relief is an impartial humanitarian organization, and even if it is a major actor, occupation law does not compel an occupational power to allow and facilitate that specific actor's relief operations," Simmons continued, noting "serious concerns about UNRWA's impartiality, including information that Hamas has used UNRWA facilities and that UNRWA staff participated in the October 7th terrorist attack against Israel" in 2023.
"Given these concerns, it is clear that Israel has no obligation to permit UNRWA specifically to provide humanitarian assistance," Simmons added. "UNRWA is not the only option for providing humanitarian assistance in Gaza."
In what UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini described at the time as an act of "reverse due process," the agency fired nine employees in February 2024 following Israeli allegations that they were involved in the Hamas-led attack on Israel in which more than 1,100 Israelis were killed and 251 Israeli and foreign survivors were kidnapped.
Lazzarini admitted to terminating the staffers without due process or an adequate investigation of Israel's claims. A subsequent probe by the U.N. Office of Oversight Services "was not able to independently authenticate information used by Israel to support the allegations."
On Tuesday, Lazzarini reminded the world that "over 50 UNRWA staff—among them teachers, doctors, social workers—have been detained and abused" by Israeli forces since October 2023.
"They have been treated in the most shocking and inhumane way," he continued. "They reported being beaten up and used as human shields. They were subjected to sleep deprivation, humiliation, threats of harm to them and their families, and attacks by dogs. Many were subjected to forced confessions."
Those forced confessions spurred numerous nations including the United States to cut off funding to UNRWA. Almost all of the countries have since restored funding as Israel's claims have been debunked or questioned over a lack of evidence.
The U.S.—which has not restored funding for UNRWA—earlier this week abandoned its long-standing position that the body is immune from lawsuits, opening the door for cases by October 7 survivors and victims' relatives stemming from dubious claims of agency involvement in the attack.
In addition to accusing Israeli troops of torturing its staffers, UNRWA has also documented tortures allegedly suffered by Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including interrupted drowning—also known as waterboarding—being shot in the knees with nail guns, sexual abuse of both men and women, and being sodomized with electric batons. The Israel Defense Forces is investigating dozens of in-custody deaths, many of them at the notorious Sde Teiman base in the Negev Desert.
While Israel's physical assault on Gaza has killed hundreds of UNRWA workers, its diplomatic war on the U.N. has seen the agency banned from operating in Palestine and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres declared "persona non grata" in Israel after he included Israel on his 2024 "list of shame" of countries and armed groups that kill and injure children during wartime.
The U.S.-backed 572-day war waged by the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is a fugitive from the International Criminal Court—has left more than 184,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Nearly all of the embattled enclave's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced and Israel's "complete siege" of the coastal strip has fueled widespread starvation and illness.
This week's ICJ hearing comes amid the tribunal's ongoing genocide case against Israel, which was brought by South Africa and is backed by dozens of nations either individually or via regional blocs. The court has issued three provisional orders in the case, all of which Israel has been accused of flouting.
Responding to the U.S. intervention in this week's ICJ hearings, Palestinian Ambassador to the Netherlands Ammar Hijazi toldMiddle East Eye that "everybody knows that Israel is using humanitarian aid as a weapon of war and is starving the population in Gaza because of that."
U.N. agencies and international humanitarian groups have warned in recent days of the imminent risk of renewed famine in Gaza as food stocks run out.
“ #Gaza: children are starving. The Government of Israel continues to block the entry of food and other basics. A manmade and politically motivated starvation. Nearly 2 months of siege. Calls to bring in supplies are going unheeded.” — UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini
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— UNRWA ( @unrwa.org) April 27, 2025 at 1:39 AM
"The U.S. intervention is very narrow in its scope, when it highlights the rights of an occupying power but ignores the so many layers of duties of that occupying power that Israel is in violation of," Hijazi added.
Among the countries defending UNRWA during Wednesday's ICJ session were Indonesia and Russia, which is currently waging a war against Ukraine. Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono affirmed "the Palestinian people's right to self-determination," while Maksim Musikhin, legal director of Russia's Foreign Ministry, argued that "international law should be respected by Israel" and that UNRWA deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
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