IDF tells Palestinians to evacuate Khan Younis ahead of ‘unprecedented attack’
In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee has told residents living in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, Bani Suheila and Abasan to “evacuate immediately” ahead of an “unprecedented attack” he claims is targeting Hamas infrastructure.
“The IDF will launch an unprecedented attack to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations in this area,” he wrote in the social media post.
“You must evacuate immediately west to the Mawasi area. From this moment, Khan Younis governorate will be considered a dangerous combat zone. Terrorist organizations have brought you disaster. For your safety, evacuate immediately.”
The latest evacuation warning comes after Israel’s military issued a separate evacuation order for areas of central Gaza yesterday, as it continues with its expanded offensive across Gaza which is being accompanied by an intensified deadly bombing campaign.
Key events
Sweden has criticised Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that Israel intends to take control of all of the territory of Gaza.
AFP reports that Sweden’s foreign minister, Maria Malmer Stenergard, said:
If this means annexation, it is against international law. Sweden stands firm in its belief that Gaza’s territory must not be changed or reduced.
In our talks, we have repeatedly urged Israel’s government to allow unhindered humanitarian access and distribution in line with humanitarian principles.
A ceasefire and an end to hostilities are needed, and hostages must be released – not more statements or plans from the Israeli government that exacerbate the situation for civilians in Gaza.
Sweden recognised the Palestinian state in 2014.
Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing local medical sources, is reporting that 46 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza since dawn.
UK prime minister Starmer: situation in Gaza is ‘intolerable’
The UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, has said that the situation in Gaza is “intolerable”.
During a joint press conference with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, Starmer said:
It is a really serious, unacceptable, intolerable situation. That’s why we are working intensely to coordinate with other leaders how we respond to this. We will continue to work in that way.
Von der Leyen also commented, saying:
For two months now, no humanitarian supplies have entered Gaza. Aid must reach civilians in need immediately, and the blockade must be lifted now. Humanitarian aid must never be politicised.
She called for a ceasefire and the release of hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.
Here are some of the latest images from Gaza and Israel sent over the news wires.
Israel’s hardline minister for national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has said that Benjamin Netanyahu is “making a grave mistake” by allowing any humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, which Israel has been blockading.
Ben-Gvir said “The prime minister is making a grave mistake with this move. Any humanitarian aid that enters the Strip … will fuel Hamas and give it oxygen while our hostages languish in tunnels.”
Earlier this year Ben-Gvir quit the government in protest at Israel reaching a hostage release and ceasefire deal, but returned when Israel resumed its military assault on the territory.
Ahmed Sarhan, a commander of the Popular Resistance Committees, a militant group allied with Hamas, was killed in a morning raid by undercover Israeli forces that entered the southern city of Khan Younis disguised as displaced people, according to medics.
Residents, according to Reuters, said Sarhan fought the force before he was killed, and that the Israelis detained his wife and children before retreating in a bus towards the eastern border with Gaza under a cover of fire from planes.
“As you see, they entered, opened a hole in the wall, entered the house and executed the father and took an 11-year-old child and his mother, and left,” said an eyewitness, Mohammed Sarhan, referring to the PRC commander.
Deadly US airstrike on Yemen migrant centre may constitute violation of international law – Amnesty
Some news about Yemen now. Amnesty International has urged the US to investigate possible violations of international law in regards to a deadly airstrike on a migrant detention facility in Yemen last month, in which 68 African migrants were reported to have been killed.
At the time, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, which governs north-west Yemen, said the migrant centre in the city of Saada was under the supervision of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Red Cross and targeting it constituted “a full-fledged war crime”.
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, said that “the US attacked a well-known detention facility where the Houthis have been detaining migrants”.
To Callamard “the major loss of civilian life in this attack raises serious concerns about whether the US complied with its obligations under international humanitarian law”,
“The US must conduct a prompt, independent and transparent investigation into this airstrike,” she added.
The US had been conducting regular strikes against the Houthis, saying it was seeking to end the threat the group posed to vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
A ceasefire was reached early in May in which the Houthis agreed to stop targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea, but said attacks against Israel would continue.
WHO chief says ‘two million people are starving’ in Gaza while food is blocked at border
The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said two million people were starving in the Gaza Strip while tonnes of food was being blocked at the border.
“Two million people are starving” while “tonnes of food is blocked at the border, just minutes away,” Ghebreyesus told the opening of the World Health Assembly in Geneva.
He added:
The risk of famine in Gaza is increasing with the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid.
The WHO has said around a quarter of the 2.1 million population in Gaza are facing “a catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness and death” due to the Israeli blockade.
In a press release published last week, the organisation described the extreme food shortages as “one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time”.
IDF tells Palestinians to evacuate Khan Younis ahead of ‘unprecedented attack’
In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee has told residents living in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, Bani Suheila and Abasan to “evacuate immediately” ahead of an “unprecedented attack” he claims is targeting Hamas infrastructure.
“The IDF will launch an unprecedented attack to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations in this area,” he wrote in the social media post.
“You must evacuate immediately west to the Mawasi area. From this moment, Khan Younis governorate will be considered a dangerous combat zone. Terrorist organizations have brought you disaster. For your safety, evacuate immediately.”
The latest evacuation warning comes after Israel’s military issued a separate evacuation order for areas of central Gaza yesterday, as it continues with its expanded offensive across Gaza which is being accompanied by an intensified deadly bombing campaign.
Former hostage Arbel Yehoud, a 29-year-old civilian from Kibbutz Nir Oz who was freed from captivity in January, has criticised the Israeli government’s plan for an expanded assault on Gaza and has urged fellow Israelis to call a general strike in response.
Speaking to the Israeli parliament’s constitution committee, she said:
You should know that when Gazans who were related to those who were holding me were injured by IDF actions, I would be badly beaten and sent to solitary confinement for long days with no food fit for human consumption and with a hygiene level comparable to concentration camps in the Holocaust…
Does it seem logical that I’m the one who needs to be here to shout for the freedom of my beloved Ariel (her partner), his brother David or the rest of the hostages…
Ministers and MK (members of the Knesset), look at me and see who you are abandoning and who you have chosen to sacrifice as a solution to the Gaza problem.
There are 58 Israeli citizens like me who are not just suffering but are also dying… Your hands will be covered in their blood and the blood of the soldiers if you do not stop this war.
As we have been reporting throughout today’s blog, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday Israel would ease its blockade and let limited amounts of food into Gaza.
Palestinian media said 50 trucks carrying flour, cooking oil and legumes would be allowed into the small coastal territory later on Monday, while Israeli media said nine trucks with baby food were expected to enter in coming hours.
Several trucks carrying humanitarian aid have been pictured at the Kerem Shalom crossing – which used to be a key point for the delivery of aid into Gaza – but no aid is thought to have actually been delivered yet.
Netanyahu says Israel’s ‘greatest friends in the world’ could not accept images of ‘mass hunger’
Here are some more quotes from Benjamin Netanyahu’s video message.
Netanyahu admitted that Israel was “approaching the red line”, with senators and allies telling him they could not handle images of mass hunger.
Israel’s “greatest friends in the world,” he said without mentioning specific nationalities, had said there is “one thing we cannot stand. We cannot accept images of hunger, mass hunger. We cannot stand that. We will not be able to support you.”
“Therefore to achieve victory, we need to somehow solve the problem,” the Israeli prime minister said.
The “greatest friends” reference is likely to include the US, Israel’s biggest arm supplier and a key ally in providing the increasingly isolated country diplomatic cover on the world stage.
On the final day of his Gulf tour last Friday, US president Donald Trump said people were starving in Gaza and the US would have the situation in the territory “taken care of”. European allies – including Germany and Britain – also voiced deepening concern over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza caused by the aid blockade.
Israel will take control of all of Gaza, Netanyahu says
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has posted a video message on Telegram. Here is some of what he said:
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Israeli forces will “take control of all” of the Gaza Strip. “The fighting is intense and we are making progress. We will take control of all the territory of the Strip,” he said. “We will not give up. But in order to succeed, we must act in a way that cannot be stopped.”
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Israel must not let the population (of Gaza) sink into famine, both for “practical and diplomatic reasons”.
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“In order to complete our victory, to defeat Hamas and free the hostages, we cannot reach a point of famine,” Netanyahu said, adding that images of famine in Gaza would have hindered his objectives.
UN warns that ‘everyone in Gaza is hungry’ as it urges Israel to allow food aid into the territory
Charities have warned of a looming famine across Gaza caused by Israel’s food blockade, which has seen all shipments of humanitarian aid, including food and medical supplies, from entering the territory.
A UN-backed report recently estimated that one in five people in the territory were facing starvation.
In a post on X, the UN wrote this morning:
Everyone in Gaza is hungry. Without immediate action, nearly a quarter of the population could be pushed into famine. Food aid must be allowed into Gaza now to prevent a catastrophe.
Israeli attacks have reportedly killed over 20 Palestinians in Gaza since dawn
Palestinian news agency Wafa, meanwhile, reports that at least 23 Palestinian people have been killed since dawn in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
Rescuers said as many as 130 people, including many women and children, were killed in a wave of Israeli strikes overnight on Saturday and through Sunday on neighbourhoods in the north, centre and south of the territory.
The relentless bombing campaign came after Israel announced an intensification of its assault on Gaza late on Friday, in what it claimed was a fresh effort to force Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, to release hostages (an estimated 58 hostages remain in Gaza; up to 23 are believed to be alive).
So-called operation Gideon’s Chariot could lead to the seizure of swaths of Gaza and the displacement of much of the population to its south, in what would effectively amount to ethnic cleansing.
The Israeli military said yesterday there were five divisions operating in the Gaza Strip, aiming for “complete control” in “the places where we operate”. The civilian population would be moved from conflict areas, the military said.
Israel bombs southern Gaza’s Nasser hospital – report
Al Jazeera is reporting that Israeli forces have bombed the pharmaceutical laboratory of the Nasser medical complex in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis after launching a barrage of air attacks on the city that killed at least six people.
The attack reportedly happened while Palestinian people who were injured or killed in other Israeli airstrikes were being brought to the hospital.
Israeli forces have targeted the Nasser hospital and its surroundings numerous times over the war.
Hospitals in Gaza say more than 100 Palestinian people were killed by Israeli attacks in the past day, with northern Gaza’s Indonesian hospital and the Jabalia refugee camp among the targets.
The territory’s health ministry yesterday accused Israel of “intensifying its systematic campaign to target hospitals”, after Israeli forces sieged the Indonesian hospital which was knocked out of service.
It was the main medical facility in the north after Israeli airstrikes last year forced the Kamal Adwan and Beit Hanoun hospitals to stop offering services.
Following Israel’s announcement on aid yesterday, it was not immediately clear how much would be allowed in, or when, or how.
Aid workers are wrestling with moves by Israel and the US to impose a controversial new aid system, which would limit distribution to a few locations and put it under armed private contractors – to prevent theft by Hamas, Israel claims.
Humanitarian workers, however, say it won’t meet Gaza’s needs and violates humanitarian principles. The UN denies that significant aid diversion takes place.
The plan has also been described as unworkable, dangerous and potentially unlawful by aid agencies because it could lead to the forced mass transfer of populations.
Israel says it will allow ‘basic’ amounts of food into Gaza after 11 week blockade
We are continuing the Guardian’s live coverage of developments in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Israel’s war on Gaza.
Israel decided on Sunday to resume the entry of a “basic quantity” of food into Gaza, after coming under increasing international pressure to lift its devastating blockade of the Strip, which has lasted for around 11 weeks.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said:
On the recommendation of the IDF and based on the operational need to enable the expansion of the military operation to defeat Hamas, Israel will allow a basic quantity of food to be brought in for the population in order to make certain that no starvation crisis develops in the Gaza Strip.
Israel imposed its blockade in early March, cutting off all supplies including food, medicine, shelter and fuel in what has been condemned as the collective punishment of the civilian population in Gaza.
Amid Israel’s blockade, most community kitchens have now shut down. The main food providers inside Gaza – the UN’s World Food Programme and World Central Kitchen — say they are out of food. Vegetables and meat are inaccessible or unaffordable. Crowds queue for hours for a small scoop of rice.
Axios cited two senior Israeli officials on Sunday saying that the resumption of aid flow will come through existing channels until a new mechanism is implemented.
It came after the Israeli army announced the start of an expanded assault on Gaza, describing “extensive ground operations” to seize “operational control” of swaths of the territory.
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