Israeli attacks kill 76; no aid relief yet for besieged Gaza

May 24, 2025 News

Aljazeera- At least 76 Palestinians have been killed and more than 200 wounded since midnight on Friday, as Israel has kept up its attacks across Gaza, including a strike on a house near Khan Younis which killed eight people, including seven children.

Witnesses to Israel’s bombing of a family home in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp that left some 50 people dead or missing told Al Jazeera that “the Israeli military is killing civilians for fun”.

UN chief Antonio Guterres has said the limited aid that Israel has allowed into Gaza amounts to a “teaspoon” of what’s needed, as he called for “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.

Israeli attacks kill 76; no aid relief yet for besieged Gaza

Mourners attend the funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Friday [Hatem Khaled/Reuters]

Echoing Guterres, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini has said the aid trickling into Gaza is “a needle in a haystack” and families are being starved in the Palestinian enclave.

The World Food Programme has said 15 aid trucks were looted on Friday night in southern Gaza as “hunger, desperation and anxiety” fuel rising insecurity.

The World Health Organisation has said at least 94 percent of Gaza’s hospitals have been damaged or destroyed during Israel’s war on the enclave.

Meanwhile, aid agencies have continued to criticise Israel after it announced it had sent a small convoy of trucks carrying vital supplies into Gaza.

COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, confirmed on Friday that 107 trucks had entered the enclave the previous day, loaded with flour, medicine and equipment.

However, aid agencies and others have condemned Israel’s policy to allow only minimal volumes of aid into Gaza, which the Israeli military has been blockading for close to three months.

They insist that the supplies are nowhere near enough for the millions trapped in the territory, and add that even the small amounts making it in are not making it to people due to Israeli attacks and looting.

The shipments follow Israel’s announcement on Sunday that it would permit “minimal” humanitarian aid into the territory for the first time since implementing a total blockade in early March.

Amid warnings of mounting famine and humanitarian disaster, Israel said that the decision to allow aid into Gaza was driven by diplomatic concerns.

Global outrage has been rising as the 11-week siege has progressed, leaving Gaza’s 2.1 million people on the brink of starvation, with medicine and fuel supplies exhausted.

The United Nations’ Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher has branded the aid deliveries “a drop in the ocean” and warned that far greater access is required to address the escalating crisis.

The UN estimates that at least 500 trucks of aid are needed daily. Since Monday’s announcement, only 300 trucks have made it in, including Thursday’s convoy, according to COGAT.

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