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Local health officials said Israeli forces killed six Palestinians near an aid distribution center in southern Gaza on Saturday night, the fourth such incident in a week.

The Palestinians were killed in west Rafah “as citizens gathered in the hope of receiving aid near the distribution point,” according to Marwan Al-Hams, director of field hospitals for the Palestinian Health Ministry.

This is the fourth incident in a week where local health officials said Palestinians were killed near aid distribution centers.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has vowed to block an aid vessel carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists from reaching Gaza, by “any means necessary.”

The Madleen departed Sicily last Sunday, aiming to breach Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza, deliver humanitarian aid, and draw attention to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

According to a live tracker on board the vessel, it was sailing north of the Egyptian coastal city of Rosetta on Sunday morning, roughly 160 nautical miles from Gaza.

Katz said Sunday that he had instructed the Israel Defense Forces to “prevent the ‘Madelaine’ hate flotilla from reaching the shores of Gaza.”

“To the anti-Semitic Greta and her fellow Hamas propaganda spokespeople, I say clearly: You should turn back — because you will not reach Gaza,” he posted on Telegram

Israel will act against any attempt to break the blockade or aid terrorist organizations — at sea, in the air and on land.”

On Sunday, a press officer for the Madleen, Hay Sha Wiya, said the crew was “preparing for the possibility of interception.”

They also said the boat’s signal had been jammed earlier in the day, causing the live tracker to display the boat’s coordinates as being in Jordan.

Among those on board the ship are Thiago Avila, a Brazilian activist and politician, Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament, and Baptiste Andre, a French doctor who is expected to assist passengers injured in potential confrontations with Israeli forces.

“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” Thunberg said last week.

“Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity. And no matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s not even near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide.”

Israel says it has retrieved the body of a 35-year-old Thai hostage who was abducted into Gaza during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.

Nattapong Pinta was among 31 Thais taken by the Hamas militant group. Thailand’s foreign ministry in a statement Saturday confirmed that Pinta, the last Thai hostage in Gaza, was confirmed dead. It said the bodies of two others have yet to be retrieved.

The ministry has said 46 Thais have been killed during the war. Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive by Hamas. They were among tens of thousands of Thai workers in Israel. Here’s a look at what they were doing.

Why are there so many Thais in Israel?
Israel once relied heavily on Palestinian workers, but it started bringing in large numbers of migrant workers after the 1987-93 Palestinian revolt, known as the first Intifada.

Most came from Thailand, and Thais remain the largest group of foreign agricultural laborers in Israel today, earning considerably more than they can at home.

Thailand and Israel implemented a bilateral agreement a decade ago to ease the way for workers in the agriculture sector.

Israel has come under criticism for the conditions under which the Thai farm laborers work. A Human Rights Watch report in 2015 said they often were housed in makeshift and inadequate accommodation and “were paid salaries significantly below the legal minimum wage, forced to work long hours in excess of the legal maximum, subjected to unsafe working conditions and denied their right to change employers.”

A watchdog group found more recently that most were still paid below the legal minimum wage.

How many Thai nationals work in Israel?
There were about 30,000 Thai workers, primarily working on farms, in Israel prior to the attack by Hamas.

In the wake of the attack, some 7,000 returned home, primarily on government evacuation flights, but higher wages than those available at home have continued to attract new arrivals.

The Thai ambassador to Israel, Pannabha Chandraramya, recently said there are now more than 38,000 Thai workers in the country.

What happened after some left?
Faced with a labor shortage in the wake of the exodus, Israel’s Agriculture Ministry announced incentives to try to attract foreign workers back to evacuated areas.

Among other things, it offered to extend work visas and to pay bonuses of about $500 a month.

Thailand’s Labor Ministry granted 3,966 Thai workers permission to work in Israel in 2024, keeping Israel in the top four destinations for Thais working abroad last year.

Thai migrant workers generally come from poorer regions of the country, especially the northeast, and even before the bonuses, the jobs in Israel paid many times what they could make at home

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition reported that IDF forces intercepted it at around 3 a.m. on Monday morning, the organization posted on its Telegram group.

The post noted that all connection to the 'Madleen' had been lost. Activists reported being attacked by drones that sprayed a white irritant substance on the boat a few minutes before they were intercepted.

According to posts from the flotilla's Telegram, the boats' communication signals were jammed, and loud, disturbing sounds were being played on their radio.

Israel intercepted on Monday a vessel carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists that was attempting to break Israel’s naval blockade to deliver aid to Gaza.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the British-flagged yacht Madleen was “safely making its way to the shores of Israel” after being boarded by Israeli forces.

"The passengers are expected to return to their home countries,” the ministry said in a post on X.

Hamas condemned the vessel’s interception, saying in a statement, “Gaza is not alone, but rather enjoys the support of the free people of the world.”

X
“The maritime zone off the coast of Gaza is closed to naval traffic as part of a legal naval blockade,” a soldier can be heard saying via loudspeaker in a video posted on X by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

“If you wish to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, you are able to do so through the port of Ashdod,” the soldier says, referring to an Israeli cargo port.

The activists can be seen raising their hands as lights flash from boats surrounding the vessel, according to a video posted by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which said it had lost all contact with the crew.

United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said she was on the phone with the ship’s captain while it was being approached by the navy.

“Madleen must be released immediately,” she said in a post on X.

In a statement, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had instructed the military to “screen the October 7 massacre video to the flotilla passengers upon their arrival at Ashdod Port.”

Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel on Tuesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said, the day after she and other activists were detained while trying to deliver a symbolic shipment of aid to Gaza by sea.

In a post on X, the ministry said that Thunberg, 22, had “just departed Israel on a flight to Sweden” via France, and shared images of her on a plane.

That came after the ministry said in a statement that a number of people detained by Israel aboard the intercepted British-flagged yacht Madleen had arrived at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport to “return to their home countries.”

Thunberg was among 12 activists undertaking the journey to attempt to circumvent Israel's aid blockade of Gaza when they were stopped by the Israeli navy and brought ashore at the port of Ashdod.

The statement added that those activists who refused to sign deportation papers and leave Israel would be brought before a judicial authority “to authorize their deportation.”

Adalah, the legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel, said in a statement Monday that it had met with 11 of the 12 people detained following the Madleen’s interception before some of them, who consented to deportation, flew out of Tel Aviv.

It said at least four people had been deported or were being deported from Israel, while eight remained in detention at Givon prison in Ramla and planned to contest their deportation before an Israeli tribunal. They were expected to appear before a immigration detention review tribunal Tuesday morning.

Multiple aid workers were killed after a bus was attacked in Gaza on Wednesday night, according to a US-backed humanitarian aid organization which accused Hamas of carrying out the assault.

Hamas has yet to respond to the allegations.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid initiative, said that a bus carrying more than two dozen of its team members was attacked by Hamas at around 10 p.m. local time.

“We are still gathering facts, but what we know is devastating: there are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries, and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage,” GHF said in a statement.

The group was en route to a distribution center in the area west of Khan Younis, GHF said, adding further details would be provided once they became known.

“We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms,” the GHF said in a statement.

The GHF also accused Hamas of repeatedly threatening the organization in recent days.

On Sunday, Hamas media said its forces have “full authority and mandate to strike decisively against any entity or individual collaborating with the enemy’s plans or with any rogue, criminal, or traitorous elements that violate the law and the traditions of our people.”

“All agents, thieves, and armed criminal gangs are considered legitimate targets for the resistance and its security apparatus,” the militant group said.

The GHF was established amid Israeli accusations that Hamas is stealing aid in Gaza and profiting off its sale but the organization has been controversial from the get-go and criticized by multiple international aid agencies.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains desperate.

Multiple Palestinians have been killed by gunfire near aid distribution sites since GHF began operations

At least 56 Palestinians have been killed since dawn across Gaza, including 38 people who were seeking aid for their hungry families at distribution points, mostly in the Rafah area in the south, medical sources have told Al Jazeera.

The latest carnage on Monday came at the controversial sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is backed by the United States and Israel and operates in areas that are tightly controlled by the Israeli military and that critics have slammed as “human slaughterhouses”.

The United Nations human rights chief condemned Israel’s conduct of its war in the besieged enclave, where deadly Israeli attacks continue unabated as the country exchanges missile attacks with regional foe Iran.

Speaking on Monday, Volker Turk said Israel’s “means and methods of warfare are inflicting horrifying, unconscionable suffering on Palestinians in Gaza”, where more than 20 months of Israeli attacks have killed at least 55,362 people, including thousands of children, according to health officials in Gaza.

More than 300 people have been killed so far near the perilous distribution sites and more than 2,000 wounded since GHF began its operations.

Two Palestinians trying to get food at the Rafah site, Heba Jouda and Mohammed Abed, told The Associated Press news agency that Israeli forces fired on crowds at about 4am (01:00 GMT) at the Flag Roundabout, a traffic circle just metres from the GHF centre, which has repeatedly been the scene of shootings.

People fell to the ground, trying to take cover, they said. “Fire was coming from everywhere,” said Jouda, who has made the dangerous journey several times to get food for her family this past week. “It’s getting worse day by day”, she .told AP.

Three more aid seekers were reported killed in northern Gaza and two in an attack on Gaza City.

“Israel has weaponised food and blocked lifesaving aid,” Turk said as he presented his annual report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“I urge immediate, impartial investigations into deadly attacks on desperate civilians to reach food distribution centres,” he added. “Disturbing, dehumanising rhetoric from senior Israeli government officials is reminiscent of the gravest of crimes.”

"In Jabalya, there is no longer a house, a tree, or a single human being," a physician from the northern Gaza Strip who calls himself Dr. Ezzideen wrote on X last December. "It has become a vast wasteland, its residents forcibly displaced, its homes obliterated, its animals killed, and even its trees cut down and left to wither. This image will stand as a testament to one of the darkest and most harrowing periods in history."

The destruction of Jabalya refugee camp became a symbol, but today it's no longer a unique case. In the 20 months that have passed since October 7, the Israel Defense Forces has also destroyed Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, eastern Gaza City and the suburbs of Khan Yunis – and the IDF is now completing the erasure of Rafah.

In October 2023, a satellite passed over Rafah and photographed the city. The image showed a large city, a dense mosaic of buildings, solar panels, domes of mosques, roads, public squares, farmland and orchards. At the beginning of this month a satellite again passed over the city – or, more accurately, what was once a city.

Hardly anything remains. The current image shows a two-dimensional gray surface strewn with rubble. The overwhelming majority of the buildings have been destroyed and leveled. The roads are plowed up. The many greenhouses and orchards have disappeared as though they never existed.

At the war's start, Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu didn't rule out Israel using an atomic bomb. Effectively, the proportion of structures that have been eradicated in Rafah and in Jabalya refugee camp is higher than what was destroyed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Indeed, the destruction in Rafah also stands out in comparison with other extreme cases in modern history. It is more widespread and methodical than the damage imposed on Aleppo, Mosul, Sarajevo and Kabul. The extent of devastation recalls the heavy damage sustained by the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in 2022-2023, though the population of that city was one-quarter that of Rafah.

On the eve of the war, the Rafah metropolitan area had a population of 275,000, like that of Haifa. There were 56,000 people living in Jabalya camp, similar to Yavneh. Beit Lahia had 108,000 residents, like Herzliya, and Beit Hanoun had 62,000, like Givatayim. Almost 30,000 people, equivalent to Arad, lived in Abasan al-Kabira, a suburb of Khan Yunis that no longer exists. An adjacent suburb, Bani Suheila, had a population of 46,000, like Carmiel.

All are now erased.

And these are only the cities that have been completely, or largely, wiped out. The IDF has also destroyed and leveled whole neighborhoods in the two big cities: Gaza City and Khan Yunis. A case in point is Shujaiyeh, Gaza City's large eastern neighborhood – wiped off the face of the earth.

All told, two-thirds of the structures in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged – 174,000 out of what were about a quarter of a million buildings.

Nearly 90,000 structures – more than a third of those in the Strip – have been decimated or have sustained significant destruction. Together with 52,000 structures that have suffered moderate damage, they already account for more than 50 percent of the prewar total. According to the United Nations, another 33,000 structures show signs of damage, though it's difficult to estimate the extent.

These data, which were collected by the United Nation's Satellite Center, were updated in April. The total number of structures that have been destroyed or damaged according to the UN is identical to the figure determined by Dr. Corey Scher and Prof. Jamon Van Den Hoek, researchers at Oregon State University who have kept track regularly of the destruction in Gaza.

In addition to residential structures, the IDF has destroyed hospitals, infrastructure facilities, factories, mosques, churches, markets and commercial centers. The IDF has also devastated 2,300 educational structures of all kinds, and today 501 of the 564 schools in the Strip require rebuilding or extensive repair.

Of the roads, 81 percent have been wrecked or damaged. A large part of the electrical infrastructure has been demolished, along with water and sewage lines, agricultural structures, and animal pens, chicken coops and fishing areas. According to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization, the number of egg-laying hens has decreased by 99 percent since 2023, the number of cattle by 94 percent, and the quantity of fish being caught has fallen by 93 percent.

No less than 50 million tons of construction rubble and debris is scattered across the Strip, and the UN estimates that it will take two decades to clear. So broad and methodical was the destruction that it's hard to imagine a return to normal life in the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, more than a million people are huddling in the immense tent cities that have sprung up in the Muwasi area on the coast, and in the western section of Gaza City. Lately an additional wave of displaced Gazans streamed into the already densely crowded area, to the point where tents are now being erected on the Gaza City's piers, in garbage dumps and on the rubble.

The displaced Gazans are living without sewage facilities, without running water, without electricity, and have no way to cook the little aid they receive. And as summer begins, they are now also under assault by mosquitoes. And hunger looms in every corner.

Fantasies of eliminating the Strip are omnipresent in Israel. During 20 months of war, there have been tens of thousands of calls in social media to flatten, annihilate and eradicate the Gaza Strip. Members of the security cabinet, MKs and influential journalists repeatedly demand obliteration.

In right-wing circles, a new term is being bandied about: "Zarbiving" Gaza, named for Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv, a rabbinical court judge in Tel Aviv and in the urban settlement of Ariel, and a reservist in the engineering unit of the Givati infantry brigade. Zarbiv has boasted several times in interviews on the Bibi-ist Channel 14 of the destruction he and his buddies are wreaking in Gaza with D9 bulldozers. "We have started to knock down buildings of five, six, seven stories. The system is improving, and it works."

The IDF's obliteration of the Strip can be divided into five waves. The first wave took place immediately after October 7, and was the work of the air force. During the war's first week, the air force dropped 6,000 bombs on the Gaza Strip, in a campaign compared to which the U.S. military's assault on ISIS in 2017 pales.

The destruction was cheered on by key figures in the Israeli public. "I can't get to sleep at night if I haven't seen houses collapsing in Gaza," Channel 14's Shimon Riklin said in December 2023. "What can I do – more, more, more, more houses, more towers, so they have no place to return to."

The second wave of destruction was unleashed at the beginning of 2024, when the IDF carried out an operation to create a one-kilometer-wide buffer zone along the Strip's borders with Israel. Thousands of structures were destroyed then, concurrent with the establishment of the Netzarim Corridor, south of Gaza City, which became increasingly wide (the areas that were leveled around the Netzarim Corridor alone constitute more than 10 percent of the Strip's area). At this stage, bulldozers and explosives replaced the air force as the primary instruments of destruction.

"The truly surprising thing is the speed with which it all became natural and logical," reservist Yuval Katef wrote of his service in the Netzarim Corridor. "After a few hours, you find that you're trying to force yourself to be impressed by the dimensions of the destruction, and to come out with lines like, 'This is really crazy!,' but the truth is that you get used to it quite quickly. It becomes banal."

The third stage in the flattening of the Strip started about a year ago, with the assault on Rafah, at the far south. At that time, the IDF started to broaden and entrench the Philadelphi Corridor, which runs along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. At this stage the army developed a new and efficient method of destruction: unmanned armored personnel carriers dispatched on "kamikaze" missions.

Old APCs – known as "Zeldas" – were packed with large quantities of explosives and sent, by remote control, to buildings that had been slated for destruction. Hundreds of structures were razed using this method, with the sound of the detonation audible as far away as Tel Aviv.

The fourth stage, toward the end of last year, was the devastation the IDF inflicted on the cities of the northern Strip: Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and Jabalya refugee camp. This chapter concluded at the end of December, when Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, in Beit Lahia, turned himself in to the IDF. The images of Abu Safiya walking toward the soldiers against an apocalyptic backdrop made a deep impression internationally, and made it clear that the IDF was leaving behind heaps of rubble.

In January 2025, with the declaration of a cease-fire, the wrecking machine stopped. At the time a TikTok trend came into being in Gaza: Hundreds of thousands of civilians returned to their homes, and many filmed themselves clearing away the wreckage and arranging a small living space for themselves amid what were once their homes. It was a declaration of determination, on the one hand, and an aspiration to a bit of sanity, on the other.

But the reprieve was short-lived.

On March 18, Israel violated the cease-fire with a night attack that took the lives of about 300 women and children, and two months later the IDF launched Operation Gideon's Chariots. Under a new chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, the sowing of destruction became explicit policy, and was carried out more exhaustively. At this stage, which is still ongoing, private contractors are being used, and paid according to the number of structures they raze.

"We will operate in additional areas and we will destroy all the infrastructure, above and below the ground," Zamir declared ahead of the operation. The journalist Amit Segal asserted that "for the first time, they are talking about destroying all the infrastructure above the ground." Half a year earlier, following a visit to Jabalya, Segal wrote, "Photographs cannot describe the dimensions of the destruction, from horizon to horizon. In the north of the Strip what remain are mainly slabs of concrete, sand, vast piles of garbage and packs of hungry dogs."

As the days pass, and the extent of the destruction becomes clearer, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does in fact have a day-after plan: mass expulsion of the residents of Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu speaks openly about this: We will push the Gazans south, we will find countries that are willing to take them in, and in the end the majority will agree to leave "of their own volition." "We are destroying more and more houses," the prime minister told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last month, according to a report in Maariv. "They will have nowhere to return to."

The starting gun was fired on February 4, when U.S. President Donald Trump stated in a press conference that, "The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip… We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons."

From that moment the fantasy became a working plan. This is how Finance Minister and security cabinet member Bezalel Smotrich put it: "No more raids. We conquer and stay, until the annihilation of Hamas. On the way, we destroy what still remains of the Strip. The IDF is moving population from the areas of combat and is not leaving a single stone unturned. The population will come to the south of the Strip, and from there, with God's help, to third countries. This is a change in the course of history, no less. That's the main thing."

It was against this background that Rafah was erased, joining the eradication in the Morag Corridor – a new corridor north of the city. It now looks as though the IDF is continuing to expand the swath of annihilation northward, toward Khan Yunis.

After laying waste to the suburbs, the army started to accelerate the flattening of structures in the city itself. The 7th Brigade is now operating in the area, and its commander has stated: "After we're done, they won't be able to come back here for years."

Prof. Eliav Lieblich, an expert on international law from Tel Aviv University, explains that "international law permits destruction in two situations: if the structure has an effective contribution to the enemy's war effort, or in a case of military necessity – for example, if a wall has to be knocked down in order to pass.

"Even in these situations," he notes, "there are special protections [guaranteed] for medical facilities, agricultural fields, water facilities and more. To this day I haven't heard even the beginning of an account that can explain how the extensive destruction can be justified."

According to Ioannis Kalpouzos, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School with an expertise in international law, "both the extent and the systematic nature of the destruction of homes and other structures with key social functions, suggests that the goal of the military campaign is the forcible and permanent displacement of the Palestinians of Gaza, which is a violation of [international humanitarian law], a war crime and a crime against humanity. Therefore, it is no longer a question of assessing the legality of specific actions (e.g., whether the destruction of a particular structure satisfies imperative military necessity) – but it is the whole of the current military campaign that is, accordingly, unlawful."

One reason that some legal experts and historians believe that Israel's actions in Gaza amount to genocide, is the vast scale of destruction. They include the Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov, the Dean's Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. Bartov maintains that, "this is not a war, that is a false representation."

All the signs, he says, show that Israel is acting "to destroy completely Palestinian existence in Gaza and to render the Strip uninhabitable."

According to Bartov, "If there is deliberate and systematic destruction of hospitals, educational institutions, cultural institutions, religious centers and infrastructure, one can infer from this that these structures are not being targeted because Hamas personnel were hiding in them, but because they want to prevent a group from existing as a group."

Bartov adds, "It's difficult to find points of comparison for the massive destruction the IDF is wreaking. You have to go back to the destroyed cities of World War II. The dimensions here are inconceivable. Whether the IDF generals understand it or not, the goal is to 'disappear' Palestinian society and its culture and to establish something else in Gaza, with no memory of what was there before."

The historian Dotan Halevy, who has written extensively about the history of Gaza, views the destruction as a continuation of the 1948 Nakba. "The Gaza Strip," he notes, "is the only region along the coastal plain that has preserved a continuous history. Its obliteration now is destroying historical remnants from a period of hundreds of years."

The situation of Gaza is singular, Halevy points out, because Israel is leveling it without its residents having anywhere to escape to. "For three decades, Gaza has been a closed enclave, in which its people are imprisoned. In contrast to German cities in World War II, or to Aleppo in Syria, it's not possible to simply pick up and look for a haven. The consequence is a compressed annihilation experience from which there is no way to escape. The inhabitants of Gaza are locked into the noise of the bombing and are breathing the dust of the rubble."

In many circles today, observers see what is happening in the Gaza Strip as a sign of the collapse of the international order that came into being after World War II. Limor Yehuda thinks it's premature to despair completely of the international system. According to Dr. Yehuda, who heads the Shemesh Center for the Study of a Partnership-Based Peace, under establishment at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, "We are undoubtedly in a situation in which that order is crumbling. All the norms of international law are held in contempt, and the world is doing nothing. On the other hand, we should remember that in Bosnia, too, it took three and a half years.

"In the end, this accursed war will end, the false illusions will be shattered and we will come back to the starting point: Between the Jordan and the sea there are two peoples, no one is going anywhere, and the choice is to live together or die together. In the meantime,everyone has to ask themselves how they can cease to collaborate with the mechanism of destruction."

"We hold an unshakable faith that, one day, justice will rise," wrote Dr. Ezzideen from Gaza. "The world will stand in solemn silence, mourning this genocide, and spend even longer lamenting the demise of justice and the collapse of humanity in our time. On that day, the world will weep, not only for us but for the shattered remnants of its own soul."

At least 72 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire across Gaza since dawn, including 29 people who were waiting for aid trucks, Palestinian health officials say, the latest carnage hitting people desperate to secure food for their hungry families.

The latest incidence of the daily killing of Palestinian aid seekers in recent weeks took place early on Wednesday on Salah al-Din Street near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera. More than 100 others were injured in the attack, they said.

In other deadly Israeli strikes across Gaza, eight people were killed, and others injured, in an air strike on a home in the Zeitoun neighbourhood south of Gaza City, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Eight more people were killed, and others injured, in Israeli strikes on tents of displaced people in al-Mawasi camp in Gaza’s south, medical sources told Al Jazeera. The victims included a woman and two children, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Another strike took place on the Maghazi camp in central Gaza, news agencies reported, citing medics. Wafa reported that 10 people, including a husband, wife and children from a single family, were killed in the strike.

Ahmed Ghaben told Al Jazeera about the death of a relative: “My nephew went to bring his children a bag of flour, but he was brought back a lifeless body, as you can see, a martyr. He left 14 family members. He went [to get aid] due to hunger. He wasn’t a resistance fighter. He went to get a bag of flour.”

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said, “It’s very clear that Israeli forces are targeting civilians who only went to get bags of flour or boxes of food. Eyewitnesses say the soldiers used a variety of weapons, including drones and tanks. Snipers who have been deployed in nearby hills have also been gunning down the civilians.

“The Israeli military claims these hungry crowds are a security threat, but these claims have not been substantiated with clear evidence.”

Trump will make a decision on U.S. involvement in Iran in the next two weeks, White House says
Trump will make a decision on whether the U.S. should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran within the next two weeks, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the press briefing.

Leavitt read aloud a message from Trump from the podium that said: "Based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks."

Asked if the U.S. would get involved in regime change in Iran, Leavitt said, "The president's top priority right now is ensuring that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon and providing peace and stability in the Middle East."

271 people hospitalized in Israel overnight
The Israeli Ministry of Health said in a statement that 271 people were hospitalized throughout the country overnight.

Of the 271 hospitalized, the health ministry said only four had "serious" injuries. At least 71 of the hospitalizations resulted from Iran's bombing of a surgical building at Soroka Medical Center in the city of Beersheba, according to the statement.

Since the conflict began seven days ago, the health ministry said 2,345 Israelis have been hospitalized, with a total of 21 of them suffering serious injuries.

The latest death toll in the country remains at 24. More than 600 people have been killed in Iran, according to The Associated Press.

Iran still has advanced missiles, Israeli intelligence official says
Only 65% of the missiles launched by Iran in the last 24 hours were intercepted by the country’s iron dome system versus almost 90% the day before, a senior intelligence official in Israel told NBC News.

“Iran still has very advanced missiles, and they are making use of them,” said the former top level Israeli intelligence official, who still receives daily government briefings.

The official, who is not authorized to speak publicly because of the sensitivity of the information, said that faster Iranian missiles launched in the last day have also given Israel less time to prepare before the projectiles approach their intended targets.

“Until yesterday, we got an early warning of about 10 to 11 minutes before the missiles actually fell. But this morning, it was six or seven minutes. It means that the missiles were probably much faster than the previous ones," the person said. "More importantly, the Iranians do have a navigation system for the final phase of the attack that helps them to be very precise and to attack exactly the targets that they wish, like the hospital today in Beersheba.”

A longtime observer of Iranian activities in the region, the official added that the regime, despite having suffered significant leadership losses when Israel launched its surprise attack last week, still has missile stockpiles that could sustain their retaliatory strikes for long stretches, describing their approach as “strategic patience“

Arguing that some in Israel and across the region have written off the country’s response ability prematurely, he added that the regime has “the resolve and the ability to continue and to sustain the attacks so we have to be much more careful whenever we speak about the imminent collapse of the regime, which is far from being true.”

Israeli forces and drones opened fire toward hundreds of people waiting for aid trucks in central Gaza early Tuesday, killing at least 25 people, Palestinian witnesses and hospitals said.

Responding to an Associated Press inquiry, the military said it was reviewing reports of casualties from Israeli fire after a group of people approached troops in an area adjunct to the east-west Netzarim corridor, which bisects Gaza.

The Awda hospital in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp, which received the victims, said the Palestinians were waiting for the trucks on the Salah al-Din Road south of Wadi Gaza.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that Israeli forces opened fire as people were advancing eastward to be close to the approaching trucks.

“It was a massacre,” said Ahmed Halawa. He said tanks and drones fired at people, “even as we were fleeing. Many people were either martyred or wounded.”

Hossam Abu Shahada, another eyewitness, said drones were flying over the area, watching the crowds first, then there was gunfire from tanks and drones as people were moving eastward. He described a “chaotic and bloody” scene as people were attempting to escape.

He said he saw at least three people lying on the ground motionless and many others wounded as he fled the site.

The Awda hospital said another 146 Palestinians were wounded. Among them were 62 in critical condition, who were transferred to other hospitals in central Gaza, it said.

In the central town of Deir al-Balah, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said it received the bodies of six people who were killed in the same incident.

Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds seeking desperately needed food, killing hundreds of people in recent weeks. The military says it has fired warning shots at people it said approached its forces in a suspicious manner.

It was 8 p.m., just after sunset, when Reem Zeidan, 42, set off for an aid distribution site with two of her eight children, Mervat, 20, and Ahmad, 12. Zeidan wanted to get a bag of flour to make bread. Her 5-year-old daughter, Razan, was hoping for biscuits. Zeidan brought a blue backpack to carry whatever she might be able to bring home.

Distribution wouldn’t open until the next morning, June 3, but the walk along a sea route, from Khan Younis, where they were sheltering in a tent, to Rafah, where the aid site was, would take hours. On the first day the distribution site opened, Zeidan had arrived at 9 a.m., too late to collect any food. Another day, she turned back when she heard there was gunfire near the site.

By then, there had already been multiple incidents in which Palestinians were reported to have been killed while seeking aid in Gaza after a new distribution program was launched just over a week before, led by a recently founded U.S.- and Israel-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Most of the deadly incidents unfolded as Palestinians traveled to the GHF distribution sites, according to Palestinian health authorities and witnesses. At least one incident unfolded as Palestinians waited to collect food from a United Nations site, the organization has said.

Zeidan would soon join the dozens killed as they struggled to secure food, underscoring the pitfalls of a new aid system in which tens of thousands of Palestinians must walk long distances — often through areas controlled by the Israeli military — to have a chance of getting a fraction of the limited aid being handed out.

After walking for about five hours, Zeidan, Mervat and Ahmad had reached a seaside area north of Rafah known as “Fish Fresh.”

A thriving fish farm before the war, Fish Fresh had become an informal gathering place for thousands waiting to be allowed to enter the aid distribution site during tightly controlled opening hours.

Outside of those hours, much of the areas surrounding GHF’s aid sites are considered combat zones, according to the Israel Defense Forces. GHF has repeatedly warned Palestinians to stay away from the sites before food distribution starts, a near-impossible directive for many traveling long distances to reach the areas before food runs out.

They were resting at Fish Fresh, Ahmad and Mervat later told NBC News, when they came under fire.

“Suddenly, the snipers started shooting. The artillery began shelling. The tanks were firing too,” Ahmad said. He heard drones and quadcopters hovering overhead. “There was nothing left untouched, not even the sea. They were bombing there too.”

NBC News was not able to independently verify his account, though the IDF acknowledged that an incident had occurred that day in which forces fired shots “near” suspects they said were moving toward them and deviating from “designated access routes” to aid sites.

The three took cover. When the shooting subsided, they began walking. Mervat grasped Ahmad’s hand, and Ahmad held Zeidan’s.

At around 4 a.m., they were about half a mile from the aid site, walking among a crowd in the darkness, wary of more gunfire. They were crouched low and turning a street corner, when Mervat said she heard a girl scream behind her. She turned around and saw her mother falling to the ground. Mervat thought she had fainted, but when she turned her over, Zeidan’s face was covered in blood.

“I was in shock, unable to say or do anything, just watching my mother lying in a pool of blood,” she said.

Still in shock and struggling to absorb what was happening, Mervat kept trying to wake her mother. “Mom, get up, the tanks are coming. I’ll help you. Mom, Mom...”

Mervat pressed herself against her mother’s chest, to see if her heart was still beating, and asked her to say the shahada prayer, but Zeidan didn’t respond. Gunfire started to break out wildly, Mervat said, and the crowd became more frantic. Mervat and Ahmad ran for safety.

Zeidan was one of the nearly 30 people the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza alleged were killed on June 3 after Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd of people trying to reach the GHF distribution site.

Zeidan’s children did not see her again until hours later, when her body was brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to be counted among the dead.

Humanitarian groups have railed against the new aid system in Gaza, saying it has put civilian lives at risk.

"The Israeli military must stop shooting at people trying to get food," the United Nations Human Rights Office said in a statement Tuesday as it called on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza.

Humanitarian groups have noted that only a limited amount of aid is actually reaching Palestinians under the new system, which was implemented to bring some aid back into the enclave after Israel imposed a total blockade on the entry of food, medicine and other vital supplies into Gaza for nearly three months.

In video captured by NBC News’ crew on June 3, Ahmad could be seen wailing over his mother’s body, crying out, “They killed you, Mom — just because you were trying to get us food.”

Her husband, Mohammed Zeidan, 46, remembered his wife of more than 20 years. “She was from God’s paradise. She was my soul,” he said, adding that he felt certain now that the new humanitarian system in Gaza was “a trap, not aid.”

Standing in the family’s makeshift tent, Ahmad delicately unpacked a headscarf and a single shoe from a blue backpack. This was all they had left of her, he said.

“This blood is hers,” he said, pointing to a stain on the backpack.

“We were going to collect the aid with this bag. But my mother was returned to us covered in her own blood.