Live: Hamas agrees to release 10 Israeli captives

Hamas says Israel has turned aid distribution centres into sites of mass murder, calling them “US-sponsored death traps” designed to lure starving civilians before targeting them.

In a statement, the group said the aid points are now being used as tools of “murder, humiliation, and starvation”, and described the killings as part of a systematic policy.

“This process is humanly and morally unacceptable,” Hamas said, as reports continue to emerge of Palestinians being gunned down while queuing for food in Gaza. 

Israeli forces killed at least 80 Palestinians and wounded hundreds in two ambushes at US-run aid distribution centres in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday. 

Eyewitnesses told Middle East Eye that Israeli forces ambushed thousands of starving Palestinians, killing and wounding hundreds in the attacks.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, approximately 30 people were killed in the al-Alam area of ​​Rafah, while the death toll rose to nearly 50 in the al-Tahlia area of ​​Khan Yunis.

The attacks occurred as residents gathered at aid distribution points, where they came under artillery shelling from Israeli forces.

Read more: Israeli forces kill 80 Palestinians in ambushes on Gaza aid centres

Republican congressman Randy Fine has said using a nuclear bomb on Gaza would be “a terrible idea” because radioactive fallout would reach Israel and kill Israeli hostages.

Speaking to CNN on Monday, Fine, an ardent Zionist, defended previous comments in which he appeared to back the use of nuclear weapons against Palestinians.

“Nuking Gaza would be a terrible idea - the fallout would drift into Israel,” he said. “It would kill the hostages.”

When pressed about the risk of killing civilians, including women and children, Fine replied: “War is a messy thing.”

In May, Fine told Fox News that Israel should follow the model of World War II, when the United States used nuclear weapons to force Japan’s unconditional surrender. He argued that negotiations with Palestinians were not viable.

“There is something deeply wrong with this culture and it needs to be defeated,” he said, repeating his belief that only overwhelming military force can bring an end to the conflict.

Palestinians in Jaffa say they are being denied access by their Israeli neighbours to an underground bomb shelter which they had previously been allowed to use during Israel’s escalating war with Iran.

Residents of Yehuda Hayamit Street told Middle East Eye they had been told the entry code giving them access to the shelter had been changed after about a dozen or so of them had taken refuge there in recent days as sirens sounded, following Iranian missile attacks targeting nearby Tel Aviv.

They say the episode highlights the discrimination and the dangers they face as Palestinian citizens of Israel even in one of the country’s mixed cities, where about a third of the population remains Palestinian.

Nasir Ktelat, a 63-year-old with health issues who lives in a fourth-story apartment across the road from the shelter, said that he and others from his residence had been given access by someone on their building committee, and said it had been usual for those living in nearby older buildings to gather there when sirens sounded.

Read more: Palestinians in Jaffa denied access to bomb shelter by Israeli neighbours

Medical sources in Gaza told Al Jazeera that at least 74 people have been killed by Israeli fire since dawn, with 56 of the dead reportedly struck while collecting humanitarian aid.

Hospitals across the territory are struggling to cope with the rising number of casualties, amid ongoing Israeli assaults targeting densely populated areas.

At least 60 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured by Israeli forces while waiting for aid in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, a source at Nasser Medical Complex told Al Jazeera Arabic.

The casualties occurred as people gathered to receive humanitarian assistance amid escalating violence. Medical facilities are overwhelmed with the surge of wounded victims.

The BBC’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza is “systematically biased against Palestinians”, according to an analysis of over 35,000 pieces of content produced by the UK's public broadcaster.

The study, conducted by the Muslim Council of Britain's Centre for Media Monitoring (CFMM), which monitors how the national media reports on Islam and Muslims, found that the BBC gives Israeli deaths 33 times more coverage than Palestinian ones.

In an analysis of 3,873 articles and 32,092 broadcast segments from 7 October 2023 to 6 October 2024, the CFMM found that the BBC used emotive terms four times as much for Israeli victims and applied “massacre” 18 times more to Israeli casualties than Palestinian ones.

According to its authors, the report “reveals a systematic omission of key historical and contemporary context that has acquired an institutional quality at the BBC”, including the genocidal rhetoric used by Israeli leaders – notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog - and a failure to scrutinise Israeli claims and denials.

Read more: BBC coverage of Israel's war on Gaza 'systematically biased against Palestinians'

The Palestinian Ministry of Education said on Tuesday that at least 16,607 students have been killed and 26,271 wounded since the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the West Bank on 7 October 2023, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

• In Gaza alone, 16,470 students were killed and 25,374 injured.

• In the West Bank, 137 students were killed, 897 injured, and 754 arrested.

• The ministry added that 914 teachers and administrative staff have also been killed and 4,363 wounded across both territories.

• At least 196 teachers and school staff have been arrested in the West Bank.

• A total of 352 public schools have been heavily damaged in Israeli attacks, with 111 completely destroyed.

• Unrwa-run facilities were also hit: 91 public and 89 Unrwa schools were bombed or vandalised.

• Twenty higher education institutions were damaged, including the full destruction of 60 university buildings.

• In the occupied West Bank, 152 schools and 8 universities were raided, including those in Jenin, Tulkarm, Bruqin, and Kafr al-Dik.

• Around 788,000 students in Gaza have been denied access to education since the war began.

• For a second consecutive year, high school students in Gaza will not sit for their final exams, which will go ahead in the West Bank from 21 June.

• The ministry also said Israel has kept six Unrwa schools in occupied East Jerusalem closed since 8 May. 

More than 50 people have been killed and at least 200 wounded after Israeli forces struck a crowd of civilians seeking aid near Khan Younis, according to a source at Nasser Medical Complex who spoke to Al Jazeera Arabic.

The attack took place in the eastern part of the southern Gaza city, where displaced residents had reportedly gathered in hopes of receiving humanitarian assistance.

Medical staff say the hospital is overwhelmed by the influx of casualties.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza says more than 45 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in a fresh massacre at Al-Tahlia roundabout in Khan Younis.

According to the ministry, the victims had gathered to receive humanitarian aid when Israeli forces opened fire. Dozens of those injured remain in critical condition.

Nasser Medical Complex is reportedly overwhelmed, with emergency, intensive care, and surgical units packed beyond capacity.

Medical teams are struggling to respond, with the ministry warning of severe shortages in essential supplies. It has issued an urgent appeal for international support to bolster emergency medical aid.

Joy Metzler was a second lieutenant in the US Air Force when Aaron Bushnell self-immolated in protest against the US's role in Israel's war on Gaza.

The 23-year-old Metzler was so moved by Bushnell's sacrifice in February 2024 that she began researching Palestine.

Horrified by Israel's occupation and US backing for what international human rights groups, experts and several countries now qualify as an act of genocide in Gaza, she became a conscientious objector to the war, choosing to leave the air force in August 2024. 

Her application to be excused from the air force was approved in April 2025.

With death and destruction continuing to envelope Gaza through relentless bombardment and an aid blockade triggering starvation, Metzler continued to organise and look for new ways to advocate for an end to the war.

So when Veterans for Peace and Friends of Sabeel North America decided to launch a fast for Gaza outside the US Mission at the United Nations in New York City on 22 May, Metzler immediately got involved.

Read more: Meet the American military veterans fasting for Gaza

At least five people, among them three children, have been killed in an Israeli air raid targeting a tent sheltering displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Yunis.

A medical source at Nasser Hospital confirmed the casualties, saying the victims had sought refuge in the coastal zone after fleeing earlier attacks.

Al-Mawasi, designated by Israel as a "safe zone", has repeatedly come under fire in recent weeks despite the concentration of civilians sheltering there.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers, 

Here are the latest updates from the Israeli war on Gaza, now in its 619th day: 

• Death toll rises in Gaza strikes: Israeli attacks killed at least 56 Palestinians on Monday, with 38 dying from airstrikes and sniper fire while attempting to reach food supplies.

• Civilians targeted at aid point: Five Palestinians were killed and several wounded when Israeli forces fired on crowds waiting for food in north-west Gaza, according to Wafa news agency on Tuesday.

• Israeli soldier killed in combat: The military confirmed one soldier died and three sustained serious injuries during operations in southern Gaza.

• UN rights chief condemns Israel: Volker Turk accused Israel of inflicting “horrifying, unconscionable suffering” in Gaza, where health officials report over 55,362 deaths since the war began, including thousands of children.

A number of humanitarian organisations have told the British parliament they fear colleagues in Gaza will “die in the dark” as focus shifts from Gaza to Iran, The Guardian reported on Monday.

Organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) spoke about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

In the opening session, MP Emily Thornberry said Gaza had "gone off the news and it’s not like things aren’t happening. It’s important that we put information before the public”.

Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at MAP, said, “This has been the darkest and most terrifying period of the attacks so far”. 

Talbot said his colleagues "worry they will die in the dark” after Israel cut the internet in the territory last week.

The field coordinator for MSF, Anna Halford, said they have struggled to understand the situation on the ground because of the communication blackout in north and central Gaza. 

Halford said there had been almost 500 community hubs where people could obtain food in Gaza for the first 19 months of the war, but now there are only four.

In addition, the organisation only had four aid trucks enter the territory since 27 May, Halford said. 

“There is nothing humanitarian about this system,” she said. “We are weeks away from having to make choices about quality of care, because there won’t be any care to provide.”

A North African aid convoy that departed from Tunisia to break the Israeli siege of Gaza has reported that its activists were mistreated and arrested in eastern Libya during the weekend.

The "Sumud" convoy departed from Tunis on 9 June, consisting of about 10 buses, a hundred cars, and thousands of volunteers from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Mauritania, among others.

It aims to raise international awareness about the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s war on the Palestinian enclave and deliver aid.

But organisers said on Sunday that while en route to Egypt, the caravan was blocked in Sirte by authorities from eastern Libya.

In a statement on Saturday, the Joint Action Coordination Committee for Palestine, the organiser of the convoy, said they had been facing a "military blockade" and "a methodical siege” at the entrance to Sirte since Friday.

The statement accused Haftar's authorities of not only blocking the convoy's advance but also isolating it by cutting off communication and the internet. Haftar's forces are also accused of preventing the delivery of food, water and medical supplies to the approximately 1,500 participants.

You can read more here.