Live: At least 75 killed in Israeli strikes on second day of Eid al-Adha
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Despite local officials confirming three people dead and 35 others injured in the overnight hours as Israeli forces shot at Palestinians collecting aid in Rafah, the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said on Monday that the reports are fabricated.
“Without verification of any source other than Hamas and its collaborators, the New York Times, CNN, and Associated Press reported that a number of people seeking to receive humanitarian food boxes from the Gaza Humanitarian Fund were shot or killed by the Israeli Defense Forces,” Huckabee said in a statement cited by The Times of Israel.
“These reports were FALSE. Drone video and first-hand accounts clearly showed that there were no injuries, no fatalities, no shooting, no chaos,” Huckabee said, despite a multitude of eyewitness videos showing the opposite.
“The only source for these misleading, exaggerated, and utterly fabricated stories came from Hamas sources, which are designed to fan the flames of antisemitic hate that is arguably contributing to violence against Jews in the United States,” he added.
“Media sources who willingly parrot these libelous allegations should recant their fake news stories, apologize and pledge to practice actual reporting of fact instead of engaging in dangerous propaganda that assists the terror group Hamas."
The Israeli military has destroyed north Gaza's only kidney dialysis centre, posing grave risks to patients suffering from kidney-related ailments.
The Palestinian health ministry on Sunday released a statement reporting on the bombing of the Noura al-Kaabi Kidney Dialysis Centre, located in the north of the besieged enclave.
The health facility was the lone provider of dialysis services to kidney patients in the north.
In footage posted online, military excavators could be seen further demolishing the northern Gaza health centre.
"The destruction of the centre poses a catastrophic threat to the health of kidney patients, the consequences of which are unpredictable," the ministry noted, adding that 41 percent of patients suffering from kidney issues in the blockaded Strip died during Israel's war on Gaza due to the targeting and restrictions on such centres.
Read more: Israel destroys north Gaza's sole kidney dialysis facility
The Israeli rights group Ir Amim has reported that Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes and structures in East Jerusalem surged in May, with a total of 33 buildings demolished.
The figure includes 16 residential units, and 14 non-residential structures.
This is up from figures in the preceding months, with 23 buildings demolished in January, 14 in February, 14 in March and eight in April.
Rights groups have reported that the Israeli authorities issue a limited number of building permits to Palestinians in East Jerusalem, while approving an increasing number of permits for Israeli settlers.
This is part of Israel's broader efforts to consolidate control over the occupied West Bank.
There are currently 158 Israeli settlements and 224 illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the settlement watchdog Peace Now.
Unrwa has said that boxes of food intended for distribution in Gaza, stored in the agency's Amman warehouse in Jordan, are approaching their expiry dates.
“We’re looking at boxes of food here which have been sitting here in some cases since January," Jonathan Fowler, Unrwa's senior communications manager, told NPR. "And unfortunately, their expiry dates are starting to approach."
The agency has been unable to distribute the aid due to Israel's ongoing blockade of Gaza.
“We’re looking at boxes of food here… some of it expiring in July,” UNRWA @UN_JWFOWLER tells @NPR at the UNRWA warehouse in Amman.
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) June 2, 2025
Food and other essential goods remain stuck just a three-hour drive from #Gaza.
Israeli attacks on Palestinians seeking aid at a US-backed relief distribution centre in Rafah, southern Gaza, have resulted in the deaths of at least three people and injured 35 others.
On Monday, the Gaza Government Media Office released a statement describing Israel's actions as "continuing the policy of starvation and systematic targeting of civilians for 93 days".
"The 'Israeli' occupation forces committed a new crime by killing three starving civilians and injuring 35 others near so-called 'aid' distribution centers in Rafah," the statement read.
Since the US-Israeli initiative of distributing aid began on 27 May, more than 75 people have been killed in assaults launched on starving civilians seeking food and essential supplies, with 400 more wounded, the Gaza Health Ministry reported.
On Sunday, Israeli forces carried out a massacre targeting Palestinian aid seekers in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 35 people and wounding scores more, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Read more: Israeli attacks on aid centre kills three, raises death toll of relief seekers to 75
Al Jazeera has reported that the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since dawn has reached 38.
Of that figure, 27 people were killed in northern Gaza.
Israeli forces have killed at least 32 Palestinians across Gaza since dawn, Al Jazeera is reporting, citing medical sources.
The news site said that at least 51 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in the last 24 hours.
Wafa news agency reported that at least 16 people were killed in an Israeli strike targeting the al-Barsh family home on Old Gaza Street in Jabalia.
It added that a further five people were killed in an attack on the al-Samouni family home in the Musab Bin Umair area of Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood.
Meanwhile in southern Gaza, Wafa reported that one person was killed in an Israeli drone strike in the As-Sikka area of central Khan Younis, and another was shot and killed near an aid distribution centre in western Rafah.
A Palestinian doctor, who lost nine children in an Israeli strike in late May, has died from wounds sustained in the same attack.
Hamdi al-Najjar, 40, is survived by his wife Alaa al-Najjar, a doctor at al-Tahrir hospital within the Nasser Medical Complex, and his 11-year-old son Adam, who is still receiving treatment for his injuries.
Shortly before the strike on 23 May, Alaa had left for work with Hamdi, who then returned home.
Not long after, an Israeli strike hit their house in the Qizan al-Najjar area in southern Khan Younis, killing nine of their 10 children and wounding the 10th.
Alaa, a paediatric specialist, was treating victims of Israeli bombardments that day when her own children and husband were brought to her.
Read more: Palestinian doctor who lost nine children in Israeli attack dies from wounds
The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Monday he was appalled by reports of Palestinians killed and injured while seeking aid in Gaza on Sunday, and called for an independent investigation.
"It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food," Guterres said in a statement.
A ship operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition on Sunday set off from Sicily to the Gaza Strip carrying "symbolic" aid to break the Israeli siege on the Palestinian enclave.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, Game of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham, and Franco-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan were among the 12-person crew of the Madleen, which is expected to take seven days to reach Gaza.
Journalist Andrea Legni reported from aboard the ship that they were carrying "fruit juices, milk, rice, tinned food and protein bars donated by hundreds of Catania residents".
The barrels of relief were described by the organisers as "limited amounts, though symbolic".
“We are doing this because no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying, because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity,” Thunberg told reporters at a news conference in the port of Catania.
Read more: Greta Thunberg joins activists sailing from Italy to Gaza to break Israeli siege
Two people were killed in an Israeli attack on the al-Barash family home on Old Gaza Street in northern Jabalia al-Balad, Al Jazeera reported, citing Gaza’s Civil Defence.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday that the situation in Gaza was getting "worse by the day" and that it was important to ensure the Palestinian enclave receives more humanitarian aid urgently.
"The situation is intolerable in Gaza, and getting worse by the day," Starmer told reporters in Scotland, when asked whether the UK would take any action over the issue.
"Which is why we are working with allies ... to be absolutely clear that humanitarian aid needs to get in at speed and at volumes that it is not getting in at the moment, causing absolute devastation," he added.
At least three “starving civilians” have been killed and 35 others injured near a GHF aid distribution point backed by the US in southern Gaza’s Rafah area, Al Jazeera reported, citing the enclave’s Government Media Office.
The latest killings have brought the total number of people killed in Rafah and the so-called Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza while waiting for food to 52, since Israel’s new aid mechanism started operations on 27 May, according to the statement.
At least 340 people have been injured since that date.
Israel continues “the policy of starvation and systematic targeting of civilians for 93 days”, the statement said.
A Palestinian child has been killed in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.
Another child, Mohammad Hussein Aqeilan, has died of wounds he sustained when an Israeli air strike on his family’s home in Deir el-Balah two days ago, Wafa reported. The news agency said his whole family was killed in Israeli attacks.
