Palestinians at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on May 14, 2025. (Credit: Bashar Taleb/AFP.)
Palestinian rescue teams reported more than 100 killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes in the devastated and besieged Gaza Strip, where a U.S.-supported NGO says it is preparing to distribute humanitarian aid by the end of the month.
Israel has since vowed to use “all means” to find the perpetrators of deadly shootings near the Israeli settlement of Bruchin, in the occupied West Bank, which claimed the life of a pregnant Israeli woman overnight.
In this context, U.S. President Donald Trump, on a tour in the Gulf, expressed a desire for the United States to “take” the Gaza Strip to turn it into a “zone of freedom,” in an apparent variation of his previous, internationally criticized project to make it a “Riviera” emptied of its inhabitants.
In the meantime, new Israeli bombings have killed 103 since dawn, according to civil defense authorities.
The Israeli air force particularly targeted the north and south of the territory, devastated by more than 19 months of an offensive launched in retaliation to the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
- Talks in Doha -
“Every day, there are dead, every day the wounded. We do not know when our turn will come,” testified a resident in the north, Amir Saleha.
In Khan Younis, in the south, Maryam Ashour, in tears, strokes the shroud wrapping her sister’s body, transported to Nasser hospital with other victims. The young woman worked as a volunteer for UN agency programs aimed at children, she said.
As Donald Trump toured the Gulf region this week, Israeli and Hamas delegations traveled to Qatar, one of the mediating countries along with the United States and Egypt.
In Doha, the American president discussed the conflict on Wednesday with the Qatari emir, according to his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who reported progress.
But Hamas accused Israel on Thursday of “undermining” mediation efforts through “deliberate military escalation.”
Despite pressures to end the offensive in Gaza and international criticisms over its conduct of the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Monday of an imminent “forceful” entry of the army into the Palestinian territory to “complete the operation and defeat Hamas.”
Israel, which announced a plan for the “conquest” of the territory, is seeking countries willing to accept Gazans, he added.
Breaking a two-month cease-fire, Israel resumed its offensive on March 18 with the stated goal of securing the release of all hostages still held in Gaza since Oct. 7.
Since March 2, Israeli forces have also blocked all humanitarian aid into Gaza, vital for the 2.4 million inhabitants now facing the threat of “mass starvation,” according to several NGOs.
- “Tool of extermination” -
Human Rights Watch accused Israel of making this blockade “a tool of extermination.”
On Wednesday, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an NGO created and supported by Washington, announced plans to operate there by the end of May, distributing nearly 300 million meals for an initial 90-day period.
Since the war in Gaza began, violence has also exploded in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
According to several Israeli leaders, the Israeli woman killed on Wednesday evening in her car in the center of this territory was on her way to the maternity ward to give birth.
The army chief of staff, General Eyal Zamir, promised to use “all available means” to bring the perpetrators to justice.
WhatsApp groups of Israeli settlers in the West Bank were filled with calls for revenge after this attack on Thursday.
In the northern West Bank, five Palestinians were killed on Thursday during an Israeli operation in Tamoun, according to the mayor and the army, which claimed they were “terrorists.”
The Oct. 7 attack resulted in 1,218 deaths on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.
Of the 251 people then abducted, 57 are still held in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the Israeli army.
Israeli reprisals have killed at least 53,010 in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the latest data from the Hamas health ministry, considered reliable by the UN.