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palestine
Israeli Strike on Gaza Home Kills at Least 50 Palestinians
Most of the victims are reportedly women and children, including a 1-month-old infant.
May 23, 2025
Gaza officials said Friday that an Israel Defense Forces airstrike targeting a home in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave killed at least 50 people, mostly women and children, while separate IDF strikes killed aid workers and other civilians, and deadly starvation continued.
Local and international media including Al Jazeerareported 50 or more people were massacred when the IDF bombed the home of the Dardouna family in the northern city of Jabalia al-Balad late on Thursday. Victims reportedly include a 1-month-old infant and Dr. Ibrahim Dardouna, a physician at the Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli Baptist hospitals, both of which have been severely damaged by Israeli bombing and other attacks.
Drop Site Newsreported that people who survived the initial bombing but were buried beneath the ruins of the four-story home could be heard pleading for help. Neighbors and other first responders desperately dug through the rubble with their bare hands, as Israeli occupation forces have blocked most heavy equipment from entering Gaza and bombed bulldozers and other vehicles already in the strip.
Warning: The following video contains images of death.
Medical sources told Al Jazeera that a total of 84 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes in recent hours. Victims include six aid workers reportedly slain in an IDF strike in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
"These individuals were performing purely humanitarian duties by securing two trucks carrying vital medicines and medical supplies for the health sector, to ensure their delivery to hospitals in devastated areas," Gaza's Government Media Office (GMO) said in a statement reported by Middle East Monitor.
"Targeting them is a full-fledged crime that exposes the true intent of the occupation to disrupt the flow of humanitarian and medical aid and to create chaos and insecurity in line with its plan to starve the population and deny treatment to the sick," GMO added.
On Thursday, Palestinian officials said that more than 300 people have died from malnutrition and lack of medicine caused by Israel's bombing and siege. Israel's blockade was tightened in March at the start of an intensified offensive that has killed or wounded more than 13,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Since October 7, 2023—when Israel launched its assault in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack in which more than 1,100 Israelis and others were killed and upward of 250 others were kidnapped—Israeli forces have killed at least 53,822 Palestinians in Gaza, while wounding over 122,000 others. More than 14,000 Gazans are also missing and feared dead and buried beneath rubble.
Israel's conduct in the 595-day war is under investigation by the International Court of Justice as a possible genocide. The ICJ has issued three provisional orders for Israel to stop attacking Gaza and allow entry of humanitarian aid into the strip. Critics accuse Israel of ignoring all three orders.
Almost all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, often multiple times, by invading Israeli forces. IDF troops are currently waging Operation Gideon's Chariots, an effort to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse large swaths of Gaza. Members of fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet, the Israeli Knesset, and others have advocated the ethnic cleansing and Jewish recolonization of Gaza.
The latest Israeli attacks came as Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, claimed Friday that "great progress" is being made toward a new cease-fire agreement and the release of the 23 hostages still being held by Hamas. Israel unilaterally abrogated a January cease-fire in March.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Friday that "Palestinians in Gaza are enduring what may be the cruelest phase of this cruel conflict," while chiding the international community for "watching in real time" asr "families are being starved."
Officials in some of Israel's allied countries including the United States have grown increasingly frustrated at Israel's refusal to allow more than a trickle of aid to enter Gaza.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday denounced the recent IDF strikes on Gaza as "unjustifiable and unacceptable" and urged Israel to stop bombing so that food and other humanitarian aid can reach those who need it.
On Friday, Germany—which has been one of Israel's staunchest supporters—reiterated its opposition to Trump's plan to forcibly expel up to 1 million Palestinians from Gaza and send them to Libya.
"The German government's position on this is very clear," German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Christian Wagner
told reporters in Berlin. "There must be no expulsion, direct or indirect, of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. I have also explained this very clearly to our Israeli partners and friends during my visit, and this is the basis of our future policy."
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Gaza Officials Report Hundreds of Recent Deaths From Starvation and Medicine Shortage
"Two months ago, malnutrition cases did not exceed 50 cases per day," said one nurse in Gaza. "Now, we're seeing about 200 cases per day."
May 22, 2025
Palestinian officials said Thursday that at least 29 children and elders have starved to death over the past two days in Gaza, where more than 300 Palestinians have recently died from malnutrition and lack of medicine due to Israel's siege and bombing, which killed more than 50 people since dawn.
Palestinian Authority Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan's report of at least 29 starvation-related deaths among children and elderly people in the coastal enclave since Tuesday followed Wednesday's announcement by the Gaza Government Media Office (GMO) that a total of 326 Palestinians have died of malnutrition and food and medicine shortages since Israel tightened its "complete siege" on March 2.
Among the victims are 26 dialysis-dependent kidney patients. Officials also reported 300 miscarriages during the same period. Most of Gaza's hospitals have been damaged or destroyed in what critics have called a systematic and genocidal attack on the strip's healthcare system.
"History will not forget U.S. complicity in enabling this horrific humanitarian disaster."
The GMO voiced "grave concern and condemnation of the worsening humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip as a result of the occupation's continued implementation of a systematic starvation policy and preventing the entry of food [and] medical supplies in addition to fuel for 80 consecutive days, in a clear and complete crime amounting to genocide."
"This is accompanied by a complete closure of all crossings, in flagrant violation of all international laws and norms, and in full view of the international community," the agency added.
JUST IN | Palestinian Health Minister: 29 Have Died of Starvation in Gaza in Recent Days Palestinian Health Minister Dr. Majid Abu Ramadan says 29 people—mostly children and elderly—have died of starvation-related causes in Gaza in recent days, warning that thousands more are at risk.
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— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) May 22, 2025 at 7:02 AM
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor also reported a sharp rise in starvation deaths in Gaza, documenting 26 fatalities including nine children in just 24 hours.
Israel has grudgingly allowed a trickle of aid to enter Gaza in recent days, under intense international pressure and acknowledgment by even some of its staunchest supporters—including U.S. President Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee, his ambassador to Jerusalem—that Gazans are starving.
However, experts say the 90 truckloads of aid that entered the strip on Thursday were but a fraction of the 500-600 trucks per day needed to sustain starving Palestinians there.
Furthermore, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS)—which is still reeling from an Israeli massacre of its personnel in March—warned Thursday that allowing so few trucks into Gaza is an "invitation for killing" by desperate mobs.
U.S.-based Project HOPE, one of the few international humanitarian groups still operating medical clinics in Gaza, toldThe Guardian Thursday that "malnutrition among children, pregnant, and lactating women has surged amid the almost three-month aid blockade, with some clinics reporting up to 42% of pregnant women and 34% of lactating mothers being diagnosed as malnourished."
Ghadeer, a Project HOPE nurse in Gaza, said:
The number of malnutrition cases has skyrocketed. Two months ago, malnutrition cases did not exceed 50 cases per day. Now, we're seeing about 200 cases per day. Many of the children we see haven't eaten real food in weeks—only the nutritional biscuits we distribute. They're losing weight, becoming withdrawn, and getting sick more easily. We are doing everything we can, but we're seeing the consequences of extreme hunger in an entire generation. Without more food and aid coming in, I fear for their future.
Israel's forced starvation of Gazans has drawn mounting criticism, including from Israelis like Yair Golan—a former lawmaker and senior general who said earlier this week that "a sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population."
In the United States, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday renewed his call for an end to American armed aid to Israel, while asserting that "history will not forget U.S. complicity in enabling this horrific humanitarian disaster."
The American online educator Rachel Accurso, popularly known as Ms. Rachel, also continued speaking out against the suffering inflicted upon Gaza's children. Holding one of her own children and showing a photo of Suwar Ashur, a 5-month-old Palestinian suffering from acute malnutrition, Accurso implored world leaders to "help this baby" in a video shared widely on social media Wednesday.
"Please look at her," she pleaded. "Please, please look at her. Just please look at her eyes for one minute."
American youtuber Rachel Anne Accurso, known as Ms. Rachel, expresses her deep sadness on the situation of the starving Gaza children, appealing to the world to save them, following UN report that 14,000 children are at risk of death. pic.twitter.com/yO5KoN2PN0
— Kuffiya (@Kuffiyateam) May 21, 2025
"If you just look at her, and if you just think about a baby you love, think about a baby you care so much for, there's no way that we all don't know that you can't kill 15,000 kids, and you can't be about to let 14,000 kids starve," Accurso added, referring to an earlier estimate of the number of children killed since October 2023 and last week's United Nations warning of imminent mass starvation.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that at least 16,500 Palestinian children have been killed in the strip since October 2023, including 916 infants.
"Whatever is keeping you from standing up for these kids, who don't have food and medical care and who have had amputations without anesthesia, whatever is keeping you from saying it, it's not greater than your humanity," Accurso added.
Meanwhile, Operation Gideon's Chariots—the Israel Defense Forces' campaign to conquer, indefinitely occupy, and ethnically cleanse Gaza, possibly to make way for Jewish recolonization—continued Thursday as the IDF issued fresh evacuation orders for people in the heavily bombed Beit Lahia and Jabalia areas in the far north of the strip. Most of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, often more than once.
IDF bombing reportedly killed 52 people since dawn on Thursday, bringing the cumulative death toll from 593 days of bombardment, invasion, and siege to at least 53,762, with more than 122,000 others wounded and over 14,000 more missing and feared dead and buried beneath rubble, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel's annihilation of Gaza is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice
genocide case led by South Africa. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including extermination and weaponized starvation.
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Undaunted by Attacks, Online Educator Ms. Rachel Elevates Stories of Gaza's Children
"Ms. Rachel has freaked out the entire media class because she has shown how easy it is to humanize Palestinians and treat them with compassion while the mainstream media has spent 19 months doing precisely the opposite," said one observer.
May 22, 2025
Amid accusations that her social media posts about children in Gaza spread "pro-Hamas propaganda" and even that she is paid by the designated terrorist group—a claim that was amplified by The New York Times last week—the megapopular children's entertainer and educator known as Ms. Rachel is showing no signs that she plans to stop advocating for young Palestinians.
Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, featured a visit with a three-year-old Palestinian girl named Rahaf in her latest post Wednesday on Instagram, where her 3 million followers have seen numerous posts from her in recent months about children in Gaza.
"This is my friend, Rahaf, from Gaza. Meeting her and her wonderful mama Israa changed my life,"
wrote Accurso in the post's caption, explaining that the Palestine Children's Relief Fund facilitated the mother and child's medical evacuation to the U.S. after Rahaf lost both her legs in an Israeli airstrike.
The video post showed Accurso and Rahaf singing and dancing in matching pink headbands, but Accurso shared in the caption that the visit included a difficult moment when she spoke with Rahaf's brothers and their father, who are still in Gaza.
One minute I was pretending to be bunnies with Rahaf and the next minute I was video chatting with her two adorable, young brothers in Gaza, as her mom, Israa, held the phone up for me. I watched Israa look at them proudly, like I look at my son. It was a drastic snap back into reality. I imagined myself holding the phone in the U.S. with my daughter, now a double amputee from an airstrike, away from my son in Gaza, unable to help him. I felt like I was going to throw up and came back into the moment. "I hope to meet you one day!" I happily said, in my classic Ms. Rachel voice but with tears in my eyes.
Israa tells me that they no longer eat while video chatting with her sons. Her sons are so hungry and have so little food. They look about 5 and 7 years old. About my son's age.
[...]
I ask Israa what she did for work. She answers that she was a teacher and taught math. I think about how Israa and I are both teachers. We both love our children with all of our hearts. We want the same thing for them. But my son will have dinner tonight, a story and snuggle with me, school in the morning… and hers won't. If the situation was the other way around, what would I hope Israa would do for me?
The post was just the latest of many pleas for an end to Palestinian children's suffering by Accurso, a former music teacher who until recently was mostly known for her YouTube videos geared toward toddlers, featuring nursery rhymes and early language lessons.
In other posts she has shared photos of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl whose voice was heard in a phone call she made to emergency workers before she was killed, alone in a car, in an airstrike in Gaza in January 2024; reflections on the suffering of Israeli children taken hostage by Hamas in October 2023; and messages demanding an end to Israel's blockade on all humanitarian aid that began in March.
"When you hear about the thousands and thousands of children killed in Gaza, do you hear a statistic or think of individual children like precious Rahaf?" wrote Accurso last week after her first visit with Rahaf. "When you hear about the kids being blocked from aid do you think about sweet kids like Rahaf becoming malnourished? Trying to make it controversial to speak for these children and staying silent shows that you are saying some children's lives are more important than others—it's based in anti-Palestinian racism. It's not a crime to want the children of Gaza to have food, water, and medical care—keeping it from them is."
Her advocacy for Palestinian children has garnered the attention of the organization StopAntisemitism, which called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate whether Accurso is funded by Hamas.
A number of progressive journalists condemned the Times last week for asking her whether the accusation was true, with one saying the question was "dangerous journalistic malpractice."
"Ms. Rachel has freaked out the entire media class because she has shown how easy it is to humanize Palestinians and treat them with compassion while the mainstream media has spent 19 months doing precisely the opposite," said Alex Foley of the Accountability Archive, which collects records of public figures backing Israel's assault on Gaza. "She's not a political actor and that's what makes it so powerful. She's just a person who looked out and saw the common humanity in people who are suffering and said this is intolerable."
In an interview with Mehdi Hasan at Zeteo last week, Accurso said that while policymakers in the U.S., Israel, and elsewhere have "tried to make it controversial" to speak out about Israel's impact on Palestinian children's lives, "I think it should be controversial to not say anything."
Writer Alon Mizrahi called Accurso "the biggest dissident in America" after she posted her latest video with Rahaf.
"American culture instructed her to hate Palestinian kids, to see them as nonhuman, to rejoice in their destruction, and to support it," said Mizrahi. "She said no; she chose to humanize them more, and she persisted and did not succumb to immense hate and pressure. She should have our admiration forever for this. She is a hero and an icon."
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