kills

CHICAGO — A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a man who officials said tried to evade arrest Friday in a Chicago suburb by driving his car at officers and dragging one of them.

The shooting just outside the city follows days of threats by the Trump administration to surge immigration enforcement in the nation’s third-largest city and less than a week into an operation labeled “Midway Blitz” by federal officials targeting the so-called sanctuary policies in Chicago and Illinois.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a news release that the officer was trying to arrest a man who had a history of reckless driving, but he refused officers’ orders and instead drove his car at them. An ICE officer who was hit and dragged by the car felt his life was threatened and opened fire, the department said.

ICE said both the officer and the driver from the shooting in the Franklin Park suburb, about 18 miles west of Chicago, were taken to a hospital, where the driver was pronounced dead.

“We are praying for the speedy recovery of our law enforcement officer. He followed his training, used appropriate force, and properly enforced the law to protect the public and law enforcement,” said spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said he is aware of the shooting and demanded “a full, factual accounting of what’s happened today to ensure transparency and accountability.”

Video from the scene shows police tape and traffic cones blocking off parts of the street where a large food distribution truck and gray car can be seen from a distance. Multiple law enforcement vehicles were surrounding the area.

Erendira Rendón, chief program officer at a local advocacy group called the Resurrection Project, said the shooting “shows us the real danger that militarized enforcement creates in our neighborhoods.”

“A community member is dead, and an officer was injured,” Rendón said in a statement. “These are outcomes that serve no public safety purpose and leave entire communities traumatized. … When federal agents conduct unaccountable operations in our communities, everyone becomes less safe.”

Chicagoans, meanwhile, have been preparing for weekend Mexican Independence Day celebrations that include parades, festivals, street parties and car caravans, despite the potential immigration crackdown.

McLaughlin said that “viral social media videos and activists encouraging illegal aliens to resist law enforcement” have made the work of ICE officers more dangerous.

Santana and Fernando write for the Associated Press. Santana reported from Washington.

Sept. 12 (UPI) — A man in Chicago was shot and killed by an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent after the man allegedly hit an agent with his car.

Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was stopped by ICE, according to a press release from the Department of Homeland Security. He was an undocumented immigrant and had a history of reckless driving, the release said.

Villegas-Gonzalez allegedly resisted arrest and hit an agent with his car, dragging him down the street.

The agent, “fearing for his own life,” shot Villegas-Gonzalez, DHS said.

Villegas-Gonzalez and the unnamed agent were taken to the hospital, and Villegas-Gonzalez was pronounced dead. The officer is stable but has suffered severe injuries, DHS said.

The incident happened in Franklin Park, about 15 miles west of downtown.

“We are praying for the speedy recovery of our law enforcement officer. He followed his training, used appropriate force, and properly enforced the law to protect the public and law enforcement,” Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security assistant secretary, said in a press release. “Viral social media videos and activists encouraging illegal aliens to resist law enforcement not only spread misinformation, but also undermine public safety, as well as the safety of our officers and those being apprehended.”

Israeli forces killed more than 70 people in Gaza on Wednesday and launched deadly attacks on Yemen after earlier strikes on Hamas delegation in Doha, Qatar.

As the world’s attention was focused on Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Israeli forces continued their unrelenting bombardment of Gaza, killing more than 50 people on Tuesday.

Among the dead are nine Palestinians, who had gathered in the enclave’s south seeking aid. Israel pressed on with its offensive in Gaza City after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Palestinians to flee to the south for their lives.

The Wafa news agency reported that a drone strike on a makeshift tent sheltering displaced families at Gaza’s port killed two civilians and injured others. Warplanes also hit several residential buildings, including four homes in the al-Mukhabarat area and the Zidan building northwest of Gaza City, it reported.

Another house was reportedly bombed in the Talbani neighbourhood of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, while two young men were killed in an attack on civilians in the az-Zarqa area of Tuffah, northeast of Gaza City.

Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency confirmed footage showing an Israeli strike on the Ibn Taymiyyah mosque in Deir el-Balah. The video captured a flash of light before the mosque’s minaret was enveloped in smoke. Despite the blast, the minaret appeared to remain standing.

Israel issued new evacuation threats on Monday, releasing maps warning Palestinians to leave a highlighted building and nearby tents on Jamal Abdel Nasser Street in Gaza City or face death. It told residents to move to the so-called “humanitarian area” in al-Mawasi, a barren stretch of coast in southern Gaza.

But al-Mawasi itself has been repeatedly bombed, despite Israel insisting it is a safe zone. At the start of the year, about 115,000 people lived there. Today, aid agencies estimate that more than 800,000 people – nearly a third of Gaza’s population – are crammed into overcrowded makeshift camps.

Philippe Lazzarini, the chief of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, described al-Mawasi as a vast camp “concentrating hungry Palestinians in despair”.

“There is no safe place in Gaza, let alone a humanitarian zone. Warnings of famine have fallen on deaf ears,” he said.

The Palestinian Civil Defence warned that “Gaza City is burning, and humanity is being annihilated”.

The rescue agency said that in just 72 hours, five high-rise towers containing more than 200 apartments were destroyed, leaving thousands of people homeless.

More than 350 tents sheltering displaced families were also flattened, it added, forcing nearly 7,600 people to sleep in the open, “struggling against death, hunger, and unbearable heat”.

More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed, some 20,000 of them children, in the Israeli offensive, which has been dubbed a genocide by numerous scholars and activists. The International Criminal Court has also issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes.

‘The crime of forced displacement’

The Government Media Office in Gaza said that more than 1.3 million people remain in Gaza City and surrounding areas, despite Israeli attempts to push them south. It described the evacuation orders as an effort to carry out “the crime of forced displacement in violation of all international laws”.

More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced multiple times in 23 months of genocidal war, and an Israeli curb on aid entry, including food items, has led to starvation deaths. Last month, a UN agency declared famine in Gaza, affecting half a million people.

On Tuesday morning, Palestinians in central Gaza staged a protest against the latest evacuation orders.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said that demonstrators carried banners reading, “We will not leave”, and “Not going out”.

“The primary goal of the [Israeli] occupation is displacement,” said Bajees al-Khalidi, a displaced Palestinian at the protest. “But there’s no place left, not in the south, nor the north. We’ve become completely trapped.”

Violence also flared in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces killed two teenagers in the Jenin refugee camp, according to the Wafa news agency.

Mourners on Tuesday buried 14-year-old Islam Noah, who was shot while attempting to enter the besieged refugee camp. A funeral was also held for another 14-year-old, Muhammad Alawneh. Two others were wounded in the same incident.

Israel targets Hamas leaders

Israel sent missiles at Doha as Hamas leaders were meeting in the Qatari capital for talks on the latest ceasefire proposal from the United States to end the war in Gaza. Hamas said five people were killed, while Qatar said a security official was also among the dead. Hamas said its leadership survived the assassination attempt.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani condemned Israel’s “reckless criminal attack” in a phone call with US President Donald Trump. Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani called the attack “state terrorism”.

The Qatari prime minister said Doha would continue to work to end Israel’s war on Gaza, but raised doubts about the viability of the most recent talks. “When it comes to the current talks, I don’t think there is something valid right now after we’ve seen such an attack,” he said.

Qatar has sent a letter to the UN Security Council, condemning what it calls a cowardly Israeli assault on residential buildings in Doha.

The Doha attack has drawn global condemnation, with the UN chief calling it a “flagrant violation” of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar.

The White House claimed that the US had warned Qatar of the impending strike, but Doha rejected that account, insisting the warning came only after the bombing had begun.

Trump later said he felt “very badly about the location of the attack” and that he had assured Qatar that it would not happen again.

“This was a decision made by Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was not a decision made by me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals.”

Sept. 9 (UPI) — At least two dozen people in Ukraine on Tuesday morning were killed in a Russian airstrike, with nearly as many injured at a postal building.

According to local authorities, at least 24 people are dead and 19 others injured in the village of Yarova in the Donetsk Oblast region after Russian forces struck the area around 11 a.m. local time at Ukrposhta, Ukraine’s national post service, as local workers and residents stood in line to receive a pension payout.

“Such Russian strikes must not be left without an appropriate response from the world,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on social media.

Two injured were hospitalized but the full extent of damage was not immediately clear.

Regional Governor Vadim Filashkin called Russia’s air attack “pure terrorism” and said it was “not a military operation,” he wrote on Telegram.

The Ukrainian postal service facility sat less than 6 miles from Russian-occupied territory. Video footage depicted bodies among damaged postal service cars.

The attack represented a higher fatality count bombing since the end of last month when around 23 Ukrainians were killed in overnight air strikes on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.

On Tuesday, Zelensky added that the world “must not remain idle” as a result of Russia’s morning airstrikes.

“A response is needed from the United States. A response is needed from Europe. A response is needed from the G20,” he stated.

It came after some 550 Russian drones in July surpassed previous records and penetrated Ukraines air defenses.

Nearly two months after being resettled to rebuild their lives following several years of displacement, residents of Darajamal have suffered a devastating Boko Haram attack that left at least 63 people dead, including five soldiers, according to data from local authorities and sources who spoke to HumAngle.

The assault began on Friday night, Sept. 5, when the terrorists stormed the rural community in Bama Local Government Area, Borno State, in Nigeria’s North East. Modu Gujja, the area council chairman, said the terrorists arrived around 9 p.m., opened fire, and set homes ablaze. At least 24 houses were destroyed.

In the wake of the Boko Haram insurgency over a decade ago, Darajamal became a stronghold for the terrorists and remained deserted for years, even after the military recaptured it in ruins. On July 13, the Borno State government resettled more than 3000 displaced persons from an IDP camp in Bama town into 300 newly constructed housing units in the community.

The recent attack has shattered fragile hopes of stability; it has led to a fresh displacement of about 108 households, according to Gujja. 

Borno State Governor Babagana Umara Zulum, who visited the community on Saturday, Sept. 6, confirmed the death toll and the displacement figures. Standing before the remaining residents, he described the incident as “very sad” and a “major setback” for resettlement efforts.

“We are here to commiserate with the people of Darajamal […] This community was settled a few months ago, and they go about their normal activities, but unfortunately, they experienced a Boko Haram attack last night,” Zulum said. 

For residents, the tragedy is a cruel repetition. Kaana Ali, a resident of the village, told journalists that he had resolved to leave for good after losing close family friends, though the governor appealed for him and others to stay. “The governor is still begging us to stay back as more protection would be provided to secure our community,” he said.

Zulum acknowledged the limits of the military’s capacity to secure all vulnerable communities: “We have to take note that the numerical strength of the military is not enough to cover everywhere, so far so good, two sets of Forest Guards have been trained, therefore one of the solutions that we need to implement immediately is to deploy the trained Forest Guards to most of the locations that are vulnerable, they will protect the forest and communities.”

The attack also drew condemnation from Kaka Shehu, who represents the Borno Central senatorial district, which includes Darajamal. He described the killings as a crime against humanity and pledged legislative support for restoring peace in the state.

The massacre in Darajamal comes only a month after Boko Haram struck Kirawa, another resettled border town in neighbouring Gwoza Local Government Area. That attack killed at least four people, displaced hundreds, led to the abduction of a schoolgirl, and left homes, vehicles, and food supplies destroyed. 

In the aftermath, locals in Kirawa told HumAngle that no Nigerian military or Multinational Joint Task Force reinforcements had returned to the community, leaving it without security. Many residents fled across the border into Cameroon, surviving nights in makeshift shelters or the open air before cautiously returning during the day.

The back-to-back attacks underscore the continuing presence of Boko Haram across Borno’s rural communities and highlight the persistent risks undermining the state’s resettlement programmes. Since the start of 2025, multiple repatriated communities have faced renewed violence, leaving many families once again displaced, grieving, and uncertain of the future.

Much of the affected region has become mostly inaccessible to the UN and aid groups, with Doctors Without Borders describing the area as a ‘black hole’ in Sudan’s humanitarian response. 

Sudan has appealed for international aid after a landslide destroyed an entire village in the western Darfur region, killing more than 1,000 people in one of the deadliest natural disasters in recent history in the country beset by a brutal civil war.

The village of Tarasin was “completely levelled to the ground,” the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), the rebel group that controls the area, said as it appealed to the United Nations and international aid groups for help to recover the bodies on Tuesday.

The tragedy happened on Sunday in the village, located in Central Darfur’s Marrah Mountains, after days of heavy rainfall.

“Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated to be more than 1,000 people,” the rebel group said in a statement. “Only one person survived,” it added.

The ruling Sovereign Council in Khartoum said it mourned “the death of hundreds of innocent residents” in the Marrah Mountains landslide. In a statement, it said “all possible capabilities” have been mobilised to support the area.

Luca Renda, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said he was “deeply saddened” by the reported landslide, adding that the UN and its partners were mobilising to support affected communities at the scene.

A local emergency network, which has been providing support to communities across Sudan during the war, said its teams recovered the bodies of at least nine people on Tuesday. Search teams were facing challenges to reach the area because of bad weather and a lack of resources, it added.

Mohamed Abdel-Rahman al-Nair, a SLM/A spokesman, told The Associated Press news agency that the village where the landslide took place is remote and accessible only by foot or donkeys.

Tarasin is located in the central Marrah Mountains, a volcanic area with a height of more than 3,000 metres (9,840 feet) at its summit. A World Heritage Site, the mountain chain is known for its lower temperatures and higher rainfall than surrounding areas, according to UNICEF. It is located more than 900 kilometres (560 miles) west of the capital, Khartoum.

Sunday’s landslide was one of the deadliest natural disasters in Sudan’s recent history. Hundreds of people die every year in seasonal rains that run from July to October. Last year’s heavy rainfall caused the collapse of a dam in the eastern Red Sea State, killing at least 30 people, according to the UN.

News of the disaster came as Sudan’s continuing war – now in its third year – plunges the country further into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with famine already declared in parts of Darfur.

People fleeing clashes between the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in North Darfur state had sought shelter in the Marra Mountains, and food and medication were in short supply, the Reuters news agency reported.

Much of the region has become mostly inaccessible for the UN and aid groups, with Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym MSF) describing the area as a “black hole” in Sudan’s humanitarian response.

The International Organization for Migration on Tuesday called for safe access and the scaling-up of support to the area.

Factions of the SLM/A have pledged to fight alongside the SAF against the RSF.

Fighting has escalated in Darfur, especially in el-Fasher, since the army took control of Khartoum from the RSF in March.

El-Fasher has been under RSF siege for more than a year, as the paramilitary force is seeking to capture the strategic city, the last major population centre held by the army in the Darfur region.

The paramilitaries, who lost much of central Sudan, including Khartoum, earlier this year, are attempting to consolidate power in the west and establish a rival government.

Sept. 2 (UPI) — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he ordered a “kinetic strike” on a boat carrying drugs from Venezuela to the United States that he said killed nearly a dozen members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

Trump made the announcement in a social media post referring to members of the infamous Venezuelan gang as “narcoterrorists.” The strike marks the Trump administration’s embrace of military force against drug trafficking, which was previously left to law enforcement. It is also the latest ratcheting up of hostility with Venezuela after Trump said the gang is controlled by the country’s leader Nicolas Maduro.

The early morning strike killed 11 members of the gang while they were transporting illegal narcotics in international waters, according to Trump. U.S. military personnel were not harmed, he wrote.

“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” Trump wrote in his post.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the strike by U.S. military forces in a post on X, writing that it occurred in the southern Caribbean.

Shortly into his second term, Trump designated the Tren de Aragua and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gangs as “foreign terrorist organizations,” concluding that their drug trafficking and violent activities are a destabilizing presence.

The Trump administration in August doubled its bounty to $50 million for the arrest of Maduro, for the authoritarian ruler’s alleged role in drug trafficking.

Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff, on Friday acknowledged in a press briefing that the United States was building up naval forces in the Caribbean, saying it was to “combat and dismantle drug trafficking organizations, criminal cartels and these foreign terrorist organizations in our hemisphere.”

Maduro responded by placing troops on the border and calling on Venezuelans to resist an invasion by the United States, saying during a press conference Monday that the county is “facing the greatest threat our continent has seen in 100 years,” reported El Pais.

“If Venezuela was attacked, we would declare an armed struggle and a Republic in arms,” Maduro said, according to the newspaper.

More than 360 people, including 130 children, have died from hunger since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

A total of 185 people in Gaza died “due to malnutrition” in August, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, as an additional 13 people, including three children, have died in 24 hours since then as the catastrophic effects of Israeli-induced famine in the enclave worsen.

The statement issued on Tuesday said more than 83 people, including 15 children, had died since the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a United Nations-backed global hunger-monitoring system, declared last month that parts of Gaza were undergoing a full-blown famine.

The Health Ministry also said 43,000 children below the age of five were suffering from malnutrition along with more than 55,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women. Two-thirds of pregnant women were suffering from anaemia, the highest rate in years, it added. Mothers and newborns are the most at risk from malnutrition.

The total number of hunger-related deaths in the besieged enclave now stands at 361, including 130 children, since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Israel has killed at least 63,633 people in Gaza and wounded 160,914 during the war, according to the Ministry of Health.

The IPC declared on August 22 that 514,000 people in the Gaza Strip, close to a quarter of the enclave’s population, are experiencing famine. It expected the number to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.

The IPC made its declaration after more than 22 months of war, during which Israeli forces have destroyed medical facilities, schools, infrastructure and bakeries; blocked the entry of aid into the besieged Strip; and targeted and killed Palestinians seeking food aid.

This is the first time the IPC has recorded famine outside Africa, and the global group predicted that famine conditions would spread to Deir el-Balah in central Gaza and Khan Younis in the south by the end of this month.

After the IPC’s declaration, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the famine a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself”.

Guterres said Israel had “unequivocal obligations” under international law as an occupying power to ensure food and medical supplies enter Gaza.

Humanitarian organisations have demanded action. For its part, Israel rejected the findings, saying there was no famine in Gaza despite the IPC’s overwhelming evidence.

At least 63 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn on Tuesday, among them 41 in Gaza City alone, medical sources told Al Jazeera. Among the killed, 19 were aid seekers situated in central and southern Gaza.

Israeli attacks are mainly, but not solely, now focused on Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban centre, as the Israeli army relentlessly bombards it and tries to forcibly displace its residents to the southern part of the enclave.

“Civilians on the ground are bearing the brunt. There are still hundreds of thousands of families in Gaza City,” reported Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum at midday from Deir el-Balah. “They refuse to leave because they know that there are no safe spaces in central and southern Gaza and they would rather stay close to their communities and what’s left of their houses.”

Once teeming and crowded with residential buildings, Gaza City has been home to one million Palestinians, nearly half of Gaza’s population, but it is now a landscape of rubble.

The world’s top genocide scholars formally declared that Israel’s war on Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide, marking a landmark intervention from leading experts in the field of international law.

The International Association of Genocide Scholars, a 500-member body of academics founded in 1994, passed a resolution on Monday stating that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza fulfil the definition of genocide set out in the 1948 UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Israel has stepped up its destruction of Gaza City as it plans to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre and forcibly displace around one million Palestinians to concentration zones in the south, as it killed at least 78 people across the besieged enclave since dawn, including 32 desperately seeking food.

On Sunday, in Gaza City, the Palestinian Civil Defence reported a fire in tents near al-Quds Hospital after Israeli shelling. At least five people were killed and three wounded when a residential apartment was hit near the Remal neighbourhood.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, said the Israeli army is also using “explosive robots” in residential areas and forcibly displacing Palestinians in Gaza City.

In a statement on X on Sunday, al-Thawabta said the army has detonated more than 80 such devices in civilian neighbourhoods over the past three weeks, calling it a “scorched-earth policy” that has destroyed homes and endangered lives.

He said more than one million Palestinians in Gaza City and the north of the enclave “refuse to submit to the policy of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing” despite the destruction and starvation caused by the Israeli assault.

Footage posted on Instagram by Palestinian journalist Faiz Osama and verified by Al Jazeera showed the moments that followed an Israeli aerial attack on the Sabra neighbourhood, in the southern part of Gaza City.

In the footage, as plumes of smoke rise to the sky, a child can be seen screaming with a wound to the leg. A man also lays on the ground with what appears to be a head injury.

The video also shows the destruction left by the strike after residential buildings were flattened by the explosion.

Israel’s forces have carried out sustained bombardment on Gaza City since early August as part of a deepening push to seize the area in the latest phase of its nearly two-year genocidal war.

On Friday, the Israeli military said it had begun the “initial stages” of its offensive, declaring the area a “combat zone”.

‘Fields of rubble’

Reporting from Gaza City on Sunday, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said intensifying Israeli attacks have been turning parts of Gaza City, once teeming and crowded with residential buildings, into “fields of rubble”.

“There is non-stop heavy artillery targeting the Zeitoun area and Jabalia, where we are seeing the systematic demolition of homes. There is hardly any fighting going on, but heavy artillery and bulldozers are moving from one street to the other, destroying all of these residential clusters,” he said.

“The majority of people in those areas do not have the luxury to pack up and leave because there is no safety anywhere.”

Another Palestinian journalist was also killed on Sunday. A source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera that Islam Abed was killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City and that she worked for Al-Quds Al-Youm TV channel.

The Government Media Office said the “number of martyred journalists has risen to 247″ since the war began. Other tallies have put the number of journalists and media workers killed at more than 270.

On Monday, five journalists – one of whom worked for Al Jazeera – were among at least 21 people killed in an Israeli attack on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.

‘Life is difficult, so we will stay in our home’

Many residents in Gaza City are opting to stay put despite Israel declaring it a “combat zone”.

It was Gaza’s most populous city before the war began, home to about 700,000 people. Then hundreds of thousands fled under Israel’s forced evacuation threats before many returned, joined by thousands of other displaced from the south, during a January-to-March ceasefire, which Israel broke.

Fedaa Hamad, who was displaced from Beit Hanoon, said she has “no plans to leave” Gaza City this time despite Israel’s latest warning.

“We are tired from the first displacement. Where are we going to go? Is there a place in the south? We cannot find it,” she said.

Akram Mzini, a resident of Gaza City, said he would not leave “because displacement is very difficult”.

“We were displaced to the south before, and displacement in the south is not simple and it is costly,” he said. “Life is difficult, so we will stay in our home, and whatever God wants will happen.”

Elsewhere in Gaza on Sunday, an Israeli attack on the centre of Deir el-Balah killed at least four people, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

Earlier, medical sources said an Israeli bombardment killed at least one person and wounded several in the city, located in the central part of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces have killed at least 78 Palestinians across Gaza since dawn, including 32 aid seekers, according to medical sources.

Since the war began, Israel has killed at least 63,459 people and wounded 160,256. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks, and about 200 were taken captive.

On Sunday, Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir held a situation assessment meeting with his top commanders, saying the military must “initiate” more attacks to surprise and reach its targets anywhere.

Many more reserve soldiers will assemble this week “in preparation for the continued intensification of the fighting against Hamas in Gaza City”, Zamir was quoted as saying by the military.

Meanwhile, the armed wing of Hamas said its fighters successfully attacked two invading Israeli military vehicles in Gaza City on Saturday.

The Qassam Brigades said a Merkava tank of the Israeli army was hit with a Yassin-105 shell, while a D9 military bulldozer was targeted with an explosive device on a street southwest of the Zeitoun neighbourhood of the besieged area.

As global condemnation against the situation grows, in the largest attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory by sea, the Global Sumud Flotilla left the Spanish port city of Barcelona on Sunday.

The flotilla’s launch comes after the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared a state of famine in Gaza this month.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, which describes itself as an independent group not linked to any government or political party, did not say how many ships would set sail or the exact time of departure, but Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg spoke of “dozens” of vessels.

Sumud means “perseverance” in Arabic.

Two previous attempts by activists to deliver aid by ship to Gaza were blocked by Israel.

Mohamad Elmasry of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies told Al Jazeera that while the flotilla was “an important act of symbolic resistance … ultimately, they will be intercepted”.

“This is not going to solve the famine,” he said. “What’s going to solve the famine, ultimately, is governments doing their job to stop genocide and deliberate starvation programmes.”

The al-Mawasi area in southern Gaza where Israel has told displaced people to go is among places targeted this morning.

Ukrainian authorities describe Russia’s missile and drone attack as ‘massive’, with multiple areas of Kyiv hit.

An overnight Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv has killed at least four people and wounded more than 20 others, officials said.

Powerful explosions rocked the city into the early hours of Thursday morning, illuminating the sky and leaving behind columns of smoke as Russian projectiles damaged and destroyed buildings in several districts of the city.

The attack was the first major combined Russian drone and missile attack to strike Kyiv since United States President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska earlier this month to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said a 14-year-old girl was among those reported killed, citing preliminary information.

A five-storey residential building in the city’s Darnytskyi district was hit directly. “Everything is destroyed,” Tkachenko said.

“Tonight, Kyiv is under massive attack by the Russian terrorist state,” he said.

Local media outlet The Kyiv Independent said at least four people were confirmed killed, and officials expect the number of casualties to rise.

Another strike in central Kyiv left a major road strewn with shattered glass, and rescue teams were working to pull people trapped beneath rubble from some 20 affected locations across the city.

Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko also called it a “massive attack” by Russia, adding that two children were also among the injured.

Officials provided news organisations with a long list of buildings that had suffered damage, including several high-rise apartment blocks, and photos and video posted online showed apartments ablaze and smoke billowing from buildings.

The attack comes amid so-far failed efforts by President Trump to convince Putin to cease his war on Ukraine, and as both Moscow and Kyiv trade blame over a diplomatic impasse in efforts to end the fighting.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that members of his administration would meet with US officials in New York on Friday.

The Ukrainian leader said he saw “very arrogant and negative signals from Moscow” regarding negotiations to end the war, urging extra “pressure” to “force Russia to take real steps” to cease fighting.

Local sources report an Israeli operation in Kiswa, where six soldiers were killed by Israeli drones strikes a day before.

Israeli forces have conducted a series of strikes on a former army barracks in Kiswa, southwest of the Syrian capital of Damascus, according to Syria’s state-run al-Ekhbariya TV.

Video verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency showed Israeli aircraft attacking sites in the village on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a Syrian military source told Al Jazeera that the Israeli army carried out a landing operation in the barracks with the use of four helicopters.

According to the source, the Israeli army brought in dozens of soldiers and an unspecified amount of search equipment as it spent more than two hours at the site.

No clashes took place between the Israeli forces involved in the landing and the Syrian army forces.

The operation came a day after an Israeli drone strike killed six soldiers near Kiswa, and as Syrian officials in the government of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa have increasingly accused Israel of seeking to expand its control in the region.

In a statement on Wednesday, Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the strike “a gross violation of international law and the United Nations Charter”.

It added that the attack represented “a clear breach of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic”.

Israel has launched hundreds of strikes targeting military sites and assets across Syria since the fall of former leader Bashar al-Assad in December. It has also expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarised buffer zone, a move that violated a 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria.

On Monday, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said that Israel had sent 60 soldiers to take control of an area inside the Syrian border around Mount Hermon, near a strategic hilltop close to the border with Lebanon.

Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Asaad al-Shaibani decried the “military incursion” as part of an effort by Israel to advance its “expansionist and partition plans”.

The latest Israel operations follow deadly clashes in the Druze-majority Syrian province of Suwayda, where 1,400 people were killed in a week of sectarian violence in July.

Israel has since attacked Syrian troops and bombed the heart of the capital, Damascus, under the pretext of protecting the Druze people.

Background / Context
The Gaza war, now in its eleventh month, has left tens of thousands dead and displaced much of the enclave’s population. Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza since the war began on October 7, 2023, leaving Palestinian reporters to provide most on-the-ground coverage. Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis has served as a major hub for treatment of the wounded and as a base for journalists reporting on the conflict.

What Happened
Israeli airstrikes hit Nasser hospital in southern Gaza on Monday, killing at least 20 people, including five journalists, according to Palestinian health officials.

Cameraman Hussam al-Masri, a Reuters contractor, was killed near a Reuters live broadcast position on the hospital’s upper floors during the first strike.

Israel then struck the site a second time, killing other journalists, medical staff, and rescue workers who had rushed to help.

The journalists killed included Mariam Abu Dagga (freelancer for AP), Mohammed Salama (Al Jazeera), Moaz Abu Taha (freelancer, occasional Reuters contributor), and Ahmed Abu Aziz.

Photographer Hatem Khaled, another Reuters contractor, was wounded.

In a separate incident the same day, doctors at Nasser hospital said Israeli gunfire killed local journalist Hassan Dohan in a nearby tent encampment.

Why It Matters
The strike marks one of the deadliest single incidents for journalists since the Gaza war began. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, nearly 200 reporters and media workers—most of them Palestinian—have been killed since October 2023, making this conflict the deadliest for the press in recent history. The deaths underscore both the risks faced by journalists reporting from Gaza and the intensifying calls for accountability over attacks on medical and media sites.

Stakeholder Reactions

Israeli government: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called the incident a “tragic mishap,” insisting Israel does not target journalists and that the war is against Hamas. The IDF said it regrets harm to “uninvolved individuals” and has ordered an inquiry.

Reuters: “We are devastated to learn that cameraman Hussam al-Masri … was killed this morning in Israeli strikes on Nasser hospital … We are urgently seeking more information and have asked authorities in Gaza and Israel to help us get urgent medical assistance for [wounded photographer] Hatem,” a spokesperson said.

Associated Press: Said it was “shocked and saddened” at the loss of Mariam Abu Dagga and other journalists, noting Abu Dagga had recently been reporting on child malnutrition from the hospital.

Palestinian presidency: Urged the U.N. Security Council and international community to provide protection for journalists and hold Israel accountable.

Palestinian Journalists Syndicate: Condemned the strike as “an open war against free media.”

Committee to Protect Journalists: Called on the international community “to hold Israel accountable for its continued unlawful attacks on the press.”

U.S. President Donald Trump: Expressed displeasure, saying, “I didn’t know that. Well, I’m not happy about it … At the same time, we have to end that whole nightmare.”

What’s Next
Israel’s military says it will investigate the incident, with Brigadier General Effie Defrin promising findings will be presented “as transparently as possible.” International pressure is likely to mount for independent inquiries into Israel’s conduct during the war, particularly its treatment of journalists and medical facilities. Meanwhile, media organizations are urging urgent protection for reporters still working in Gaza, where foreign journalists remain barred and local correspondents continue to bear the brunt of the risk.

With information from Reuters.

Israel has struck Nasser Hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip, killing at least 21 people, including five journalists, as well as medics and rescue workers, in the latest deliberate attack on civilians and the besieged enclave’s decimated health system.

Monday’s attack, which killed journalists who worked for Al Jazeera, the Reuters and Associated Press (AP) news agencies, and others, was among the deadliest of a multitude of Israeli strikes that have targeted both hospitals and media workers over the course of the nearly two-year genocidal assault.

It comes as Israel widens its offensive to heavily populated areas and urban centres, including Gaza City, increasing the already heightened peril for the population.

The first strike of the “double-tap” attack, where one strike is followed by a second soon after, hit the top floor of a building at Nasser Hospital. Minutes later, as journalists and rescuers in orange vests rushed up an external staircase, a second projectile hit, said Dr Ahmed al-Farra, the head of the paediatrics department.

Among the journalists killed were Al Jazeera’s Mohammad Salama, Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, Mariam Abu Daqqa, a freelance journalist working for AP at the time, as well as Ahmed Abu Aziz and Moaz Abu Taha.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said the attack has “sent the entire area into an absolute sense of chaos and panic”.

“Not only for passers-by or people living in the vicinity of the hospital, but for the patients themselves, who are receiving treatment in one of the areas that must be protected under … international humanitarian law,” Abu Azzoum said.

The attack was met with widespread global condemnation, including from press freedom groups and rights advocates, who expressed outrage over Israel’s repeated targeted killings of Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

Al Jazeera condemned the attack as “a clear intent to bury the truth”.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, also decried the attack.

“Rescuers killed in line of duty. Scenes like this unfold every moment in Gaza, often unseen, largely undocumented,” Albanese said.

“I beg states: how much more must be witnessed before you act to stop this carnage? Break the blockade. Impose an Arms Embargo. Impose Sanctions.”

Israel’s allies, such as France Germany and the United Kingdom, have called for an investigation.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate also condemned Israel for the strikes, saying it represented “an open war against free media, with the aim of terrorising journalists and preventing them from fulfilling their professional duty of exposing its crimes to the world”.

The attack raises the death toll of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 to at least 273, according to an Al Jazeera tally.

The Committee to Protect Journalists called for “the international community to hold Israel accountable for its continued unlawful attacks on the press”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strike was a “tragic mishap”, and that the military was investigating it. Israel has often issued similar statements after incidents that drew international outrage and calls for UN investigations, but actual accountability for the perpetrators is unheard of.

Israeli forces also killed Palestinian correspondent Hassan Douhan, who worked for the Al-Hayat al-Jadida publication, in a separate incident in Khan Younis later on Monday, bringing the death toll of journalists killed that day to six.

Two weeks ago, Israel killed prominent Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif and four other journalists in a strike. In that attack, Israel acknowledged targeting Sharif and falsely alleged he worked for Hamas, without providing any evidence, after having openly maligned and condemned him for months before murdering him.

Nasser Hospital has withstood raids and bombardment during the war, with officials repeatedly noting critical shortages of supplies and staff amid a crippling aid blockade. Other hospitals have also come under attack, including al-Shifa Medical Complex, the enclave’s main hospital, where Israel has killed hundreds.

Death, desperation and famine stalk enclave

Israeli attacks across the famine-struck territory have killed at least 61 people since dawn on Monday, including seven people desperately seeking aid.

Tanks have been advancing in Gaza City, where Israeli forces have been intensifying attacks in a bid to force nearly 1 million Palestinians there southwards into concentration zones.

Gaza’s Civil Defence said that Israel had destroyed 1,000 buildings in Gaza City since August 6, trapping hundreds under the rubble, while ongoing shelling and blocked access routes prevented many rescue and aid operations.

The al-Awda Hospital said Israeli gunfire also killed six aid seekers trying to reach a distribution point in central Gaza and wounded another 15.

Israeli forces have been routinely opening fire on hungry Palestinians as they attempt to secure meagre aid parcels at the controversial Israeli and United States-backed GHF sites.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed and some 13,500 wounded while seeking aid at distribution points or along convoy routes used by the UN and other aid groups.

Al-Awda said that two Israeli strikes in central Gaza killed six Palestinians, including a child, while al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said three Palestinians, including a child, were killed in a strike there.

The relentless attacks continue as the UN warns that malnutrition among children in Gaza is deepening.

The UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA) renewed calls for the unrestricted flow of aid into and within Gaza.

“With famine conditions now confirmed in Gaza governorate, hunger and malnutrition among children are deepening,” OCHA said.

“Partners working on nutrition note that in any food crisis, children with underlying health conditions are affected first – and without proper nutrition, water and care, their condition worsens more quickly.”

Chris McIntosh, Oxfam’s humanitarian response adviser in Gaza, has described the situation as unprecedented in scale and severity.

“It’s difficult not to overuse superlatives in this context, but truly, this is a singular humanitarian disaster and the worst crisis that I’ve ever been part of… by far,” he said.

In the meantime, US President Donald Trump has predicted that the war on Gaza could see a “conclusive end” within two to three weeks. Similar claims have quickly fallen by the wayside as Washington’s full military and diplomatic backing of Israel’s genocidal war shows no signs of abating.

“It’s got to get over with because between the hunger and all of the other problems – worse than hunger, death, pure death – people [are] being killed,” Trump said.

Russian attacks on major Ukrainian cities have killed at least 12 people as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits Washington, DC, supported by European leaders, for high-stakes peace talks with United States President Donald Trump that could determine Ukraine’s future and its fate in the war, now in its fourth year.

An entire family, including a toddler and a 16-year-old, were among seven people killed in an overnight drone strike on a residential neighbourhood in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, authorities said on Monday. The attack also injured 20 people, including six children.

Russian forces killed five people and injured four in attacks in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where some of the fiercest fighting on the ground rages on and where Russian President Vladimir Putin, feeling Moscow has the upper hand, seeks Ukraine’s withdrawal from the third of the region Kyiv still controls.

In Zaporizhzhia, a city in the southeast, 17 people were injured in an attack, according to Governor Ivan Fedorov. Russian air raids also targeted the northeastern region of Sumy and the southern region of Odesa.

Ukraine’s air force said Russian forces launched 140 drones and four missiles at Ukraine overnight, adding that 88 drones had been downed.

Russia has been intensifying its fight in Ukraine. According to the United Nations monitoring mission on Ukraine, about 2,600 drone attacks were recorded in the past month, the highest rate since the beginning of the war, and more than 300 civilians were killed.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military said on Monday that its drones had struck an oil-pumping station in the Tambov region, a strike 1,923km (1,195 miles) from Ukraine, leading to the suspension of supplies via the Druzhba pipeline.

“As a result of the strike, a fire broke out at the facility. Oil pumping through the Druzhba main oil pipeline was completely stopped,” the Ukrainian military’s General Staff said in a statement.

In Russia’s border region of Belgorod, four people were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack while Russian officials reported shooting down hundreds of drones and munitions.

Negotiating an end to the war

Zelenskyy called the latest attacks on Ukraine “demonstrative and cynical”. “Putin will commit demonstrative killings to maintain pressure on Ukraine and Europe, as well as to humiliate diplomatic efforts,” he wrote on X.

Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Kyiv, said Zelenskyy saw the killing of civilians as a strategy aimed at giving Trump more bargaining chips with which to pressure Ukraine into accepting an unfavourable peace deal.

“This shows how much pressure Zelenskyy is under as he goes into … potentially the most vital diplomatic effort to end this war,” Stratford said.

Zelenskyy on Monday was expected to meet Trump for talks at the White House alongside a cadre of heavyweight European leaders, including European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen. On the table for discussion are possible land concessions as well as NATO-like security guarantees that Ukraine requires for any peace deal with Russia.

To date, Zelenskyy has refused to consider the possibility of ceding Ukrainian territory to bring about peace. It is also forbidden under the Ukrainian Constitution,

The meeting comes on the heels of a summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday that ended with no clear breakthrough on the war in Ukraine.

Military analyst Sean Bell said he had little hope that a peace deal would come out of the talks in Washington, DC, either. “The harsh reality is that unless Putin has achieved his objectives, he’s got no appetite for negotiations,” Bell told Al Jazeera.

“If President Zelenskyy is doing all the giving, that’s in effect a surrender. Zelenskyy can’t do that,” he continued. At the same time, Bell said he did not expect Russia to accept a deal that entails NATO-like security guarantees for Ukraine.

Bell said a “catalyst” was needed to bring the war to a close, the most effective of which he believed to be Trump’s stiff tariffs on buyers of Russian oil and gas, like India. The US president threatened to enact these secondary sanctions but has so far refrained from putting new pressure on Russia’s fossil fuel export revenues.

“The fact that Trump has avoided doing that means the killing is going to continue,” Bell said.

Strength and safety in numbers appear to be factors in the group visit by European leaders with memories still fresh about the hostile reception Zelenskyy received in February from Trump and US Vice President JD Vance in a public White House dressing-down. They castigated the Ukrainian leader as being ungrateful and “disrespectful”.