kills

The young victims, two of whom remain under the rubble, range in age from seven months to 12 years old.

An Israeli strike has killed nearly the entire family of a Khan Younis doctor while she was at work, Gaza health officials said.

The attack hit the home of Alaa al-Najjar, a paediatrician at the southern city’s Nasser Hospital, on Friday, setting it ablaze and killing nine of her 10 children, according to the head of the hospital’s paediatrics department, Ahmad al-Farra.

Al-Najjar’s husband is severely wounded, and the couple’s only surviving child, 11-year-old Adam, is in critical condition, Gaza’s Government Media Office said in a statement.

The dead children, two of whom remain under the rubble, range in age from seven months to 12 years old, the media office added.

The attack “encapsulates the ongoing genocide faced by the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said the office. “It is a full-fledged war crime under all international laws and conventions.”

‘New phase of genocide’

The UN’s special rapporteur for the Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, slammed the attack as part of a “sadistic pattern” of a “new phase of genocide” facing Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

Two doctors go to work to assist others.Nine of their kids are killed by an Israeli missile targeting their home. Only surviving child, in critical conditions.

Targeting families in the still-standing buildings: distinguishable sadistic pattern of the new phase of the genocide. https://t.co/6tlylARKK5

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) May 24, 2025

Hamas said it followed a routine of Israel “deliberately targeting … medical personnel, civilians and their families in an attempt to break their will”.

The Israeli military said it had struck suspected fighters operating from a structure next to its forces in an area where civilians had been evacuated. “The claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review,” the military added.

On Monday, Israel issued forced evacuation orders for Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, warning of an “unprecedented attack”. There has been heavy, deadly bombardment in the area daily.

The al-Najjar children were among dozens killed in Israel’s attacks on Friday and Saturday.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the bodies of 79 people killed in Israeli attacks were brought to hospitals between Friday and midday Saturday. That count does not include facilities in the north of the enclave that are inaccessible, it said.

The ministry puts the overall death toll in Gaza since October 2023 at 53,901, with 122,593 injured.

Israel’s intensified attacks on Gaza have killed more than 130 Palestinians in a matter of hours, as ceasefire negotiations continue. Horrific videos show people in pieces and on fire following strikes on tents sheltering displaced civilians.

The drone strike in the Sumy region amounts to ‘a cynical war crime’, Ukraine’s National Police say.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for tougher sanctions on Moscow after a Russian drone killed nine bus passengers, just hours after the two countries held their first direct peace talks in years.

Seven others were injured in the attack in Bilopillia in Ukraine’s northeastern region of Sumy, Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Saturday.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had targeted Ukrainian military equipment, the TASS news agency reported. Russia denies targeting civilians since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, although thousands have been killed.

“All the deceased were civilians,” Zelenskyy said, adding that preliminary reports indicated a father, mother and daughter had been killed. “And the Russians could not have failed to understand what kind of vehicle they were targeting. This was a deliberate killing of civilians.”

He said the wounded had suffered burns, fractures, and blast injuries, and were receiving treatment in hospital.

The Ukrainian leader said he expected tougher sanctions from Ukraine’s partners to pressure Moscow “to stop the killings”, which came shortly after Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Istanbul on Friday to to attempt to broker a temporary ceasefire.

“Without tougher sanctions, without stronger pressure, Russia will not seek real diplomacy,” he said. “This must change.”

He said Russia had sent “a weak and unprepared” delegation to Istanbul without a meaningful mandate, and real steps were needed to end the war.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha denounced the attack as an “deliberate and barbaric war crime”, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of continuing “to wage a war against civilians” and calling for additional pressure on Russia.

“There should be no illusions. Pressure on Moscow must be increased to put an end to Russian terror,” Sybiha wrote.

No breakthrough

The 90-minute talks in Istanbul on Friday failed to reach a breakthrough, but ended with both sides agreeing to swap 1,000 prisoners in what would be the largest such exchange since the start of the war in 2022.

Vladimir Medinsky, the lead Russian negotiator, expressed satisfaction with the talks and said Moscow was ready for further negotiations, including on a ceasefire. “We have agreed that all sides will present their views on a possible ceasefire and set them out in detail,” he said after the meeting.

But a source in the Ukrainian delegation told Reuters news agency that Russia’s demands were “detached from reality and go far beyond anything that was previously discussed”.

The source told the agency Russia had issued ultimatums for Ukraine to withdraw from all parts of its own territory claimed by Moscow before they would agree to a ceasefire, “and other non-starters”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Saturday said Putin could meet with Zelenskyy – the first time such a meeting would have taken place since December 2019 – but only if certain agreements were reached. He did not elaborate on what would be required.

Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, British foreign minister David Lammy accused Moscow of obfuscating in its approach to the peace talks.

“Yet again we are seeing obfuscation on the Russian side and unwillingness to get serious about the enduring peace that is now required in Ukraine,” said Lammy. “Once again Russia is not serious.”

Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Kyiv, said Medinsky, Russia’s lead negotiator, had sent a clear message during the negotiations that Moscow was ready to continue the war for years – and had no problem in continuing to conduct the war at the same time as it held talks.

“And that is exactly what they have done,” said Basravi, adding that the destroyed vehicle in Bilopillia had been evacuating residents from a conflict zone, according to Ukraine.

More than 19 months into its war on Gaza, Israel shows few signs that it is relenting. The last week has shown the opposite, an intensification of violence across the besieged Palestinian territory, leaving hundreds dead, and hundreds of thousands terrified of what comes next.

This was a week where United States President Donald Trump toured the Middle East, visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. There had been hope that some kind of ceasefire deal would be announced, or that the US would put more pressure on Israel to seriously come to the negotiating table. That was particularly the case after Hamas released a US-Israeli captive on Monday without demanding anything in exchange.

Ultimately, none of that happened, with Trump returning to his idea of US involvement in the future administration of whatever is left of Gaza, while acknowledging that Palestinians there were starving.

Israel also intercepted a number of missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, before attacking Yemen itself on Friday.

Lets take a closer look at a week that has devastated Gaza, and left Palestinians there feeling even more abandoned.

How many Palestinians were killed in Gaza this week?

According to figures compiled by Al Jazeera, at least 370 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since Sunday. The violence has been particularly deadly in the second half of the week, with medical sources reporting the killing of at least 100 Palestinians on Friday, and 143 on Thursday. Many of those killed have been women and children.

These are some of the worst single-day death tolls since the beginning of the war in October 2023.

The killings put the total death toll reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health more than 53,000, although the territory’s Government Media Office’s death toll now sits at more than 61,700, as it includes thousands of Palestinians still under the rubble who are presumed dead.

Israeli attacks have targeted the whole Gaza Strip, with a particular focus on the north. Hospitals have also repeatedly been bombed by Israel.

What is being done to alleviate the hunger crisis in Gaza?

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has been caused by Israel’s complete blockade of the entry of all food and medication to the Strip since March 2, a decision it made when the ceasefire was still ongoing, and one that goes against international law.

A report released on Monday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative said that the Gaza Strip was “still confronted with a critical risk of famine”, with half a million people facing starvation and 93 percent of its more than 2 million population at severe risk.

People are already starving to death – Gaza authorities last week said that 57 people had died as a result of starvation.

Trump acknowledged that “a lot of people are starving” in Gaza and said that the US was “going to get that taken care of”, but provided few details. The US has backed a new body called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that it says will start work in Gaza by the end of the month.

But the plan has been rejected by the United Nations and other humanitarian groups, who say that the plan would lead to more displacement for Palestinians in Gaza, as it would only disperse aid in some areas of Gaza, and set a dangerous precedent for the delivery of aid in warzones.

The UN has reiterated that it has the capacity to deliver aid across Gaza, but is being prevented from doing so by Israel. It says it has enough aid ready to deliver to feed all of the Palestinians in Gaza for four months, if Israel allows its trucks in.

What are Palestinians calling for?

Palestinians in Gaza have been recounting the horrors of the past week, desperately calling for the world to act and stop Israel’s bombing.

In northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, one of the worst hit areas, one civilian had a simple message – “either kill us or let us live.”

“All of [the strikes] were targeting civilians. All the houses are being bombed – everything is gone,” Ahmed Mansour told Al Jazeera. “What is a person supposed to do? They’re all making a joke out of us. I’m heading to the coast now. We’ve been displaced more than 50 times – either kill us or let us live.”

Taher al-Nunu, a senior Hamas official, also called on Friday for the US to put more pressure on Israel to open the crossings into Gaza and “allow the immediate entry of humanitarian aid – food, medicine and fuel – to the hospitals in the Gaza Strip”.

What does Israel want?

The Israeli government has made it clear that it is unwilling to agree to a deal that would end the war in return for the release of all the Israeli captives still held in Gaza, despite widespread domestic support for such a deal.

Instead, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks of total victory against Hamas, although it is difficult to see what that would entail.

Instead, the war drags on, and Netanyahu said on Monday that preparations were continuing for “an intensification of the fighting”. Last week, he said that Israel was planning for the “total conquest” of Gaza.

Trump left the Middle East this week with no ceasefire deal agreed, only saying, “We’re going to find out pretty soon” when asked whether a deal was in place for the return of Israel’s captives.

Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that Israel’s position was “rigid” and that the US had “lost interest”. A source told the newspaper that US envoy Steve Witkoff was “no longer involved”.

“He’s waiting to hear what we want, and since we don’t want anything, he has nothing left to do,” the source said.

A chemical spill in the city of Jundiaí has turned a lake bright blue, killing fish and dyeing local wildlife. Authorities are now investigating the environmental impact as the dyed water flows toward the Jundiaí River, whose water is used by nearby cities and companies.

May 15 (UPI) — Indian security forces have killed 31 alleged Maoist rebels in what it Modi government officials called “the biggest-ever operation against Naxalism.”

The nearly three dozen accused rebels were killed during a 21-day operation in central India’s Kurraguttalu Hill region along the Chhattisgarh and Telangana state borders, Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah said Wednesday in a statement on X.

“The mountain that was once ruled by red terror is now proudly flying the national flag,” Shah said.

Naxalism is a communist insurgency of oppressed peasants that was founded in 1967 against feudal landowners in Naxalbari, West Bengal. India has been fighting the insurgency ever since, and the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to be “Naxal-free” by March 31 of next year.

Shah said the Kurraguttalu Hill had served as a unified headquarters for several major Naxal organizations and was not only a training center “but also a site for Naxal strategy and weapons manufacturing.”

Eighteen military personnel were injured by improvised explosive devices during the operation, which took place between April 21 and Sunday, the government said in a release. Thirty-one bodies of uniformed Naxalites were recovered following the 21-day operation, including 16 females, with 28 so far identified, it said, adding that there were 21 “encounters” with Naxalites.

A total of 214 Naxal hideouts and bunkers were destroyed during the operation. Authorities also recovered 450 improvised explosive devices, 818 barrel grenade launcher shells, detonators, explosive materials and more than 26,450 pounds of food.

“Analysis of the information obtained during this historic 21-day-long anti-Naxal operation suggests that several senior Naxal cadres were either killed or seriously injured,” the government said.

Modi said in a statement that the operation proves their campaign to “eradicate Naxalism from its roots” was progressing as planned.

“We are fully committed to not only establishing peace in the Naxal-affected areas but also integrating them into the mainstream of development,” he said.