Israeli strike kills 18 Palestinians at food aid site in Gaza

A mourner during the funeral of Palestinians who, according to the Gaza health ministry, were killed in the strike in Deir al-Balah on Thursday. Photograph: Ramadan Abed/Reuters

An Israeli strike hit a street in central Gaza where witnesses said a crowd of people were getting bags of flour from a Palestinian police unit that had confiscated the goods from gangs looting aid convoys. Hospital officials said 18 people were killed.

Efforts by the United Nations to distribute the food have been plagued by armed gangs looting trucks and by crowds of desperate people offloading supplies from convoys.

The strike in the central town of Deir al-Balah appeared to target members of Sahm, a security unit tasked with stopping looters and cracking down on merchants who sell stolen aid at high prices. The unit was part of Gaza's Hamas-led Interior Ministry but included members of other factions.

Eighteen people have been killed in an Israeli strike targeting Palestinian police distributing flour in a market in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, medical officials have said.

The reported strike, on Thursday afternoon, is the latest in a series of air attacks, shootings and bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that has killed hundreds of desperate civilians seeking aid in the devastated Palestinian territory.

It appears to have targeted members of a security force set up by the Hamas-led interior ministry to target looters and merchants who sell stolen aid at high prices.

The unit, known as Sahm, or Arrow, confiscates stolen aid which it then distributes. Witnesses said many of the casualties were ordinary civilians who had gathered to receive sacks of flour from a warehouse near the Birka crossroads in the northern part of Deir al-Balah.

The dead included a child and at least seven Sahm members, according to the nearby al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where casualties were taken.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Food has become extremely scarce in Gaza since a tight blockade on all supplies was imposed by Israel throughout March and April, threatening many of the 2.3 million people who live there with a “critical risk of famine”.

A horrific scene

Witnesses said the Sahm unit was distributing bags of flour and other goods confiscated from looters and corrupt merchants, drawing a crowd when the strike hit.

Video of the aftermath showed bodies, several torn, of multiple young men in the street with blood splattering on the pavement and walls of buildings. The dead included a child and at least seven Sahmt members, according to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where casualties were taken.

Relatives of Palestinians killed in Israeli army strikes wait for their burials at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, June 26, 2025. (Jehad Alshrafi)

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel has accused the militant Hamas group of stealing aid and using it to prop up its rule in the enclave. Israeli forces have repeatedly struck Gaza's police, considering them a branch of Hamas.

An association of Gaza's influential clans and tribes said Wednesday (local time) they have started an independent effort to guard aid convoys to prevent looting. The National Gathering of Palestinian Clans and Tribes said it helped escort a rare shipment of flour that entered northern Gaza that evening.

It was unclear, however, if the association had coordinated with the UN or Israeli authorities. The World Food Programme did not immediately respond to requests for comment by The Associated Press.

"We will no longer allow thieves to steal from the convoys for the merchants and force us to buy them for high prices," Abu Ahmad al-Gharbawi, a figure involved in the tribal effort, told the AP.

Accusations from Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz in a joint statement Wednesday accused Hamas of stealing aid that is entering northern Gaza and called on the Israeli military to plan to prevent it.

Palestinians carry humanitarian aid packages near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centre. (Source: Associated Press)

The National Gathering slammed the statement, saying the accusation of theft was aimed at justifying the Israeli military's "aggressive practices". It said aid was "fully secured" by the tribes, which it said were committed to delivering the supplies to the population.

The move by tribes to protect aid convoys brings yet another player in an aid situation that has become fragmented, confused and violent, even as Gaza's more than 2 million Palestinians struggle to feed their families.

Throughout the more than 20-month-old war, the UN led the massive aid operation by humanitarian groups providing food, shelter, medicine and other goods to Palestinians even amid the fighting. The UN and other aid groups say that when significant amounts of supplies are allowed into Gaza, looting and theft dwindles.

Israel, however, seeks to replace the UN-led system, saying Hamas has been siphoning off large amounts of supplies from it, a claim the UN and other aid groups deny.

Israel has backed an American private contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has started distributing food boxes at four locations, mainly in the far south of Gaza for the past month.

Thousands of Palestinians walk for hours to reach the hubs, moving through Israeli military zones where witnesses say Israeli troops regularly open fire with heavy barrages to control the crowds.

Health officials say hundreds of people have been killed and wounded. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots.

Palestinians line up to receive bags of flour distributed by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, June 26, 2025.

Palestinians line up to receive bags of flour distributed by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, June 26, 2025. (Source: Associated Press)

A trickle of aid

Israel has continued to allow a smaller number of aid trucks into Gaza for UN distribution. The World Health Organization said it had been able to deliver its first medical shipment into Gaza since March 2, with nine trucks bringing blood, plasma and other supplies to Nasser Hospital, the biggest hospital still functioning in southern Gaza.

In Gaza City, large crowds gathered at an aid distribution point to receive bags of flour from the convoy that arrived the previous evening, according to photos taken by a cameraman collaborating with the AP.

Hiba Khalil, a mother of seven, said she can't afford looted aid that is sold in markets for astronomical prices and was relieved to get flour for the first time in months.

"We've waited for months without having flour or eating much and our children would always cry," she said.

Another woman, Umm Alaa Mekdad, said she hoped more convoys would make it through after struggling to deal with looters.

Iran may halt IAEA ties after Israeli assault, 51 killed in Gaza

Mourners were seen out the front of the Al-Shifa hospital after violence at a nearby aid distribution centre. (Reuters: Mahmoud Issa)

Iran’s parliament passes bill to suspend cooperation with UN’s IAEA, as Israel’s assault on Gaza continues, killing at least 51 people today.

Sources at hospitals in the Gaza Strip give us this updated death toll, adding that at least 14 of them were killed today near aid distribution centres.

The killing of Palestinian aid seekers, once met with shock and international condemnation as Israeli-backed aid sites opened late last month, has now become a daily occurrence, as the starving population remains desperate to get any food aid that they can, even at the cost of their safety.

Israeli forces have issued new evacuation warnings for parts of Gaza after another day of bloodshed in which at least 51 people are reported to have died.

At least 21 of those killed were trying to reach an aid distribution site in the central Gazan city of Nuseirat, according to an official at a local hospital.

Palestinians remain under the threat of further clashes between Israel and Hamas despite a ceasefire with Iran. (AP: Abdel Kareem Hana)

Marwan Abu Naser, of the Al-Awda Hospital, said a further 146 people were injured by gunfire as crowds tried to reach the centre.

Israel's military said that a gathering overnight was identified adjacent to forces operating in Gaza's central Netzarim Corridor, and it was reviewing reports of casualties.

The United Nations rejects the GHF delivery system as inadequate, dangerous, and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules. Israel says it is needed to prevent the Hamas militants it is fighting from diverting aid deliveries.

The Palestinian Islamist group denies doing so.

Separately, 10 other people were killed by an Israeli air strike on a house in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City.

A further 11 were killed by Israeli gunfire in the southern city of Khan Younis, medics said, raising the day's toll to at least 40.

Iran's parliament approves bill on suspending cooperation with IAEA

Iran's parliament approved a bill on Wednesday to suspend cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, state-affiliated news outlet Nournews reported. The move follows an air war with Israel in which Iran's longtime enemy said it wanted to prevent Tehran developing a nuclear weapon.

The bill, which must be approved by Iran's unelected Guardian Council to become law, stipulates that any future inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would need approval by the Supreme National Security Council.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf was quoted by state media as also saying Iran would accelerate its civilian nuclear programme.

Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says an IAEA resolution this month declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations paved the way for Israel's attacks.

Qalibaf was quoted as saying the IAEA had refused even to appear to condemn the attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and "has put its international credibility up for sale."

He said that "for this reason, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran will suspend its cooperation with the Agency until the security of the nuclear facilities is guaranteed, and move at a faster pace with the country's peaceful nuclear programme."

Parliament's national security committee approved the bill's general outline this week and the committee's spokesperson said the bill would suspend the installation of surveillance cameras, inspections and filing of reports to the IAEA.

The IAEA did not immediately comment on the Iranian parliament's approval of the bill. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday he was seeking the return of inspectors to Iranian sites including the plants where it was enriching uranium until Israel launched strikes on June 13.

The full extent of the damage done to nuclear sites during the Israeli attacks and U.S. bombing of underground Iranian nuclear facilities is not yet clear.

"I think that our view on our nuclear programme and the non-proliferation regime will witness changes, but it is not possible to say in what direction," Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Qatar's Al-Araby Al-Jadeed this week.

Israel-Iran truce holds - Israeli forces kill 25 in Gaza

Iran-Israel ceasefire: Victory claims, US strikes & what’s next for diplomacy?

Israeli forces and drones opened fire toward hundreds of people waiting for aid trucks in central Gaza early Tuesday, killing at least 25 people, Palestinian witnesses and hospitals said.

Israeli forces have begun to tear down a home in the Palestinian town of Hizma, near Jerusalem, according to the Jerusalem governorate.

Footage shared by the governorate and verified by Al Jazeera shows an Israeli bulldozer tearing into the home’s walls. The governorate says the owner received no prior warning.

The Awda hospital in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp, which received the victims, said the Palestinians were waiting for the trucks on the Salah al-Din Road south of Wadi Gaza.

During a raid in Shu’fat Camp near Jerusalem early this morning, Israeli forces fired shots that hit a 66-year-old woman in the head, killing her, according to the Wafa news agency.

Wafa named the woman as Zahia Judah al-Obaidi.

“It was a massacre,” said Ahmed Halawa. He said tanks and drones fired at people, “even as we were fleeing. Many people were either martyred or wounded”.

Hossam Abu Shahada, another eyewitness, said drones were flying over the area, watching the crowds first, then there was gunfire from tanks and drones as people were moving eastward. He described a “chaotic and bloody” scene as people were attempting to escape.

He said he saw at least three people lying on the ground motionless and many others wounded as he fled the site.

The Awda hospital said another 146 Palestinians were wounded. Among them were 62 in critical condition, who were transferred to other hospitals in central Gaza, it said.

In the central town of Deir al-Balah, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said it received the bodies of six people who were killed in the same incident.

Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds seeking desperately needed food, killing hundreds of people in recent weeks. The military says it has fired warning shots at people it said approached its forces in a suspicious manner.

Explosive kills 7 Israeli soldiers in Gaza inside an armored vehicle, military says

Seven Israeli soldiers were killed Tuesday in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis when their armored vehicle was struck by an explosive, an Israeli military official said Wednesday.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with military regulations, said six of the soldiers’ names had been cleared for publication, while one was still being kept confidential.

Displaced Palestinians live in a tent camp in Gaza City, Monday, June 23, 2025.

It was a particularly deadly incident for Israel's military inside Gaza. Over 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the the war began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack — including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.

Also in the area of Khan Younis area, one soldier was seriously wounded Tuesday by weapons fire, the military said.

Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, said on its Telegram channel it had ambushed Israeli soldiers taking cover inside a residential building in southern Gaza Strip.

Some of the soldiers were killed and other injured after they were targeted by a Yassin 105 missile and another missile south Khan Younis, Hamas said. Al-Qassam fighters then targeted the building with machine guns.

It was not immediately clear whether the two incidents were the same.

The deadly attack came as the Palestinian death toll inside Gaza crossed the 56,000 mark.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that Israel’s 21-month military operation in Gaza has killed 56,077 people.

Hamas in its 2023 attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Many hostages have been released by ceasefire or other agreements.

The death toll is by far the highest in any round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead were women and children.

The ministry said the dead include 5,759 who have been killed since Israel resumed fighting on March 18, shattering a two-month ceasefire.

No agreement as of now, Tehran warns - despite Trump's announcement

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has denied claims by US President Donald Trump that his country has agreed to a ceasefire with Israel.

As US President Donald Trump claims a ceasefire has been achieved between Iran and Israel on Monday, Tehran has denied the claim. Iran has stated it did not receive any ceasefire proposal from the US which calls for a truce. Meanwhile, Israel has stayed silent on the ceasefire claim and is yet to comment on its implementation.

Taking to X, Iranian foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi stated that there is "no agreement as of now."

"As of now, there is NO "agreement" on any ceasefire or cessation of military operations. However, provided that the Israeli regime stops its illegal aggression against the Iranian people no later than 4 am Tehran time, we have no intention to continue our response afterwards. The final decision on the cessation of our military operations will be made later," he wrote.

As Iran has repeatedly made clear: Israel launched war on Iran, not the other way around.

As of now, there is NO "agreement" on any ceasefire or cessation of military operations. However, provided that the Israeli regime stops its illegal aggression against the Iranian people no…

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) June 24, 2025

Shortly after this tweet, the foreign minister shared statement saying that the ceasefire in Tehran took effect from 4 AM local time.

“The military operations of our powerful Armed Forces to punish Israel for its aggression continued until the very last minute, at 4am. Together with all Iranians, I thank our brave Armed Forces who remain ready to defend our dear country until their last drop of blood, and who responded to any attack by the enemy until the very last minute,” Araghchi wrote on X.

While Israeli officials have stated that Israel is on board with the ceasefire, an official reaction from the country is awaited. As per Hebrew media, Israeli officials have stated the prime minister Netanyahu is on board with Trump's ceasefire plan as long as “Iran vows to stop its missile attacks."

As per an AP report, the Israeli military declined to comment on Trump’s statement and the office of the Israeli PM is yet to respond.

Russia strikes more Ukrainian military training sites - Defense Of Minister Of Russia

©Russian Defense Ministry

Russian forces have conducted strikes on two sites used by Kiev to train newly mobilized troops, the Defense Ministry said. The announcement follows the resignation of a senior Ukrainian military commander, who criticized what he described as a lack of accountability for such incidents.

Ukraine’s armed forces rely on compulsory conscription to bolster their ranks, typically sending draftees to remote training facilities for basic instruction before deploying them to the front.

According to the Russian military, Iskander missile strikes recently targeted two such facilities.

One strike, near the Ukrainian city of Sumy, reportedly resulted in up to 100 casualties and destroyed as many as 14 military vehicles, the ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The second strike, reported on Sunday, hit an area under Kiev’s control in Russia’s Kherson Region, the ministry said. This operation involved an Iskander missile equipped with a cluster warhead that allegedly killed around 70 Ukrainian troops while destroying more than 10 vehicles.

Ukraine’s military confirmed the attack on a training site but reported a significantly lower toll – three soldiers killed and 14 wounded.

In early June, Ukrainian General Mikhail Drapaty resigned as commander of the Land Forces following a similar deadly incident. In a social media post, he condemned what he called a culture of impunity within the military leadership regarding troop losses.

According to Ukraine’s Suspilne news outlet, a Russian strike killed at least 12 Ukrainian soldiers and injured 60 others on June 1. Authorities in Kiev did not disclose the exact location, but the report, citing anonymous sources, indicated it may have occurred in the Dnepropetrovsk Region.

Around the same time, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had struck the Novomoskovsky training ground in that region.

Days later, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky appointed Drapaty to oversee all frontline operations as part of a broader reshuffle in military leadership, assigning a different official to supervise conscript training.

In a report on Saturday, the Financial Times said that the newly appointed commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, Brigadier General Gennady Shapovalov, has been tasked with reforming the “unpopular” forced mobilization and training system.

Ukraine declared general mobilization in 2022, barring most men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country. In 2024, Kiev tightened conscription laws and lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 in response to mounting battlefield losses. The mobilization campaign has sparked numerous violent confrontations between draft officers and unwilling conscripts, while many have attempted to flee the country despite serious personal risks.

Drone targets Iraq's Taji military base, no casualties

Iran’s Tasnim news agency is citing sources saying that the Victory Base Complex, a cluster of former US military installations in Baghdad International Airport in Iraq, has been hit by a drone attack.

An unidentified drone targeted an army radar at Iraq's Taji military base north of Baghdad, the Iraqi state news agency reported early on Tuesday, citing a military official.

There were no casualties, the commander of Baghdad's operations said.

In 2020, the U.S.-led international coalition troops withdrew from the base and handed it over to Iraqi security forces. The base had historically held up to 2,000 coalition members.

The base, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, had been the site of frequent rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias targeting U.S.-led troops months before the withdrawal.

The Balad military base in Iraq has come under attack, according to reports from the Kurdistan24 news channel, citing its correspondent in Baghdad.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the attack on the base, located in Iraq’s Salahuddin province about 100km (62 miles) north of the Iraqi capital.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency earlier reported that two explosions were heard inside the base, which previously served as the second-largest US base in Iraq.

Republicans rally around Trump after ceasefire announcement

US President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans have rallied around him after he announced that a ceasefire deal had been reached between Iran and Israel.

In a brief post on X, House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote: “Peace through STRENGTH!”.

Johnson has been feuding with some members of his party who criticised Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear sites.

Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most outspoken voices opposed to US intervention in the Iran-Israel war, also welcomed the announced ceasefire, writing on X, “Thank you, President Trump, for pursuing peace!”.

Greene earlier criticised Trump’s decision to bomb Iran, saying it felt “like a complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts, and neocon tv personalities that MAGA hates and who were NEVER TRUMPERS!”