May 27, 2025
the destruction in Northern Gaza on May 27. Photo: Reuters.
Israeli attacks left some 80 dead and more than 160 wounded in the last 24 hours in various areas of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian health authorities reported today.
In a press release, they specified that the statistics do not include hospitals in the Northern Gaza Governorate, due to the difficulty in reaching them.
According to the report, numerous bodies and wounded people remain trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings or in the streets, as ongoing bombardments and the absence of safe corridors continue to hamper the work of ambulances and civil defense personnel.
Since Israel resumed its intensified military campaign on March 18, at least 3,901 Palestinians have been killed and another 11,088 wounded, bringing the total to 54,056 dead and 123,129 wounded since the escalation of attacks and bombings against Gaza began in October 2023.
Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States in January 2025, but it collapsed two months later when Israel resumed its military operations in the Strip at the end of the first phase of the agreement, without reaching an agreement on the start of its second phase or its extension.
On Tuesday, the Israeli government reported that two aid distribution points had been opened in Rafah, in southern Gaza, “in close coordination with the United States” and managed “by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and the American civil security company” as part of a private plan supported by Washington and Tel Aviv.
At the same time, the UN said it had no information on the start of food distribution. “We have no information,” said Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), during a video conference with the press.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), registered in Geneva since February and about which very little is known, announced on Monday that it had begun food deliveries in Gaza.
The initiative, which involves Israel taking control of aid distribution in the Gaza Strip, has been rejected by the United Nations, which argues that it undermines the principle that humanitarian aid must be distributed independently of the parties to the conflict, based on needs.
The UN recalled in mid-May that there is already a “neutral and independent” aid plan and that the organization has the staff, distribution networks, the trust of the communities, and the support of the vast majority of the international community to carry it out, but that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government must stop obstructing humanitarian operations in the Strip.
“We know what is needed and what is missing, but we are very far from that daily goal,” Touma said on Tuesday, adding that “at least 500 to 600 trucks should enter Gaza daily, loaded not only with supplies, but also with medicines, medical equipment, vaccines for children, fuel, water, and other basic items essential for the survival of the population.”
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), stressed that the UN is not involved in the work of the GHF.
He said that this initiative “takes us away from what is really needed, which is the reopening of all crossing points into Gaza, a safe environment within the Strip, and faster facilitation of final authorizations and approvals for all emergency supplies that we have just outside the border and that need to be delivered.”
No UNRWA aid has been delivered since March 2, Touma said.
The GHF initiative, launched while Israeli attacks continue, is also viewed with suspicion by Palestinians. “As much as I want to go because I am hungry and my children are hungry, I am afraid,” Abu Ahmed, 55, a father of seven, told AFP.
Israeli officials said one of the advantages of the new aid system is the ability to screen recipients to exclude anyone linked to Hamas.
Humanitarian groups briefed on the foundation’s plans say that anyone accessing the aid will have to undergo facial recognition technology that many Palestinians fear will end up in Israeli hands to be used to track them and potentially target them.
The exact details of how the system will work have not been made public.
Israel widely uses facial recognition and other forms of biometric identification in the occupied West Bank, and Israeli and international media have reported that it also employs these techniques in Gaza.
Some 300 writers denounce genocide in Gaza
Around 300 French-speaking writers, including two Nobel Prize winners for Literature—Annie Ernaux and Jean Marie Gustave Le Clézio—denounced the genocide against the population in Gaza in an open letter published on Tuesday and demanded an immediate ceasefire.
“Just as it was urgent to classify the crimes committed against civilians on October 7, 2023, as war crimes and crimes against humanity, today it is necessary to call it genocide,” they write in a letter published by the French newspaper Libération.
“More than ever, we demand that sanctions be imposed on the State of Israel, that an immediate ceasefire be called to guarantee security and justice for the Palestinians, the release of Israeli hostages and of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners arbitrarily detained in Israeli prisons, and that this genocide be brought to an end without delay,” they add.
Among the signatories are authors recently awarded the Goncourt Prize, such as Hervé Le Tellier, Jérôme Ferrari, Laurent Gaudé, Brigitte Giraud, Leïla Slimani, Lydie Salvayre, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Nicolas Mathieu, and Éric Vuillard.
Accusations against Israel are mounting, coming from the UN and other international organizations, human rights groups, and a growing number of countries.
The signatories of the letter published in Libération affirm that the label of genocide “is not a slogan” and reject “showing generalized and pointless empathy without qualifying this horror or specifying what it is.”
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English