Dozens injured after gunfire at aid hub in Gaza

Published

2 days ago

May 28, 2025

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At least 47 Palestinians have been injured – mostly by gunfire – when a crowd overwhelmed an aid hub in Gaza, according to a UN official.

Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said that three people had been killed during the incident in Rafah, in the south of the enclave. It said that seven others remained missing.

There have been conflicting reports from other local authorities on the number of dead.

On Tuesday, crowds of Palestinians gathered at a new aid distribution hub set up by a US and Israeli-backed foundation.

People broke through fences at the hub run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has been slated by Israel to take over aid operations.

Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Palestinian territories, said it appeared that Israeli army fire had caused most of the injuries.

Speaking from Switzerland, Mr Sunghay said: “The information that we have is that about 47 people have been injured, it is through gunshots.

“We’re still gathering information, the numbers could go up.

“What we know is that it was shooting from the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces]. But again, this is a job we are continuing to do at this time.”

The Associated Press reported hearing Israeli tank and gunfire and witnessing a military helicopter firing flares.

The GHF said its military contractors did not fire on the crowd but “fell back” before later resuming operations.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that there had been “some loss of control momentarily” at the hub, but “happily, we brought it under control.”

He repeated Israel’s plans to relocate Gaza’s entire population to a “sterile zone” at the southern end of the territory while Israel fights Hamas elsewhere.

‘Teaspoon’ of aid

Palestinians have become desperate for food after nearly three months of an Israeli blockade which has pushed Gaza to the brink of famine.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said last week Israel had only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid and more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.

The UN and other humanitarian organisations have rejected the new aid system.

They have warned that it will not be able to meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and allows Israel to use food as a weapon to control the population.

Israel said it has established the new aid system to stop Hamas from siphoning off supplies.

It has provided no evidence of systematic diversion, and UN agencies have said they have mechanisms in place to prevent this.

What is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation?

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation publicly launched earlier this year and is run by a group of American security contractors, ex-military officers and humanitarian aid officials.

Until his resignation, Jake Wood was the face of the foundation.

The US military veteran said on Sunday he quit because it was clear the group would not be allowed to operate independently.

It is not clear who will run the GHF now.

The US and Israeli-backed group is the linchpin of a new aid system, despite opposition from the UN and most humanitarian groups.

It has set up a number of hubs under the guard of armed contractors, instead of taking aid to where Palestinians.

The GHF moved food to its hubs on Monday and began distribution.

It said flows would be “increasing each day,” and it had plans to reach more than one million Palestinians by the end of the week.

The Israeli military said two of the four hubs had begun distributing food, both in Rafah.

The foundation has said it will create more hubs within 30 days, including in the north.

Sanaa airstrikes

Elsewhere in the region, Israel said it had carried out airstrikes on the international airport in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.

It came after Iran-backed Houthi rebels fired several missiles at the country in recent days.

Israel last struck the airport on 6 May. During that attack, it destroyed the airport’s terminal and left its runway riddled with craters.

Some flights resumed to Sanaa on 17 May.

World

The fight for the Arctic – where climate change is giving Russia room to manoeuvre

Published

8 hours ago

May 29, 2025

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The fight for the Arctic - where climate change is giving Russia room to manoeuvre

The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.

Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.

We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.

It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.

Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.

We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.

The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.

“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”

In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.

Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.

“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.

But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.

Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.

“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”

Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.

In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.

There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.

“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”

This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.

Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.

World

‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment

Published

15 hours ago

May 29, 2025

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'What did they do to be burned and bombed?': Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment

A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.

Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing

The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.

“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.

He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.

Israel-Gaza latest: Netanyahu reportedly accepts US ceasefire plan

Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.

“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.

“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.

“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”

Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.

They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.

Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.

“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.

“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”

One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.

His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.

“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”

Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”

The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.

He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.

Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”

Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.