cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/43917595

Dozens of community kitchens in Gaza were forced to shut down on Thursday due to lack of food, amidst Israel’s ongoing blockade aimed at starving the Palestinian population and annexing their land.

Air raid sirens echoed throughout central "Israel" after a ballistic missile was launched from Yemen, according to a statement from the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).

The IOF confirmed the detection of the missile and said they were taking action to intercept it.

Specific details about the missile's trajectory, intended target, and damage were not immediately disclosed.

Bill Gates ratcheted up his feud with Elon Musk on Thursday, saying the former DOGE head was "killing" children through USAID cuts.

Driving the news: Gates vowed to give away "virtually all" of his wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next two decades, he announced Thursday.

Gates' "key aspirations" to guide the foundation's funding over the next two decades center on promoting child and maternal health and fighting infectious diseases and poverty.

Those target areas overlap with the USAID programs from which Musk and the Trump administration cut billions.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/29840920

Jeremy Scahill
May 09, 2025

"Al-Hindi said that while Hamas and PIJ prefer a comprehensive “all for all” deal, they remain open to a framework that “could be implemented in phases—a comprehensive and clear deal, but implemented in phases, to accommodate some of the tensions within Israel.”"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/29824159

Bernie Sanders May 08, 2025

[based on speech given to US Senate]

"Thursday marks 68 days and counting since ANY humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza. For more than nine weeks, Israel has blocked all supplies: no food, no water, no medicine, and no fuel.

Hundreds of truckloads of lifesaving supplies are waiting to enter Gaza, sitting just across the border, but are denied entry by Israeli authorities.

... Defense Minister Israel Katz said, “Israel’s policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers.” "

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/29823575

Jessica Corbett
May 08, 2025

""Today marks 68 days and counting since ANY humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza. For more than nine weeks, Israel has blocked all supplies: no food, no water, no medicine, and no fuel."

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) not only highlighted those conditions in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday but also called out the fact that the worsening humanitarian crisis "gets very little discussion here in the nation's capital or in the halls of Congress," even though Israel has spent the past 19 months destroying Gaza with armed and diplomatic support from the United States."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/29823642

Brett Wilkins
May 08, 2025

"Israeli occupation forces enforced a ban on the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees on Thursday by storming three schools in East Jerusalem, terrorizing children and staff as they shuttered the facilities and drawing condemnation from human rights defenders.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, heavily armed Israeli security forces raided the schools in the Shu'fat refugee camp in illegally occupied East Jerusalem, detaining one UNRWA employee and forcing around 550 children out of their classrooms as the invaders closed the facilities."

The group said fighters struck an Israeli force of seven soldiers with a powerful explosive device near the Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz Mosque in the al-Tannour neighborhood in eastern Rafah.

The Brigades reported earlier that it targeted an Israeli engineering unit of 12 soldiers with two anti-personnel and anti-armor shells as the unit prepared to carry out a demolition operation inside a home near al-Fidai Junction in the same neighborhood.

The explosion inside the house caused multiple casualties, it said, and the group saw Israeli helicopters landing to evacuate the dead and wounded.

The Israeli military has been altering commercial drones to carry bombs and surveil people in Gaza, an investigation by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification agency has found.

According to Sanad, drones manufactured by the Chinese tech giant DJI have been used to attack hospitals and civilian shelters and to surveil Palestinian prisoners being forced to act as human shields for heavily armoured Israeli soldiers.

This is not the first time DJI drones have been modified and used by armies. There were similar reports about both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. At the time, DJI suspended all sales to both countries and introduced software modifications that restricted the areas where its drones could be used and how high they could fly.

However, DJI has not stopped selling drones to Israel.

Residents in Indian-administered Kashmir have said there are major and multiple explosions and sirens in the city of Jammu, causing a complete blackout.

Shesh Paul Vaid, the region’s former director-general of police and a resident of Jammu, said on social media: “Bombing, shelling, or missile strikes suspected.”

The drones used by India in the latest attacks were identified as Israeli-made Harop MK 2 models, which are high-altitude surveillance UAVs capable of flying at up to 35,000 feet, beyond the range of most standard anti-aircraft guns.

The engine, produced by UK-based UAV Engines Ltd, was recovered intact with visible manufacturer markings. This marks the first successful interception of this drone model globally.

The latest escalation comes after the April 22 attack in Pahalgam, Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), which killed 26 people. India immediately blamed Pakistan-based elements for the attack, but provided no evidence. Islamabad has strongly rejected the accusations.