Updates: Israel kills dozens in Gaza; allies issue warning to halt assault

To learn more about the entry of a handful of aid trucks into Gaza after nearly three months of a full Israeli blockade, see our story here.

You can also read our explainer on Israel’s newly expanded ground invasion of Gaza here.

And for a firsthand account from a journalist surviving Israel’s war, check out this opinion piece.

We will be closing the live blog soon. Here’s a recap of today’s main events:

• The Israeli military placed Khan Younis, the second-largest city in Gaza, under evacuation orders, again displacing Palestinians who have nowhere safe to flee.
• The United Nations said nearly 100,000 Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza in the last four days as Israel expands its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
• Israel allowed nine aid trucks to finally go into Gaza after an 11-week total blockade – a move the UN described as “a drop in the ocean” with Palestinians facing famine. 
• The United Kingdom, France, and Canada issued a statement warning Israel that it could face “targeted sanctions” if it does not lift the blockade on Gaza, stop illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, and halt the violence.
• In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is fighting a war of “civilization against barbarism” in Gaza and will continue until “total victory” over Hamas.
• The World Health Organization said an Israeli air strike on a warehouse at Nasser Hospital destroyed about 30 percent of its desperately needed medical supplies.

A United Nations human rights official has questioned the validity of the threat by France, the UK, and Canada to impose “targeted sanctions” on Israel over its attacks on Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“Targeting whom? You need to impose sanctions on the state. It’s not about the prime minister. This is the entire government enterprise,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories.

The plan to use the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to bypass entrenched humanitarian aid mechanisms used for decades in Gaza is “one of the most appalling things I’ve seen in my career”, Albanese told Al Jazeera.

“This is a landslide moment. Millions of people from around the world have been protesting. People have been fired from their jobs. People have been arrested and detained for asking for the end of a genocide, crimes committed against women and children. People cannot stand this anymore.”

Israel will permit minimal food aid to Gaza temporarily, but Netanyahu insists on controlling distribution to block Hamas.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Olga Cherevko of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called the move insufficient after more than 10 weeks of total blockade, stressing that Gaza faces “catastrophic” conditions with starvation looming.

We’ve been reporting on Canada, France and the UK’s statement warning Israel to halt its assault on Gaza and the occupied West Bank, while mentioning “targeted sanctions” as a response.

Hamas welcomed the joint statement, describing the three nations’ stance as “an important step” towards restoring the principles of international law.

The Western countries also slammed “abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli government threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate”.

“Permanent forced displacement is a breach of international humanitarian law,” the statement noted.

Israel’s ground-and-air war has devastated Gaza, displacing nearly all its 2.3 million residents and killing more than 53,000 people, the majority of them women, children and the elderly.

Palestinian activist Issa Amro spoke to AJ+ after he was harassed by Israeli soldiers and settlers following his appearance in The Settlers, a documentary by journalist Louis Theroux.

Issa is a human rights defender involved in nonviolent resistance against Israel’s illegal occupation, and this is not the first time he has been targeted.

Issa lives in Hebron, a city in the occupied West Bank, where more than 250,000 Palestinians live under constant harassment and surveillance.

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The French president has reiterated strong opposition against Israel’s intensification of its offensive in Gaza, saying the level of human suffering in the enclave is “intolerable”.

“We firmly oppose the expansion of Israeli military operations in Gaza. The level of human suffering is intolerable,” Emmanuel Macron said on X, sharing a joint statement by the United Kingdom, Canada, and France that threatened to take action against Israel over its actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“In the lead-up to the June 18 conference [on Palestinian statehood] in New York, we must all work toward implementing the two-state solution,” Macron added.

Saudi Arabia and France will chair the international conference next month with United Nations backing, aimed at establishing a roadmap for Palestinian statehood.

Arbel Yehoud, who was released after 482 days in captivity in a ceasefire earlier this year, told Israeli lawmakers at a parliamentary committee that they’ll have blood on their hands “if you do not stop the war”.

Yehoud’s partner, Ariel Cunio, is still held in Gaza along with 57 other captives, 23 of whom are believed to be alive.

She said she was terrified by the sound of bombs while she was being held. “As someone who was there, I know that only through negotiations is [returning the captives] possible,” Yehoud said.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri blamed Israel’s leaders for the lack of progress at truce talks in Qatar, and said that escalating its military offensive would be “a death sentence” for the remaining captives.

The Palestinian ambassador to the UK has told Al Jazeera that the statement by Canada, France and the UK threatening action against Israel if it does not stop a renewed military offensive in Gaza and lift aid restrictions is “19 months late”, but is nevertheless “very significant”.

“Coming from [some of] the strongest allies of Israel, and after 19 months of utter silence from these capitals, it is very significant,” Husam Zomlot told Al Jazeera from London

He said that Palestinians want to build on this statement, and that he wanted these states to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, sanction state figures, work to hold Israeli war criminals to account, and recognise Palestine as an independent state.

“We need to save whatever is left of our lives and the lives of our people. We must make sure that we save whatever is left of international law, including the convention to prevent the crime of genocide, and we want to save our humanity,” Zomlot added.

“So, of course, we have so much to despair [about] but we also have a lot to do to make sure that international actors, including the UK, take their responsibilities seriously.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has slammed a statement by the governments of France, the United Kingdom, and Canada saying they could sanction Israel if it doesn’t end a new ground invasion of Gaza.

“By asking Israel to end a defensive war for our survival before Hamas terrorists on our border are destroyed and by demanding a Palestinian state, the leaders in London, Ottawa and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel … while inviting more such atrocities,” he said in a social media post.

Israel is fighting a war of “civilization over barbarism” and will continue until it achieves “total victory”, Netanyahu added.

His post also called on European nations to accept US President Donald Trump’s vision for Gaza.

“That means the expulsion of more than two million Palestinians from their home country,” Al Jazeera correspondent Hamdah Salhut reported from Jordan. “The statement is saying that European leaders should get behind this as well.”

Al-Awda Hospital says among the dead in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza were a woman and a young girl.

The strike also wounded 18 others, mostly children, said the hospital, which received the casualties.

The Israeli army said it attacked a Hamas “command-and control” centre “used by terrorists to plan and execute attacks”. The army often uses the justification when it kills civilians in Gaza’s crowded displacement camps.

In December, at least 36 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza

More than 97,000 Palestinians have been displaced in the Gaza Strip over the past four days, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said, warning that displacement is a “constant” in Gaza.

“Humanitarian aid must never be used to influence the movement of people”, the United Nations’ IOM also wrote on X, after several organisations raised concerns that a planned Israeli-US scheme to take over aid distribution could lead to the displacement of more people and could be used as a tool to de-populate Gaza.

Forced evacuation orders throughout Israel’s 19-month war have displaced the majority of Gaza’s population multiple times.

Earlier on Monday, Israel’s military issued another forced displacement order to residents of Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, threatening an “unprecedented” assault after launching a new ground invasion.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have announced what they called a “maritime blockade” on Israel’s Port of Haifa in response to Israel’s ongoing escalation in Gaza.

“All companies with ships present in or heading to this port are hereby notified that, as of the time of this announcement, the aforementioned port has been included in the list of targets,” the group’s spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said in a televised address.

The Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel, including at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, although they have agreed to halt attacks on US ships.

The missiles launched by the group at Israel were mostly intercepted.

Israel has carried out strikes in response, including one on May 6 that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.

The number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, has risen to 219, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

On Friday, Reporters Without Borders said Palestine has become the world’s most dangerous state for journalists, with dozens of reporters killed by Israeli forces, likely due to their work.

Israeli forces have reportedly targeted all three power generators at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, leaving the key facility without its primary power sources, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary has reported.

“The hospital is now operating on backup energy from solar panel batteries, which are expected to last only a few more hours,” she wrote in an update on X.

“Medical staff warn that patients in the intensive care unit are at imminent risk as power supplies dwindle.”

A senior Hamas official says Israel insists on a partial deal to release some captives without committing to ending the war.

Hamas will only release the remaining abductees in return for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire, and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The Hamas official was not authorised to brief media and spoke on condition of anonymity, The Associated Press reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a video message that Israel would achieve “complete victory” with both the release of the 58 captives held by Hamas in Gaza and the destruction of Hamas.

Benjamin Netanyahu says US senators he has known for years as supporters of Israel – “our best friends in the world” – are telling him that desperate scenes of hunger in Gaza are draining vital support and bringing Israel close to a “red line, to a point where we might lose control”.

“It is for that reason, in order to achieve victory, we have to somehow solve the problem,” Netanyahu said in a message apparently addressed to far-right hardliners in his government who have insisted aid be denied to Gaza.

Last week, 29 US Senate Democrats introduced a resolution urging the Trump administration to use “all diplomatic tools” to stop the Israeli blockade and allow aid to enter the Gaza Strip.

“I’m offering a resolution with my colleagues that makes a simple point: it notes simply that children are starving to death. They’re starving to death as we are here comfortably debating what we think are important issues,” said Senator Peter Welch.

“And it must be the effort of all of us to do all we can to bring this siege and this war to an immediate end.”

A speech by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was interrupted by protesters over the company’s provision of AI services to the Israeli military.

“BREAKING! No Azure for Apartheid disrupts Satya’s keynote during Microsoft Build! SHUT DOWN MICROSOFT BUILD FOR PALESTINE!” a group of Microsoft workers opposed to the company’s work with Israel said in a social media post.

It includes a video showing a protester rising to his feet and saying, “How about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians? How about you show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?”

As the demonstrator is carried out of the room by security, he says he’s a Microsoft worker and refuses “to be complicit in this genocide”.

The Israeli military has been assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) programmes designed to produce targets with little human oversight. It is not clear to what extent foreign tech giants are directly involved.

At least one person has been killed in Israeli attacks on multiple locations across southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

An Israeli drone strike on the outskirts of the border village of Hula killed one person, the Lebanese Health Ministry said in a statement. In two other incidents near the border, three people were wounded.

On Sunday, two people, including a Lebanese soldier, were wounded in an Israeli strike, the army said.

The Israeli military said it launched a strike against a Hezbollah member and was not operating against the Lebanese army.

Israel has continued attacks on its neighbour despite the November 27 truce that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of full-blown war.