Updates: Israel commits ‘massacre’ in Gaza City, 75 killed across the Strip

Before you go:

Watch a Listening Post episode on the media narratives that surround Hamas here.

Read Saturday’s news roundup from Gaza here.

Read an opinion piece by political activist and researcher Samer Jaber on how Israel’s strategic failure is now apparent here.

We’ll be closing this live page soon. Here’s a recap of the day’s major developments:

• Israeli forces have killed more than 70 Palestinians across Gaza, including 16 people in an attack on a house in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City.
• The Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it cannot distribute aid because Hamas has issued “direct threats” against its operations. Hamas did not immediately comment on the claims.
• Israeli forces say they recovered the body of Natthapong Pintawho, a Thai national taken captive during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and held in Gaza.
• An aid boat with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, was nearing Gaza in a bid to challenge the Israeli blockade on the Strip.
• Hamas has confirmed that the secretary-general of the Mujahideen movement, Sheikh Asaad Abu Sharia, was killed in an Israeli attack on the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City.

The new head of the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has defended its efforts despite the killing of dozens of Palestinians seeking to get whatever food they can to feed their starving families.

“I fundamentally disagree with the premise that our operation is somehow disproportionately imperilling people,” Executive Chairman Johnnie Moore told ABC News.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 118 Palestinians trying to get food have been killed over the past two weeks. Moore said the killings occurred because “somehow people veered off the secure corridor”, describing the deadly shootings as “a tragedy”.

Critics have accused the GHF’s aid distribution operation as being part of Israel’s military strategy to force Gaza people into a tiny corridor in the south. Moore said that’s “simply not true”.

While the GHF has only four aid points, the UN and aid organisations have 400 well-established sites. However, Israel refuses to allow food, water, or medicine into Gaza through the UN-led effort.

As we’ve been reporting, international activists are nearing Gaza on board a vessel trying to break Israel’s siege on the enclave and bring much-needed humanitarian aid to Palestinians there.

Activists on the Madleen say they expect to reach Gaza by Monday.

Al Jazeera spoke with climate activist Greta Thunberg and Yasemin Acar – two of the 12 activists on board – about why they joined the flotilla. See the full interview here:

The Madleen vessel, which is trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, remains off the coast of Egypt as it continues its voyage towards the Strip, according to an online tracker.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition has called on governments around the world to ensure the Madleen’s safe passage after Israel said it will not allow the ship to reach the occupied Palestinian territory.

For more on the flotilla, check out our live coverage here.

This Eid, our hearts are with the Palestinians of Gaza. You deserve life, justice, peace, and the right to celebrate Eid without mourning. One day soon, Eid will be celebrated in a Gaza that is whole, alive, and at peace. Until then, we will not stop. Eid Mubarak.#EidMubarak… pic.twitter.com/2k4eTSLhkf

— Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@GazaFFlotilla) June 7, 2025

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man and wounded two others at the Meitar-Tarqumiya crossing near Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society confirmed the casualties but did not provide details about the shooting.

The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, cited unnamed sources as saying the deceased was a young man. The wounded individuals were from the town of Idhna, in western Hebron, and sustained moderate injuries.

Israeli forces fired live rounds at the three men near the separation barrier in al-Dhahiriya in southern Hebron, the news agency said.

Recent remarks by the head of the Anti-Defamation League comparing pro-Palestinian student activists in the US to ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda are drawing widespread condemnation.

The Forward reported that Jonathan Greenblatt said during an event that pro-Palestine students were “hiding their faces behind scarves and keffiyehs like they’re in ISIS” and “terrorising their classmates”.

The ADL, which describes itself as an anti-Semitism watchdog, is staunchly pro-Israel and has been accused of trying to silence pro-Palestinian voices in the US. It drew criticism earlier this year for defending Tesla CEO Elon Musk after he made an apparent Nazi salute during a Trump rally.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) denounced Greenblatt’s recent comments about student activists, saying he engaged in an “unhinged, racist rant”.

“Although Mr. Greenblatt’s vile remarks are nothing new for the ADL, it is long past time for this organization to fire him and stop smearing Black, Palestinian and Muslim activists in a transparent attempt to protect the genocidal Israeli government from legitimate criticism,” CAIR said.

Thousands of Israeli protesters in Tel Aviv have again called for the return of captives held in Gaza and an immediate ceasefire, while hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestine supporters gathered in Rome denouncing the Italian government’s “complicity” in the war.

Abu Obeida, spokesperson of Hamas’s armed wing, said Israeli captive Matan Zangauker is being held in an area targeted by the Israeli army. He warned if Zangauker is killed during an attempt to free him, the Israeli military would be responsible.

Read the full story here.

Throughout the various ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, Western news outlets have repeatedly blamed their failure on Hamas.

Al Jazeera’s Listening Post dives into a perspective that rarely features in the coverage – the group’s own – on the negotiations and the media narratives that surround them:

US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff should produce and enforce a new proposal for securing the release of Israelis held in Gaza, families of the captives have said.

“Present Netanyahu and Hamas with an offer with an ultimatum to end the war. This is likely the only way to return the hostages,” Itzik Horn said, the father of captive Eitan Horn, said at a news conference in Tel Aviv.

Horn urged Witkoff to “set aside the Netanyahu framework for extending the war” and instead advance a plan to free all the captives.

The secretary-general of the Mujahideen movement, Sheikh Asaad Abu Sharia, and his brother, Ahmed Abu Sharia, were killed in an Israeli attack on the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City, Hamas has confirmed.

Hamas said in a statement on Telegram that the assassinations are “part of a series of brutal massacres against civilians”.

Medical sources earlier told Al Jazeera that 16 people were killed, including six children, in Sabra, with at least 50 wounded. Another 85 people are still under the rubble of the targeted building.

A consulting firm that helped set up the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid efforts has apologised for the deadly violence that has surrounded its widely criticised operations.

According to an email obtained by The Washington Post, Christoph Schweizer, CEO of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), said his company sacked two partners involved in the Israeli-American effort and launched a “formal investigation” to ensure “this does not happen again”.

“I deeply regret that in this situation, we fell short — of our own standards and of the trust that you, our clients and our broader communities place in BCG,” Schweizer wrote. “I am sorry for how deeply disappointing this has been to many BCGers around the world.”

At least 118 Palestinian people seeking aid have been reported killed by Israeli forces in the vicinity of GHF distribution centres since the organisation started operating in the enclave on May 27.

The killing of people desperately seeking food supplies has triggered mounting international outrage.

We have more from Save the Children’s Georgia Tacey about the devastation Palestinian children, in particular, are facing in Gaza:

• A spike in malnutrition has been reported across the Strip, particularly among children between the ages of five and 10, as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women.
• “Everywhere you go, people’s health has deteriorated significantly – including our own staff – because of the lack of available, nutritious food,” she said.
• This month, Save the Children opened at least 20 cases for Palestinian children who have been orphaned twice in Gaza. “They lost their parents in a blast, were fostered in by another family, and now those primary caregivers also being killed in the last couple of weeks,” Tacey explained.
• “It is just unbelievable levels of grief and desperation that children are seeing every day. And that is why we’re hearing more and more children talking about suicide, and wanting to return to their parents who have passed away in the last couple of months.”

Georgia Tacey, the humanitarian adviser in the occupied Palestinian territory at Save the Children, says the only way to address the chaos is to allow unlimited aid into the Gaza Strip.

“Once the supply issue is dealt with, you will not see the criminality, the looting and certainly you will not see the starvation and desperation that we’re seeing right now,” Tacey told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

She explained Save the Children’s warehouses in Gaza are empty, and the organisation no longer has any aid to distribute to people in the enclave.

Meanwhile, Tacey said thousands of aid trucks are waiting outside Gaza, but cannot bring food, medical goods, and other critical supplies because of the Israeli blockade.

“This is not a supply issue, this is an access issue. It’s a political decision, not a logistical decision, that is preventing us from delivering,” she said.

Earlier, we reported on Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeida warning that Israeli captive Matan Zangauker was being held in a location in Gaza under intense bombardment by the Israeli military.

The captive’s mother, Einav Zangauker, has spoken at a protest in Tel Aviv calling for the release of captives, during which she criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for neglecting those being held in Gaza.

“The military pressure is closing in on [my son] and is placing him in immediate danger. The decision to expand the ground operation comes at the cost of Matan’s life and the lives of all the hostages,” she said.

“[Netanyahu] continues to sacrifice the hostages. He is using the [Israeli military] not to protect Israel’s security, but to continue the war and protect his government.”

She said feared her son’s condition would deteriorate amid the relentless Israeli attacks.

“Netanyahu, if my Matan does not return alive, his blood will be on your hands,” she said.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salam has delivered a message for Eid al-Adha denouncing Israel’s war on Gaza and the need to find peace for the Palestinian people.

“Eid al-Adha comes this year while the suffering of our brothers in Palestine continues as a result of the Israeli aggression,” he said in a speech.

“We stress the role of the international community in ending the disastrous repercussions of this aggression, protecting civilians and innocents, and creating a new reality in which Palestine enjoys peace.”

#ولي_العهد الأمير محمد بن سلمان: يأتي عيد الأضحى هذا العام ومعاناة إخوتنا في فلسطين مستمرة نتيجة العدوان الإسرائيلي ونشدد على دور المجتمع الدولي في إنهاء التداعيات الكارثية لهذا العدوان وحماية المدنيين والأبرياء وإيجاد واقع جديد تنعم فيه فلسطين بالسلام#الإخبارية pic.twitter.com/fmQhOIuCa2

— قناة الإخبارية (@alekhbariyatv) June 7, 2025

Organisers say about 300,000 people turned out for today’s protest in the Italian capital, which saw calls for an immediate end to Israel’s war on Gaza and to alleged complicity by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government.

The leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, called the turnout “an enormous popular response” in opposition to the war.

The demonstration is “to say enough to the massacre of Palestinians, to say enough to the crimes of Netanyahu’s far-right government” and to show the world “another Italy”, Schlein told reporters.

“An Italy that does not keep silent as the Meloni government does, an Italy that instead wants peace, wants an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, humanitarian aid, and wants recognition of the state of Palestine,” she said.

Meloni has been pushed by the opposition to condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza, but her criticism has been tempered.

Last month, the Italian leader called the humanitarian situation “increasingly dramatic and unjustifiable” and said she had “often difficult conversations” with Netanyahu, while at the same time noting “it was not Israel that started the hostilities”.

Police have prevented activists from the NGO, Looking the Occupation in the Eye, from reaching a protest area in Tel Aviv, according to reports in the Israeli media.

The activists were reportedly carrying placards protesting against Israeli war crimes and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

אלימות מצד המשטרה, דחיפות וצעקות לעבר מפגינים הנושאים שלטים הקוראים להפסקת המלחמה.

07.06.2025 תל אביב 🎥אריק סגל pic.twitter.com/2vJ3lFkXDl

— אלימות ישראל (@Alimut_Israel) June 7, 2025

Translation: Police pushing and shouting at protesters carrying signs calling for an end to the war.

Let’s bring you up to speed on the latest developments:

• Israel has continued to carry out intensified attacks across Gaza, including the bombing of a home in the northern city of Jabalia that a medical source told Al Jazeera killed at least five Palestinians and injured 30 others.
• The Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says it’s unable to distribute any aid because Hamas issued “direct threats” against its operations; Hamas has not immediately commented on the allegation.
• The US State Department tells Al Jazeera it is “not involved” in Israel’s arming of criminal gang members in Gaza, a policy Israeli officials said this week aims to counter Hamas.
• A UK obstetrician says Israel’s war and blockade on Gaza have caused a “staggering rise” in stillbirths, miscarriages and other health issues.