Hungry #Palestinians in Gaza block and offload dozens of UN food trucks.

TEL AVIV, Israel — Palestinians in the Gaza Strip blocked and offloaded dozens of food trucks, the UN World Food Program said Saturday, as desperation mounts following Israel’s monthslong blockade while talks of a ceasefire inch forward.

The WFP said 77 trucks carrying aid, mostly flour, were stopped by hungry people who took the food before the trucks could reach their destination.

The nearly three-month Israeli blockade on Gaza has pushed the population of over 2 million to the brink of famine. While pressure slightly eased in recent days as Israel allowed some aid to enter, aid organizations say far from enough food is getting in.

Hamas on Friday said it was reviewing a U.S. proposal for a temporary ceasefire, which Israeli officials have approved. U.S. President Donald Trump said negotiators were nearing a deal.

A ceasefire would pause the fighting for 60 days, release some of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and much-needed food aid and other assistance, according to Hamas and Egyptian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The WFP said the fear of starvation in Gaza is high despite the aid that’s entering now. “We need to flood communities with food for the next few days to calm anxieties and rebuild the trust with communities that more food is coming,” it said in a statement — adding that it has over 140,000 metric tons of food — enough to feed Gazans for two months — ready to be brought in.

A witness in the southern city of Khan Younis told The Associated Press the UN convoy was stopped at a makeshift roadblock and offloaded by desperate civilians in their thousands. Most people carried bags of flour. He said at one point a forklift was used to offload pallets. The witness spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal.

The United Nations said earlier this month that Israeli authorities have forced them to use unsecured routes within areas controlled by Israel’s military in the eastern areas of Rafah and Khan Younis, where armed gangs are active and trucks were stopped.

Israel’s military didn’t immediately respond to questions.
Attacks, gangs and lack of protection hamper UN distribution

An internal document shared with aid groups about security incidents, seen by the AP, said there were four incidents of facilities being looted in three days at the end of May, not including Saturday’s.

The UN says it has been unable to get enough aid in because of fighting. On Friday, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said it only picked up five truckloads of cargo from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, and the other 60 trucks had to return due to intense hostilities.

A new U.S- and Israeli-backed foundation started operations in Gaza this week, distributing food at several sites in a chaotic rollout.

Israel says the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation eventually will replace the aid operation that the UN and others have carried out during nearly 20 months of war. It says the new mechanism is necessary, accusing Hamas of siphoning off large amounts of aid. The UN denies that significant diversion takes place.

The GHF works with armed contractors, which it says are needed to distribute food safely. Aid groups have accused the foundation of militarizing aid.
Israeli strikes kill at least 60

Israel continued its military campaign across Gaza, saying it struck dozens of targets over the past day. Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.

The ministry said three people were killed by Israeli gunfire early Saturday in Rafah. Three others were killed — parents and a child — when their car was struck in Gaza City. An Israeli strike hit another car in Gaza City, killing four. And an Israeli strike hit a tent sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis, killing six, said Weam Fares, a spokesperson for Nasser Hospital.

The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking 250 hostages. Of those taken captive, 58 remain in Gaza. Israel believes 35 are dead and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there are “doubts” about the fate of several others.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 54,000 Gaza residents, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.

Magdy reported from Cairo

The US Supreme Court on Friday gave the Trump administration the green light to revoke - for now - the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

#WASHINGTON, May 30. US President Donald Trump has rejected an attempt to label Russian leader Vladimir Putin as an obstacle on a path to peace in Ukraine, saying that Vladimir Zelensky is also very stubborn

When asked whether he sees Putin as "the good guy or the bad guy," he said, "I've known him very well, and I went through a lot of things with him."

A journalist noted that Trump’s team deals with "a very stubborn Vladimir Putin. "And Zelensky, very stubborn Zelensky too," Trump added. He once again said that he was disappointed by Russia’s massive strikes on Ukraine.

Putin orders government to memorialize fallen special military operation soldiers
The government of the Russian Federation, together with the administration of the president of the Russian Federation, will develop unified recommendations

#Israel strikes western Syria, civilian reported killed. Damascus, Syria — Israel on Friday struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media said, with one civilian reportedly killed in the first such attack on the country in nearly a month.

It came after Damascus announced earlier this month indirect talks with Israel to calm tensions, and the United States called for a “non-aggression agreement” between the two countries, which are technically at war.

“A strike from Israeli occupation aircraft targeted sites close to the village of Zama in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia,” state television said.

State news agency #SANA reported one civilian was killed “as a result of an Israeli occupation airstrike targeting the vicinity of Zama”.

The Israeli military said it had “struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles that posed a threat to international and Israeli maritime freedom of navigation, in the Latakia area of Syria”.

“In addition, components of surface-to-air missiles were struck,” it said, adding it would “continue to operate to maintain freedom of action in the region, in order to carry out its missions and will act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights meanwhile reported that jets likely to be Israeli struck military sites on the outskirts of Tartus and Latakia.

Syria and Israel have technically been at war since 1948. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and has carried out hundreds of strikes and several incursions since the overthrow of longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in December.

Israel says its strikes aim to stop advanced weapons reaching Syria’s new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.

A statue of Stalin is unveiled in the Moscow subway as Russia tries to revive the dictator’s legacy.

A monument to Josef Stalin has been unveiled at one of Moscow’s busiest subway stations, the latest attempt by Russian authorities to revive the legacy of the brutal Soviet dictator.

The sculpture shows Stalin surrounded by beaming workers and children with flowers. It was installed at the Taganskaya station to mark the 90th anniversary of the Moscow Metro, the sprawling subway known for its mosaics, chandeliers and other ornate decorations that was built under Stalin.

It replaces an earlier tribute that was removed in the decade following Stalin’s 1953 death in a drive to root out his “cult of personality” and reckon with decades of repression marked by show trials, nighttime arrests and millions killed or thrown into prison camps as “enemies of the people.”

Muscovites have given differing responses to the unveiling earlier this month. Many commuters took photos of the monument and some laid flowers beneath it.

Aleksei Zavatsin, 22, told The Associated Press that Stalin was a “great man” who had “made a poor country into a superpower.”

“He raised the country from its knees,” he said.

But another resident who identified herself only as Marina recalled her grandmother saying “the whole country was living in fear” under Stalin.

Activists from Society.Future, a Russian political movement that voices pro-democratic and nationalist views, protested by placing posters at the foot of the monument that quoted top politicians condemning the dictator.

One poster, featuring President Vladimir Putin, cited him as bemoaning Stalin’s “mass crimes against the people,” and saying his modernization of the USSR came at the price of “unacceptable” repression.

The unveiling came weeks after Putin signed a decree renaming the airport in Volgograd as Stalingrad — as the city was called when the Soviet Red Army defeated Nazi German forces there in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

Volgograd itself briefly reverted to its former name on May 8-9 for Victory Day celebrations and will be temporarily renamed five more times this year to mark related wartime anniversaries.

Putin has invoked the Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted five months and saw up to two million soldiers and civilians killed, as justification for Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

Russian political analyst Pyotr Miloserdov said the Kremlin has used a broader drive to embrace Stalin’s legacy to justify both the conflict in Ukraine and crackdown on dissent at home.

“Stalin was a tyrant, a despot, and that’s what we need,” he told AP. Authorities want to revive Stalin’s image to popularize the idea of strongman rule, he added, and paint violence and repression as justified under extraordinary circumstances.

“This can lead to justifying any senseless, forceful actions. Under Stalin, this was allowed, there was a war. ... So, here is our special military operation, and now this is allowed too. This is simply an attempt to justify the use of force on people,” Miloserdov said.

Moscow, The Associated Press

#UN warns of #Gaza famine risk, as Israel vows to build ‘Jewish state’ in West Bank.

The U.N. warned on Friday that the entire population of Gaza is at risk of famine, as Israel vowed to build a “Jewish Israeli state” in the occupied West Bank.

Israel has faced mounting international pressure over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where the U.N. says only a trickle of aid has been allowed in after a more than two-month blockade.

Negotiations to end nearly 20 months of war in Gaza have so far failed to achieve a breakthrough, with Israel resuming operations in March following a short-lived truce.

Israel has meanwhile doubled down on its settlement expansion in the West Bank, while defying calls from French President Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders for a two-state solution.

Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA, on Friday called Gaza “the hungriest place on earth”.

“It’s the only defined area -- a country or defined territory within a country -- where you have the entire population at risk of famine. One hundred percent of the population at risk of famine,” he said.

Recent AFPTV footage has shown chaotic scenes as large crowds of Palestinians desperate for food rushed to a limited number of aid distribution centres to pick up supplies.

Israel recently intensified its Gaza offensive in what it says is a renewed push to destroy Hamas, drawing sharp international criticism, including from allies such as Britain and Germany.
‘Crusade’ against Israel

This week Israel announced the creation of 22 new settlements in the West Bank.

London called the move a “deliberate obstacle” to Palestinian statehood, and U.N. chief Antonio Guterres’ spokesman said it pushed efforts towards a two-state solution “in the wrong direction”.

On Friday, Defence Minister Israel Katz vowed to build a “Jewish Israeli state” in the Palestinian territory which Israel has occupied since 1967.

“This is a decisive response to the terrorist organisations that are trying to harm and weaken our hold on this land,” Katz said in a video published by his office.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank -- considered illegal under international law -- are seen as a major obstacle to a lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Katz framed the move as a direct rebuke to Macron and others pushing for recognition of a Palestinian state.

Macron has recently stepped up his statements in support of the Palestinians, asserting on Friday that recognition of a Palestinian state, with some conditions, was “not only a moral duty, but a political necessity”.

Macron confirmed he would personally attend a conference France is co-hosting with Saudi Arabia at the U.N. in June aimed at reviving the two-state solution.

Israel on Friday accused the French president of undertaking a “crusade against the Jewish state”.

The foreign ministry said that “instead of applying pressure on the jihadist terrorists, Macron wants to reward them with a Palestinian state”.
‘Go in with full force’

Negotiations aimed at halting the fighting in Gaza have continued, meanwhile, with the White House announcing Thursday that Israel had “signed off” on a new ceasefire proposal submitted to Hamas.

The Palestinian militant group, however, said the deal failed to satisfy its demands, stopping short of rejecting it outright.

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said on Telegram that “after Hamas rejected the deal proposal again -- there are no more excuses”.

“It is time to go in with full force, without blinking, to destroy, and kill Hamas to the last one,” he said.

Israel has not confirmed that it approved the new proposal.

Gaza’s civil defence agency told AFP that at least 45 people had been killed in Israeli attacks on Friday, including seven in a strike targeting a family home in Jabalia in the north.

Palestinians sobbed over the bodies of their loved ones at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital following the strike, AFPTV footage showed.

“These were civilians and were sleeping at their homes,” said neighbour Mahmud al-Ghaf, describing “children in pieces”.

“Stop the war!” said Mahmud Nasr, who lost relatives. “We do not want anything from you, just stop the war.”

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Jabalia strike, but said separately that the air force had hit “dozens of targets” across Gaza over the past day.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Friday that at least 4,058 people had been killed since Israel resumed major operations on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,321, mostly civilians.

Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Officials say at least 10 people are dead and 6 are missing after stone quarry collapse in Indonesia

Wildfire smoke has led to air quality alerts in six provinces and territories.

The Environment Canada air quality alerts cover a huge swath of central Canada, including much of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Parts of the Northwest Territories, western Ontario and Labrador are also affected.

In Alberta, air quality alerts stretch from near Red Deer in the south to the boundary with Northwest Territories. The most severe air quality warnings are in effect in the northwestern part of the province, including areas in and around High Level. At least four northern Alberta communities have been evacuated so far. Conditions are expected to improve later Friday.

“Smoke is causing very poor air quality and reduced visibility,” Environment Canada warned. “As smoke levels increase, health risks increase. Limit time outdoors. Consider reducing or rescheduling outdoor sports, activities and events.”

Environment Canada also urges those in affected areas to keep windows and doors closed, use an air filter inside, and to wear a mask when outdoors.

“You may experience mild and common symptoms such as eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches or a mild cough,” Environment Canada said. “More serious but less common symptoms include wheezing, chest pains or severe cough. If you think you are having a medical emergency, seek immediate medical assistance.”

Russian captain denies manslaughter in North Sea collision. The Russian captain of a cargo ship that collided with a U.S. tanker in the North Sea pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of one of his crew at a U.K. court hearing on Friday.

Vladimir Motin, 59, from St. Petersburg, appeared by video link from prison for the pretrial hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court. Assisted by a Russian interpreter, he denied a charge of gross manslaughter over the death of 38-year-old Mark Angelo Pernia.

Motin was ordered detained until his next hearing, and his trial was set for Jan. 12.

The Portugal-flagged cargo ship Solong was traveling at about 15 knots (17 mph or 28 km/h) when it hit the anchored tanker MV Stena Immaculate about 12 miles (19 kilometres) off the coast of northeast England on March 10, sparking a fire that lasted nearly a week. The tanker was transporting jet fuel for the U.S. military.

Rescuers saved 36 people from both ships. Pernia, from the Philippines, is missing and presumed dead.

U.K. authorities have said that there’s nothing to indicate that the collision was connected to national security.

Environmental damage from the collision was far less than initially feared, though thousands of pellets used in plastics production, known as nurdles, from the ruptured containers on the Solong have since washed up along England’s east coast.

Conservationists say the nurdles aren’t toxic, but can harm animals if ingested.