Israel's Aggression Against Occupied Palestine: May 2025

During May, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continued their genocidal war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, bombardment, drones, and artillery attacks. In most cases, innocent Palestinian civilians were subject to Israel’s war machine all over the Gaza Strip.

Local reports spoke of horrific massacres, particularly in the northern Gaza Strip in Jabalia refugee camp, and east of Gaza City in Al-Tuffah and Shuja'iyya neighbourhoods, as well as in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. IOF also severely damaged all hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, including Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda, and the Indonesian hospitals, through bombardment and by blocking access to medical supplies and fuel that were destined to those hospitals.

Israel also continued to target displaced persons wherever they existed, opening fire towards civilians desperately searching for at least a single bag of flour. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirmed that Gaza is "the hungriest place on earth." It urged the occupying authorities to grant the United Nations humanitarian access. OCHA also indicated that IOF opened fire towards "tens of thousands of desperate Palestinians" who stormed a military distribution point "built on the ruins of their homes," searching for food. OCHA also stressed that these repeated attacks on displaced persons "demonstrate how the collective punishment of Palestinians continues, and how the assault on their human dignity is accelerating."

Moreover, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor documented instances in which the IOF opened fire on hundreds of hungry civilians who had gathered at aid collection points. For example, on May 28, 2025, in the Qizan Abu Rashwan area south of Khan Yunis, IOF opened fire on civilians on their way to an aid point established by the occupation forces in the Morag area north of Rafah. The outcome was the martyrdom of six Palestinians, including a woman, and the injury of 15 others.

In May 2025, the IOF killed at least 2,018 Palestinians and injured more than 6,290 Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories. In Gaza alone, at least 2,000 Palestinians were killed and 6,099 were injured, while 18 Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank.[1]

In the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem, IOF continued their military operations, dubbed "Operation Iron Wall," which began in the Jenin refugee camp on January 21, 2025, and later extended to the northern governorates of Tulkarem, Tubas, and Nablus. All over those areas, the IOF continued their crimes, including the destruction of infrastructure, blowing up homes in refugee camps and forcibly displacing Palestinians. These attacks resulted in the killing of 18 Palestinians, most of them in the Nablus Governorate, which recorded the killing of 6 Palestinians. In May, IOF arrested no less than 488 Palestinians. There were also 237 shooting operations in all governorates of the West Bank, along with 1,349 military incursions and 412 cases of setting up ad-hoc military checkpoints at the entrances to villages and the outskirts of towns and camps. Setters were also involved in 321 attacks against Palestinians and their properties.