Israeli strikes kill journalists and aid-seekers as Australia backs Palestinian statehood

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces killed at least 55 people across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Monday, including a well-known journalist Israel said was a militant as well as people seeking humanitarian aid, according to local health officials.

Hospital officials reported at least 34 people were killed on Monday, not including journalists who were slain in a tent shortly before midnight.

More than 15 people were killed while waiting for aid at the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza, said Fares Awad, head of the ambulance services in northern Gaza.

Israel's military did not immediately respond to questions about the deaths. Earlier on Monday, it said air and artillery units were operating in northern Gaza and in Khan Younis, where resident Noha Abu Shamala told The Associated Press that two drone strikes killed a family of seven in their apartment.

Among the dead were at least 12 aid seekers killed by Israeli gunfire while trying to reach distribution points, or awaiting aid convoys, according to officials at two hospitals and witnesses.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its Saraya Field Hospital received about 30 injured from the Zikim area. Al-Shifa hospital received five bodies and over 70 wounded, said Mohamed Abu Selmiya, the hospital’s director.

Relatives said casualties included children and an infant. Witnesses to gunfire near the Morag corridor said they saw barrages of bullets and later dead bodies, describing the grim scene as a near-daily occurrence.

The AP spoke to five witnesses who were among the crowds in central Gaza, the Teina area and the Morag corridor. All said that Israeli forces had fired toward the crowds.

“The occupation (forces) targeted us, as they do every day,” said Hussain Matter, a displaced father of two who was in the Morag corridor. “Out of nowhere, you find bullets from everywhere.”

Ahmed Atta said he helped carry a wounded man from the Teina area who had been shot in his shoulder and was bleeding. “It’s a pattern,” Atta said of the Israeli gunfire toward aid seekers.

Aid seekers were killed from 3 kilometers (nearly 2 miles) to just hundreds of meters (yards) from sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to Nasser and Awda hospitals.

The United States and Israel support the American contractor as an alternative to the United Nations, which they say allows Hamas to siphon off aid. The U.N., which has delivered aid throughout Gaza for decades when conditions allow, denies the allegations.

The latest deaths raise the toll to more than 1,700 people killed while seeking food since the new aid distribution system began in May, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

U.N. agencies generally do not accept Israeli military escorts for aid trucks, citing concerns over neutrality, and its convoys have come under fire amid severe food shortages.

The deaths came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called reports about conditions in Gaza a “global campaign of lies," and announced plans to move deeper into the territory and push to dismantle Hamas.

Five more Palestinians, including a child, died of malnutrition-related causes in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said.

Israel increased the flow of supplies two weeks ago amid such concerns.

Israel’s military targeted an Al Jazeera correspondent with an airstrike Sunday, killing him. The strike killed a total of eight people, including six journalists and two other civilians, according to Shifa Hospital. Press advocates described the attack as a brazen assault on those documenting the war.

The network said that along with its correspondent, three others of the slain journalists also worked for Al Jazeera.

The Israeli military claimed responsibility for the strike. It came less than a year after Israeli army officials first accused correspondent Anas al-Sharif and other Al Jazeera journalists of being members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, an allegation that Al Jazeera and al-Sharif have previously dismissed as baseless.

Al Jazeera called the strike a “targeted assassination” while press freedom groups denounced the rising death toll facing Palestinian journalists working in Gaza. Mourners laid the journalists to rest in Gaza City.

Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals but 50 remain inside Gaza. Israel believes around 20 are still alive.

Israel’s air and ground offensive has since displaced most of the population, destroyed vast areas and pushed the territory toward famine. It has killed more than 61,400 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children.

Besides those killed, 121 adults and 101 children have died of malnutrition-related causes, including five in the past 24 hours, the ministry said. One was a child.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday added his country to a list moving toward recognition of a state of Palestine, along with France, Britain and Canada. He said his government’s decision aimed to build momentum toward a two-state solution, which he called the best path to ending violence and bringing leadership other than Hamas to Gaza.

“The situation in Gaza has gone beyond the world’s worst fears,” he said. “The Israeli government continues to defy international law and deny sufficient aid, food and water to desperate people, including children.”

Also on Monday Italy's Premier Giorgia Meloni announced new aid to Gaza in a phone conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. She stressed the need to bring hostilities with Israel to an immediate halt and “shared her deep concern about recent Israeli decisions that appear to be leading to further military escalation,” her office said in a statement.

Meloni reiterated that “the humanitarian situation in Gaza is unjustifiable and unacceptable.”

Italy’s Defense Minister Guido Crosetto also told the Italian daily La Stampa Monday that Israel’s government has “lost reason and humanity” over Gaza and raised the possibility of imposing sanctions.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty confirmed Monday that Egypt is pushing for negotiations to reach a deal that would end the war in Gaza, release Israeli hostages, guarantee aid entry and ultimately agree on a political road map that would lead to establishing a Palestinian state.

Deploying international forces to support establishing a Palestinian state was previously proposed throughout the war, but Israel has opposed the idea.

Abdelatty’s comments in a news conference in Cairo came as mediators from Egypt and Qatar were working on a new framework that would include the release of all hostages — dead and alive — in one go, in return for an end of the war in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the strip, according to two Arab officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff met with the Qatari prime minister in Spain on Saturday to discuss new efforts.

This story has been corrected to show that four of the six slain journalists were Al Jazeera employees, not five, as the network had initially said.

Metz reported from Jerusalem and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Charlotte Graham-Mclay in Wellington, New Zealand, contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

The bodies of Palestinians killed by an Israeli airstrike are brought to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians pray over the bodies of journalists, including Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Qreiqeh, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike, during their funeral outside Gaza City's Shifa hospital complex, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with family members of Israeli hostage Evyatar David at the opening ceremony of the Knesset Museum in the old building of the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, Aug.11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, Pool)

Palestinians carry the body of Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Qreiqeh, one of five Al Jazeera staff members killed in a targeted Israeli drone strike, during his funeral outside Gaza City's Shifa Hospital complex on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Colleagues and friends mourn over the body Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamed Qureiqa who was killed with his colleague Anas al-Sharif and other journalists by an Israeli airstrike, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

The bodies of Palestinians killed by an Israeli airstrike are brought to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss Iran's deadly protests at the request of the United States, even as President Donald Trump left unclear what actions he would take against the Islamic state.

Tehran appeared to make conciliatory statements in an effort to defuse the situation after Trump threatened to take action to stop further killing of protesters, including the execution of anyone detained in Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.

Iran’s crackdown on the demonstrations has killed at least 2,615, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. The death toll exceeds any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran closed its airspace to commercial flights for hours without explanation early Thursday and some personnel at a key U.S. military base in Qatar were advised to evacuate. The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait also ordered its personnel to “temporary halt” travel to the multiple military bases in the small Gulf Arab country.

Iran previously closed its airspace during the 12-day war against Israel in June.

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“We are against military intervention in Iran,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told journalists in Istanbul on Thursday. “Iran must address its own internal problems… They must address their problems with the region and in global terms through diplomacy so that certain structural problems that cause economic problems can be addressed.”

Ankara and Tehran enjoy warm relations despite often holding divergent interests in the region.

Fidan said the unrest in Iran was rooted in economic conditions caused by sanctions, rather than ideological opposition to the government.

Iranians have been largely absent from an annual pilgrimage to Baghdad, Iraq, to commemorate the death of Imam Musa al-Kadhim, one of the twelve Shiite imams.

Many Iranian pilgrims typically make the journey every year for the annual religious rituals.

Streets across Baghdad were crowded with pilgrims Thursday. Most had arrived on foot from central and southern provinces of Iraq, heading toward the shrine of Imam al-Kadhim in the Kadhimiya district in northern Baghdad,

Adel Zaidan, who owns a hotel near the shrine, said the number of Iranian visitors this year compared to previous years was very small. Other residents agreed.

“This visit is different from previous ones. It lacks the large numbers of Iranian pilgrims, especially in terms of providing food and accommodation,” said Haider Al-Obaidi.

Europe’s largest airline group said Thursday it would halt night flights to and from Tel Aviv and Jordan's capital Amman for five days, citing security concerns as fears grow that unrest in Iran could spiral into wider regional violence.

Lufthansa — which operates Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings — said flights would run only during daytime hours from Thursday through Monday “due to the current situation in the Middle East.” It said the change would ensure its staff — which includes unionized cabin crews and pilots -- would not be required to stay overnight in the region.

The airline group also said its planes would bypass Iranian and Iraqi airspace, key corridors for air travel between the Middle East and Asia.

Iran closed its airspace to commercial flights for several hours early Thursday without explanation.

A spokesperson for Israel’s Airport Authority, which oversees Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, said the airport was operating as usual.

Iranian state media has denied claims that a young man arrested during Iran’s recent protests was condemned to death. The statement from Iran’s judicial authorities on Thursday contradicted what it said were “opposition media abroad” which claimed the young man had been quickly sentenced to death during a violent crackdown on anti-government protests in the country.

State television didn’t immediately give any details beyond his name, Erfan Soltani. Iranian judicial authorities said Soltani was being held in a detention facility outside of the capital. Alongside other protesters, he has been accused of “propaganda activities against the regime,” state media said.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Thursday that his government was “appalled by the escalation of violence and repression” in Iran.

“We condemn the brutal crackdown being carried out by Iran’s security forces, including the killing of protesters,” Peters posted on X.

“Iranians have the right to peaceful protest, freedom of expression, and access to information – and that right is currently being brutally repressed,” he said.

Peters said his government had expressed serious concerns to the Iranian Embassy in Wellington.

A demonstrator lights a cigarette with a burning poster depicting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally in support of Iran's anti-government protests, in Holon, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Protesters participate in a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Protesters participate in a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)