World
At least 82 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza as critical aid fails to reach Palestinians
Israeli strikes continued to pound the Gaza Strip Wednesday, despite a surge in international anger at Israel’s widening offensive. The attacks killed at least 82 people, including several women and a week-old infant, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and area hospitals.
Israel began allowing dozens of humanitarian trucks into Gaza on Tuesday, but the aid has not yet reached Palestinians in desperate need.
Jens Laerke, the spokesperson for the U.N.’s humanitarian agency, said no trucks were picked up from the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, the Israeli border crossing with southern Gaza.
A truck loaded with humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip makes its way to the Kerem Shalom crossing as border police officers prevent activists from blocking the road in southern Israel, Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg) (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Tuesday that although the aid had entered Gaza, workers were not able to bring it to distribution points after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies onto separate trucks and workers ran out of time.
The Israeli defense body that oversees humanitarian aid to Gaza said trucks entered Wednesday morning, but it was unclear if that aid would move deeper into Gaza for distribution. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said its staff had waited several hours to collect aid from the border crossing but were unable to do so on Tuesday.
ISRAEL BLOCKS HUMANITARIAN AID INTO GAZA AFTER HAMAS REJECTS CEASEFIRE EXTENSION PROPOSAL
A few dozen Israeli activists opposed to Israel’s decision to allow aid into Gaza while Hamas still holds Israeli hostages attempted to block trucks carrying supplies Wednesday morning, but were kept back by Israeli police.
Diplomats come under fire in Jenin
A group of diplomats came under fire while visiting Jenin, a city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Authority. The diplomats were on an official mission to observe the humanitarian situation in Jenin when shots rang out.
An aid worker, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, said a delegation of about 20 regional, European and Western diplomats were standing near the entrance of the Jenin refugee camp when they heard gunshots Wednesday, she said. No one was injured, she added.
The Israeli military said the delegation “deviated from the approved route” and Israeli soldiers fired warning shots to distance them from the area. The military apologized and said they will contact all countries involved in the visit.
Palestinians carry the bodies of their relatives including children who were killed in an Israeli army airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana) (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Footage shows a number of diplomats running for cover as rapid shots rung out. European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said firing even warning shots was unacceptable and called on Israel to investigate.
The Italian government of Premier Giorgia Meloni also demanded an explanation, saying that its vice consul was among those who came under fire.
Jenin has been the site of Israel’s widespread crackdown against West Bank militants since earlier this year.
On Jan. 21 — just two days after its ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza — Israeli forces descended on Jenin as they have dozens of times since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The fighting displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians, one of the largest West Bank displacements in years.
International pressure on Israel
On Tuesday, the United Kingdom suspended free trade talks with Israel over its intensifying assault, a step that came a day after the U.K., Canada and France promised concrete steps to prompt Israel to halt the war. Separately, the European Union was reviewing an EU pact governing trade ties with Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza, according to its foreign policy chief.
Israel says it is prepared to stop the war once all the hostages taken by Hamas return home and Hamas is defeated, or is exiled and disarmed. Hamas says it is prepared to release the hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the territory and an end to the war. It rejects demands for exile and disarmament.
ISRAEL FIRES BACK AT UK OVER SUSPENDED TRADE TALKS, REJECTS ‘EXTERNAL PRESSURE’
Israel called back its senior negotiating team from ceasefire talks in the Qatari capital of Doha on Tuesday, saying it would leave lower-level officials in place instead. Qatari leaders, who are mediating negotiations, said there was a large gap between the two sides.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes continued across Gaza. In the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israel recently ordered new evacuations pending an expected expanded offensive, 24 people were killed, 14 from the same family. A week-old infant was killed in central Gaza.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes, but has said it is targeting Hamas infrastructure and accused Hamas militants of operating from civilian areas.
Desperate need for food
Experts have warned that many of Gaza’s 2 million residents face a high risk of famine. At one displacement camp in Gaza City, a charity group distributed thin and watery lentil soup.
Somaia Abu Amsha scooped small portions into bowls for her family, saying they have not have had bread for over 10 days and she can’t afford rice or pasta.
Palestinians inspect a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrikes in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana) (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
“We don’t want anything other than that they end the war. We don’t want charity kitchens. Even dogs wouldn’t eat this, let alone children,” she said, pointing at the soup.
Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday called for aid to reach the Gaza Strip and for an end to the “heartbreaking” toll on its people during his first general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
Hospitals surrounded
Israeli troops also have surrounded two of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals, preventing anyone from leaving or entering the facilities, hospital staff and aid groups said this week.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday urged world leaders to take immediate action to end Israel’s siege on Gaza, issuing the appeal during a visit to Beirut, where he was expected to discuss the disarmament of Palestinian factions in Lebanon’s refugee camps.
ISRAEL ENCIRCLES 2 OF NORTHERN GAZA’S LAST FUNCTIONING HOSPITALS, GROUPS SAY
“It is time to end the war of extermination against the Palestinian people. I reiterate that we will not leave, and we will remain here on the land of our homeland, Palestine,” Abbas said, demanding the immediate entry of aid, the release of detainees, and a full withdrawal from Gaza.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has destroyed large swaths of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
Warning comes as 400 million barrels of oil are being released from global reserves during waterway’s closure.
Published On 11 Mar 2026
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it will not allow “a litre of oil” through the Strait of Hormuz as the closure of the key Gulf waterway continues to roil global energy markets during the US-Israeli war on Iran.
A spokesperson for the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters said on Wednesday that any vessel linked to the United States and Israel or their allies “will be considered a legitimate target”.
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“You will not be able to artificially lower the price of oil. Expect oil at $200 per barrel,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The price of oil depends on regional security, and you are the main source of insecurity in the region.”
Global oil prices have fluctuated wildly this week during continued US-Israeli attacks against Iran, which has retaliated by firing missiles and drones at targets across the wider Middle East.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies transit, and production slowdowns in some Gulf countries have raised concerns of further disruptions.
Concerns around the duration of the war, which began on February 28 and has shown no sign of abating, are also adding to uncertainty, sending oil prices soaring.
On Wednesday, three ships were hit by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz, maritime security and risk firms said, including a Thai-flagged cargo vessel that came under attack about 11 nautical miles (18km) north of Oman.
Release of oil reserves
World leaders, including members of the Group of Seven (G7) and the European Union, have been mulling what action to take in response to the war’s impact on global economies.
Christian Bueger, a professor of international relations at the University of Copenhagen and an expert in maritime security, said Europe will be facing “a major energy supply crisis” if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened.
“For the shipping industry right now, it’s impossible to go through the Strait of Hormuz,” Bueger told Al Jazeera. “And if there are not stronger signals in the near future that they can at least try to go through the strait, then we are looking at a major shipping crisis, which can last weeks if not months.”
On Wednesday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced that its 32 member countries had unanimously agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves to try to lower prices.
“This is a major action aiming to alleviate the immediate impacts of the disruption in markets,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said during an address from the agency’s headquarters in Paris.
“But to be clear, the most important thing for a return to stable flows of oil and gas is the resumption of transit through the Strait of Hormuz,” he added.
The reserve supplies will be made available “over a timeframe that is appropriate” for each member state, the IEA said in a statement without providing details.
German Economy and Energy Minister Katherina Reiche said earlier in the day that the country would comply with the release while Austria also said it would make part of its emergency oil reserve available and extend its national strategic gas reserve.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said it would release about 80 million barrels from its private and national oil reserves.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the country, which gets about 70 percent of its oil imports through the Strait of Hormuz, would begin releasing the reserves on Monday.
U.S. installations damaged in strikes
Iran has responded to the U.S.-Israeli assault on the country by launching drones and missiles at American targets across the Middle East, hitting embassies, killing U.S. soldiers, and damaging military bases and air defense infrastructure.
The New York Times has identified at least 17 damaged U.S. sites and other installations, several of which have been struck more than once since the war began. Our analysis is based on high-resolution, commercial satellite imagery, verified social media videos and statements by U.S. officials and Iranian state media.
The intensity of the retaliatory strikes has signaled that Iran was more prepared for the war than many in the Trump administration had anticipated, U.S. military officials say.
For this article, we are presenting satellite images to show the scale of the damage from Iran’s attacks on U.S. sites and installations. Many of these images have been circulating publicly on news sites and social media. But in cases where they have not been, we present the imagery we obtained from satellite image companies and show only a zoomed-out view of each location to limit the amount of detail viewable in those images.
Military sites
Iran has fired thousands of missiles and drones at both U.S. and allied country military sites across the region. The United States and its allies have intercepted most of them, U.S. officials say, but at least 11 American military bases or installations have been damaged — nearly half of all such sites in the region.
On Feb. 28, the first day of conflict, Iran targeted several U.S. military facilities, including Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia; Ali Al Salem Air Base and Camp Buehring Base in Kuwait; and Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. base in the Middle East.
Satellite images show extensive damage to buildings and communication infrastructure at several locations.
A video taken on March 1 shows an Iranian drone exploding near sports facilities at Camp Buehring in Kuwait. No casualties were reported.
It is difficult to estimate the full cost of damage inflicted by Iran’s retaliatory strikes. A Pentagon assessment provided to Congress last week put the cost of the single strike on the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain on Feb. 28 at about $200 million, according to a congressional official.
On March 1, an Iranian drone struck a structure housing military personnel at the Shuaiba port in Kuwait, killing six American service members.
Satellite imagery shows the roof of that building partially collapsed.
An additional U.S. service member was killed in a separate Iranian strike on March 1 at a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia, bringing the toll to seven, the Pentagon said on Sunday.
The pace of Iranian attacks has slowed since the war’s opening days, but the strikes have continued. Al Udeid Air Base, Ali Al Salem Air Base, Al Dhafra Air Base, Camp Buehring and the Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters have all been struck more than once.
Missiles launched from Iran have flown as far away as Turkey. On March 4, NATO intercepted an Iranian ballistic missile headed toward Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, according to a senior U.S. military official. The base hosts a large U.S. Air Force contingent. Iran’s military denied firing the missile.
A second Iranian missile entered Turkish airspace and was shot down by NATO, according to a Turkish defense ministry statement on Monday.
Air defense and communication infrastructure
Among the costliest American losses to infrastructure have been to the air defense systems that protect U.S. and allied interests across the Middle East.
Iran has systematically targeted radar and communications systems, including components of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as THAAD, which uses a radar to track and intercept incoming aerial threats throughout the region.
At Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, an important hub for the U.S. Air Force in Jordan, satellite imagery from February shows radar equipment at the base’s southern edge. An image taken two days after the war began shows severe damage to what appears to be an air defense sensor.
Military budget and contract documents indicate a single radar unit of this type can cost up to half a billion dollars.
A video from Feb. 28 shows an Iranian drone striking the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Manama, Bahrain, damaging what appears to be a communications radome, a weatherproof cover that protects radar and communication equipment.
Gulf nations have also bought air defense equipment from American companies and deployed them near critical infrastructure, including oil refineries. Those foreign radar systems share information with the U.S. military, forming what defense analysts describe as a de facto, expanded U.S. military sensor network.
Iran has targeted such sites where air defense equipment was recently observed, like the Al Ruwais facility in the United Arab Emirates. Satellite imagery of the site from last year shows a THAAD unit near storage structures.
A satellite image taken after Iranian attacks shows significant damage to the storage structures. The Times was unable to verify whether the mobile THAAD unit was inside the storage structures at the time of the strikes.
Near Umm Dahal in Qatar, a long range AN/FPS-132 radar — built at a cost of $1.1 billion to provide early warning coverage across a 3,000 mile radius — apparently sustained damage to its main radar structure, as seen in satellite imagery.
The full extent of damage to U.S. air defense and communication infrastructure remains unclear. Michael Eisenstadt, a director at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the affected radars would be difficult to repair or replace.
But Seth G. Jones, a president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the damage would most likely not significantly degrade U.S. military capabilities in this war. “The U.S. has such redundancy in collecting intelligence and other information from sensor networks, whether it’s land-based radars, aircrafts or space-based systems,” he said.
Diplomatic sites
Iran has also struck nonmilitary U.S. targets such as the consulate in Dubai, and embassies in Kuwait City, Kuwait, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, forcing temporary closures. There have been no reported injuries in any of these attacks.
On Saturday night, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was targeted in a rocket attack. No casualties were reported. It was not immediately clear who was behind it and how much damage was caused. It is not included in The Times’s tally of damaged sites.
Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, said on March 7 that Iranian ballistic missile attacks had dropped 90 percent since the first day of the conflict and drone attacks by 83 percent. Despite the declining pace, Iran has continued to strike American targets across the region.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Afghanistan as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention,” accusing the Taliban of “unjustly” detaining Americans and other foreign nationals.
In his announcement on Monday, Rubio said the Taliban continues to use “terrorist tactics” that he insisted “need to end.”
“I am designating Afghanistan as a State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention,” Rubio said in a statement. “The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions. These despicable tactics need to end.”
The secretary also called on the terror group to free a pair of Americans who are “unjustly detained” in Afghanistan.
IRAN REGIME CITED AS TRUMP ADMIN SET TO DESIGNATE SUDAN’S MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD A TERROR GROUP
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Afghanistan as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention.” (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“It is not safe for Americans to travel to Afghanistan because the Taliban continues to unjustly detain our fellow Americans and other foreign nationals,” he said. “The Taliban needs to release Dennis Coyle, Mahmoud Habibi, and all Americans unjustly detained in Afghanistan now and commit to cease the practice of hostage diplomacy forever.”
Coyle, 64, was detained more than a year ago without charges by the Taliban General Directorate of Intelligence, according to his family, noting that he still has not been charged. His family said he was legally working to support Afghan language communities as an academic researcher.
Habibi, a 38-year-old American citizen who was born in Afghanistan, was taken along with his driver from their vehicle in the capital of Kabul in August 2022 by the Taliban General Directorate of Intelligence, according to the State Department.
The FBI said Habibi was previously Afghanistan’s director of civil aviation and worked for the Kabul-based telecommunications company Asia Consultancy Group. The FBI said the Taliban detained 29 other employees of the company but has released most of them.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Taliban continues to use “terrorist tactics” that he insisted “need to end.” (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)
Habibi has not been heard from since his arrest, and the Taliban has not disclosed his whereabouts or condition, according to the State Department and FBI. The Taliban has previously denied it detained Habibi.
The U.S. is also calling for the return of the remains of Paul Overby, an author who was last seen close to Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan in 2014, according to Reuters, citing two sources familiar with the situation.
The State Department could restrict the use of U.S. passports for travel to Afghanistan if the Taliban does not meet the U.S. government’s demands, the sources told the outlet.
A passport restriction of this kind is currently only in place for North Korea.
The Taliban called the decision by Rubio to designate Afghanistan a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” regrettable, adding that it wanted to resolve the matter through dialogue.
STATE DEPARTMENT DEFENDS ‘PROACTIVE’ EVACUATION EFFORTS AGAINST DEMS’ CLAIMS OF DIPLOMATIC CHAOS
The Taliban called the decision to designate Afghanistan a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” regrettable. (Reuters/Ali Khara)
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The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021 during the U.S. military’s chaotic withdrawal from the country that ended the 20-year war in the region.
Rubio gave the “state sponsor of wrongful detention” designation to Iran late last month, just one day before the U.S.-Israeli strikes on the country. He warned that the U.S. could restrict travel to Iran over its detention of U.S. citizens, but there have not been any restrictions yet.
“The Iranian regime must stop taking hostages and release all Americans unjustly detained in Iran, steps that could end this designation and associated actions,” Rubio said at the time.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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