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Photos.
Scene. Published by IMEMC News

Palestinians run for cover as an Israeli strike hits the home (L) of the Hmeid family in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, on Thursday. Credit: Bashar Taleb/AFP. Rawan Suleiman, Bar Peleg, Noa Shpigel, Hagar Shezaf
May 16, 2025 1:01 am IDT
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by IMEMC News
May 16, 2025

An Israeli colonizer identified as Tzeela Gez, was killed by unknown gunmen in a shooting near a West Bank settlement. She was nine months pregnant, and was on her way to the hospital to give birth when she was killed.

Her baby was delivered by c-section at the hospital after her death, and was determined to be in stable condition.

Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, responded to the shooting by stating that the Palestinian towns closest to the location of the shooting, Bruqin and az-Zawiya, should be ‘flattened’ like cities and towns in Gaza.

“Just as we are flattening Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza (in the Gaza Strip), we must also flatten the terror nests in [the West Bank],” Smotrich wrote on social media..

No Palestinian groups claimed responsibility for the shooting, which occurred in the midst of the largest Israeli military operations in the West Bank in two decades (lasting over 100 days in Tulkarem and Jenin), and while the Israeli military continues bombing Gaza (for over 500 days, with 50,000 killed).

On Thursday, following the shooting of Gez, Israeli forces invaded the nearby Palestinian villages of Tamoun and Tubas, killing five Palestinians and occupying Palestinian homes.

The Israeli military claimed that soldiers had identified “terrorists” in a building in Tammun, and besieged the building, setting it on fire and shooting numerous rounds, killing four.

Local sources reported that an Israeli occupation bulldozer ( D10 ) began demolishing the house, while the Israeli occupation forces are still besieging the area. A photo also circulated on social media showing an Israeli military bulldozer carrying the body of one of the Palestinians who was killed in the besieged house.

Israel’s general chief of staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, visited the troops who were attacking the villages and offered his support for their ongoing attacks on the Palestinian villagers.

Local sources reported that special forces infiltrated Tammun, south of Tubas, and surrounded a house. Military reinforcements, including a bulldozer, followed, and the besieged house was targeted several times with weapons and Energa missiles, destroying the home completely.

Azmi Balawna, the director of education in Tubas, reported that an Israeli occupation patrol hit a bus carrying students to a kindergarten in Tammun, while the children were inside, causing panic.

At the same time, special forces infiltrated the city of Tubas, followed by military reinforcements, which were stationed at its southern entrance.

The Israeli occupation forces also stormed the headquarters of Al-Quds Open University in Tubas and blew up a café next to the university.

The governor of Tubas also announced a delay in official working hours due to the situation in the governorate .

Meanwhile, armed groups of illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizer, under the protection of Israeli occupation forces, closed the northern entrance to the Al-Masafer and Bedouin areas east of Yatta, which leads to a large number of villages, ruins, and population centers. They set tires on fire on the road, attacked citizens’ vehicles, and prevented them from passing and reaching their homes.

Israeli occupation forces (IOF) detained more than 70 Palestinians on Thursday during a raid into Al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron. The forces also raided and searched homes and tortured a number of them.

Local sources reported that occupation forces stormed the camp, raided the homes of citizens, and detained a large number of them. They also assaulted the director of public relations at the Prisoners’ Club, Amjad al-Najjar, his wife, and children, causing his wife to suffer a fracture in her hand. They also smashed the furniture in the house.

As the Israeli genocide in Gaza intensifies, Israeli soldiers and paramilitary colonizers have escalated their military offensive across the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, resulting in the killing of more than 978 Palestinians, injuring thousands, and abducting over 17,000 people since October 7, 2023.

281 Palestinians were killed in Jenin, 210 in Tulkarem, 116 in Nablus, 92 in Tubas, 83 in Hebron, 63 in Ramallah, 53 in Jerusalem, 36 in Qalqilia, 26 in Bethlehem, and 12 in Jericho and northern plains.

This year alone, 143 Palestinians, including 24 children and 5 women, have been killed in the West Bank, one of the slain Palestinians was killed by illegal Israeli paramilitary colonizers.

In the destroyed, starved, and besieged Gaza Strip, the ongoing Israeli genocide has resulted in the killing of more than 52,928 Palestinians, including at least 15,626 children, 9,807 women, 3,855 elderly individuals, 237 journalists, and 23 medics. At least 119,864 people—mostly children, women, and the elderly—have been wounded since October 7, 2023.
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Israeli Army Claimed Hamas Tunnel Was Under Gaza Hospital, but Showed Footage of Nearby School

In a statement after the attempted assassination of Mohammed Sinwar, the IDF claimed the tunnel was discovered beneath the European Hospital in Khan Yunis – but aerial photos show otherwise. The IDF later said the tunnel also passed under the hospital, but offered no evidence

by Bar Peleg, Nir Hasson and Avi Scharf for Haaretz
May 15, 2025

The Israeli army said on Monday that it had uncovered a terror tunnel at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis following an assassination attempt on senior Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, but aerial footage released by the military shows a tunnel located beneath a nearby school.

Dozens of videos from the strike have been released, but none show damage to the school where the tunnel is reportedly located – only to the hospital grounds. The Israel Defense Forces has not clarified whether the school was targeted or if the strike on the hospital merely exposed the tunnel's existence beneath the adjacent school.

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit responded by saying that the tunnel extended beneath both the hospital and the adjacent area highlighted in the footage. However, no evidence has been presented to substantiate this claim.

An Israeli security source confirmed that incorrect footage of the tunnel had been circulated, but the IDF maintains that the school is considered part of the hospital complex due to its proximity.

The IDF released the footage on Tuesday, just hours after the strike, under the title "The European Hospital." The video shows a building marked with signs of what is described as exposed underground infrastructure following the attack. In the statement accompanying the footage, the army claimed that "the IDF and Shin Bet security service destroyed a Hamas underground terror infrastructure located beneath the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip."

However, a review of the maps and aerial footage reveals that the structure is not the hospital but the nearby Jenin School. The school's Facebook page features numerous photos of its courtyard, which is the exact location where the IDF claims the tunnel was dug.

Footage analyzed by Haaretz showed at least six craters from Israeli Air Force munitions inside and outside the hospital grounds, including at the entrance to the emergency room and along the facility's access road.

Surveillance footage from the hospital entrance released on Wednesday shows one of the strikes with several bystanders appearing to be wounded in the explosion. However, most of the damage seemed to occur underground. Forty-five seconds after the missile impact, the ground collapsed, likely indicating the presence of an underground complex.

16 Palestinians were killed and about 70 were wounded in the attack, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. It remains unclear whether Sinwar or other senior Hamas members were killed in the strike.

In a statement, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit said, "The tunnel ran beneath the European Hospital and the surrounding area." It further clarified that the footage released on Wednesday, showing the destroyed underground infrastructure, marked the area near the hospital, not the establishment itself.

Throughout the war, several international media outlets raised concerns about the lack of sufficient evidence provided by the IDF to support claims of terror infrastructure within Gaza's hospitals.

In November, AP published an investigation reviewing the evidence the IDF presented regarding three hospitals in northern Gaza – Al-Shifa, Al-Awda and the Indonesian Hospital. The report said that Israel provided minimal, if any, evidence of a significant Hamas presence in these hospitals.

In December 2023, The Washington Post reported that the IDF failed to provide evidence proving Hamas operated a command center beneath Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza City, which had been a central target of a major military operation.

In February, The New York Times outlined the network of terror tunnels beneath Al-Shifa Hospital, noting that Hamas had indeed dug tunnels under one of the hospital's buildings, likely connecting to a larger tunnel system. However, the report added that the IDF failed to provide evidence supporting the claim that this tunnel network functioned as a Hamas command center.

In December, after a prolonged siege and raid on Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, which the IDF labeled a terror compound, the army released footage showing a small weapons cache, including a handgun and several grenades, found "within and around the hospital."

On Tuesday morning, the IDF carried out another strike on a hospital in Gaza, targeting the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis. Journalist Hassan Aslih, who the IDF claims was a member of Hamas' Khan Yunis Brigade, was killed in the attack. Aslih had entered Israel during the October 7 attack and captured footage of a burning Israeli tank near the Gaza border.
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Israeli Strikes in Gaza Said to Kill at Least 120; U.S. Troubled by Gaza's Humanitarian Situation

Israeli military says that the Air Force struck more than 130 targets throughout the Strip over the past two days

by Rawan Suleiman, Bar Peleg, Noa Shpigel, Hagar Shezaf for Haaretz
May 16, 2025 1:01 am IDT

At least 120 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip on Thursday, local health officials told Qatari-based news outlet Al Jazeera. The report comes after the Israeli military said that its Air Force struck more than 130 targets throughout the Strip over the past two days.

In a strike on Tuesday, Israel targeted Hamas' Gaza chief and brother of Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Sinwar, who was thought to be in an underground command center beneath the European Hospital in southern Gaza's Khan Younis. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, at least 16 people were killed in the strike and the hospital is now out of commission. It is not yet clear whether Sinwar was killed in the attack.

"The European Hospital in Gaza is not operational as a result of the latest attacks. The strike caused substantial damage to infrastructure, such as sewer lines, damage to internal wards and roads leading to the hospital," the health ministry said in a statement. "The European Hospital in Gaza is the only hospital providing medical check-ups for cancer patients in the Gaza Strip," the statement added.

In a separate strike in Gaza City, the IDF and the Shin Bet security service announced that it killed Jasser Hussein Ali Shamieh, a Hamas fundraiser and former battalion commander in a joint operation. Shamieh raised tens of millions of dollars for Hamas' military wing.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after he spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that Washington is troubled by the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Rubio, speaking to reporters in Antalya, Turkey, said the U.S. was not insensitive to the suffering of people in Gaza, where no humanitarian assistance has been delivered since March 2.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid arrived at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv after a security update meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Lapid said, "We can make a hostage deal: We're one security cabinet resolution away from a deal," adding that he would "give the prime minister a full political safety net for a hostage deal."

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