8 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops in shooting near aid distribution center, Gaza officials say
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(LONDON) — Israeli troops shot and killed at least eight Palestinians near a humanitarian aid distribution center in the Rafah, Gaza, early Saturday, according to hospital officials and Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
The deadly shooting occurred at the Al-Alam roundabout near an aid center west of Rafah city at around 6 a.m. local time, according to the health ministry. The area is approximately 1 kilometer from an aid distribution center, which the Israel Defense Forces considers an active combat zone during the night when the site is closed.
The Israeli- and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — which is running aid distribution in Gaza — closed its aid distribution sites on Friday, without giving a date on when they would reopen. Palestinians in Gaza remain at risk of extreme starvation and famine, the United Nations and other aid groups have warned.
Since May 27, when the aid distribution centers were established, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more have been wounded while trying to collect food from the sites, Gaza’s Hamas-run Government Media Office said.
The Nasser Medical Complex received four out of the eight deceased victims from the incident so far, a source at the hospital told ABC News.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
The Israel Defense Forces said it “is aware of the reports of casualties.”
“Despite prior warnings that the area is an active combat zone during nighttime hours, several suspects attempted to approach IDF troops operating in the Tel al-Sultan area overnight (Saturday), in a manner that posed a threat to the troops,” the IDF told ABC News when asked for comment. “The troops called out to the suspects to drive them away, but as they continued advancing in a way that endangered the troops, the soldiers responded with warning shots.”
Reverend Dr. Johnnie Moore, the new chairman of GHF, told ABC News this week the organization “can’t control what happens outside” the distribution points and added that there have been incidents, “as one would expect, in a war, outside of our distribution sites.”
According to Moore, GHF — since it was set up 10 days ago — had distributed “10 million meals to Gazans, to thousands and thousands and thousands of people.” The GHF has not specified what it defines as a single “meal.”
(LONDON and DELHI) — More than 26 people were killed and dozens more were injured overnight in Pakistan by Indian aerial attacks, Pakistani officials said.
The Pakistani military said the assault amounted to a “blatant act of aggression,” a characterization disputed by an Indian official, who said it was a “measured, non-escalatory, proportionate and responsible.”
The strike, which followed Tuesday’s missile assault, came amid rising tension as India continued to blame Pakistan for a deadly attack in April in the disputed Kashmir region, a claim that Pakistan denies. That militant attack, known as the Pahalgam incident, left 26 people dead in Indian-held Kashmir.
Pakistani military officials on Tuesday had vowed to respond from the “air and ground.” Officials this morning repeated that warning, saying it “reserves the right to respond, in self-defense, at a time, place, and manner of its choosing.” A statement released by the Pakistan National Security Commitee after a meeting of the committee says “the Armed Forces of Pakistan have duly been authorized to undertake corresponding actions in this regard.”
The Indian Army confirmed New Delhi’s latest strikes on Wednesday, saying in a statement that its forces were “responding appropriately in a calibrated manner.”
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said India’s strikes overnight amounted to a preemptive action, saying Pakistan did not take sufficient steps against “terrorist infrastructure on its territory or on territory under its control.”
Two military officials also described the attack, which they said involved nine locations and lasted about 25 minutes. The officials claim the targets were destroyed and that the Indian military is prepared to respond to what she characterizes as “Pakistani misadventures” that would “escalate the situation.”
Pakistan said the airstrikes hit numerous locations in Pakistan, not just in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistan also claimed that India hit a hydroelectric dam in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
At least 46 people were injured in Pakistan, military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in a press conference on Wednesday. The country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had summoned India’s top diplomat in Pakistan.
The attack “constitutes a clear violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding, “The Indian side was warned that such reckless behavior poses a serious threat to regional peace and stability.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images, Ken Ishii – Pool/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump earlier this month announced far-reaching “reciprocal tariffs” on scores of countries, but he soon suspended the levies on all but one: China.
Instead, Trump ratcheted up China tariffs to a whopping total of 145%. In response, China slapped 125% tariffs on U.S. goods and issued other countermeasures.
The trade war between the world’s two largest economies amounts to a battle of wills in which each stands poised to draw on economic advantages and political pressure points, analysts said. An assessment of each side’s leverage, they added, helps reveal how the standoff may unfold.
“The stakes are extremely high and the only issue remaining is who is going to blink first,” Yasheng Huang, professor of global economics and management at MIT, told ABC News.
Potential economic damage
The U.S. and China each are among the other’s top trade partners, meaning a sizable chunk of each economy depends on the relationship.
U.S. consumers and firms purchase more goods and services from China than the other way around, putting China at risk of a larger loss in economic activity if trading comes to an effective halt, analysts said.
Still, they added, the trade imbalance also threatens acute product shortages and price increases for U.S. consumers.
“The U.S. imports more from China than it exports to China — that gives the U.S. an advantage,” Shang-Jin Wei, a professor of finance and economics at Columbia University who studies the U.S.-China trade relationship, told ABC News.
“But the very fact that the U.S. buys so much from them also means that it is dependent on their supply of low-cost goods,” Wei said.
Last year, the U.S. imported about $438 billion worth of goods and services from China, making it the largest destination for China’s exports. In all, that figure accounts for about 15% of China’s exports, according to the U.S. Trade Representative. China makes up a primary source of consumer electronics like laptops and smartphones, as well as footwear, apparel and toys.
U.S. tariffs are expected to lower China’s gross domestic product growth this year by 0.7%, though the Chinese economy is still forecast to expand by more than 4%, J.P.Morgan said on Tuesday.
The loss of relatively cheap Chinese goods, meanwhile, is expected to raise prices for U.S. shoppers. Over the weekend, the Trump administration issued a tariff exemption for some consumer electronics from China, but price hikes are expected for a host of other goods.
On the other hand, China purchased about $143 billion of U.S. goods last year, including crops such as soybeans and wheat, as well as oil and gas.
Roughly 930,000 U.S. jobs are supported by exports to China, the U.S.-China Business Council said in a report last year. During Trump’s first term, the U.S. provided financial relief to some farmers to make up for lost sales to China.
Essential materials
The U.S. or China could also derive leverage from specialized goods that would be difficult for the other country to replace in the event of trade restrictions.
Earlier this month, China imposed export restrictions on some rare earth elements and magnets that make up critical inputs in some U.S. auto, energy and defense products. For now, Chinese companies can still export to U.S. buyers, though the Chinese firms must receive approval from the Chinese government.
Rare earths are vital for a range of defense technologies, including F-35 fighter jets, Tomahawk missiles and radar systems, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, said on Tuesday.
The U.S. is not prepared to immediately make up for a potential loss of those components through domestic industry, CSIS found.
“The U.S. dependency on China for rare earths is extremely high,” Huang said. “China can shut it off or turn it on at will — that is leverage.”
Meg Rithmire, a professor of business administration at Harvard University, said the U.S. could seek out alternative sources abroad but China remains the dominant source of such materials.
“It doesn’t seem like this is the kind of thing that will cripple anyone in the short term, but the supply chains are such that it could get messy in the medium term,” Rithmire said.
Meanwhile, China relies on the U.S. for some important components of its electronics, auto and technology products, Huang said.
China could likely withstand a temporary shortfall, Huang added, though a long-term shortage of such goods would pose a problem.
“It would definitely hurt them — no question about it,” Huang said.
Tolerance for financial pain
Analysts told ABC News that China’s authoritarian form of government affords it greater capacity to tolerate a prolonged period of economic hardship.
By contrast, separate branches of government and regular elections in the U.S. make it more difficult for the country to hold out through potential widespread financial challenges, they added.
The Chinese public faces limits on public expression and little recourse for bringing its displeasure to bear on political representatives, analysts said.
“There’s a lot structurally built into the Chinese system to withstand political pain, which isn’t the case for the U.S.,” Rithmire said. “The U.S. system incorporates the unhappiness of people as they experience the economic effects.”
The countries’ different responses to COVID-19 exemplify how their respective political systems respond to flagging general welfare, analysts said.
China maintained a zero-COVID policy for several years, severely restricting individual mobility and hamstringing a broad swath of the nation’s economy. In the U.S., on the other hand, eight states never issued COVID lockdowns, while the federal government focused on economic stimulus and expedited vaccine development.
“The trade war, as substantial as it is, doesn’t compare to the COVID lockdown that China implemented,” Huang said. “We have solid evidence that the political system is quite immune from economic hardship.”
Still, that tolerance of economic pain has limits, Wei said. Over the past half century, the Chinese government has drawn legitimacy from its ability to deliver economic growth and improved living standards, he added.
“Anything that hurts that can undermine their power,” Wei said.
Ultimately, the standoff may endure until each country sees a pathway out of the trade spat that promises sufficient political benefit.
“Is there a productive off-ramp for each side?” Huang said.
(TEL AVIV, Israel) — Three weeks ago, Hamdan Ballal stood on the stage at the Oscars, golden statue in hand, winner of the award for best documentary as the co-director of “No Other Land.” It was an inspiring moment of unity and coexistence.
On Tuesday, bloodied and bruised, he spoke to ABC News on the phone from a hospital bed in Hebron in the West Bank.
“I’m afraid,” Ballal said. “Really, I’m afraid. I feel, when they attack me, I will lose my life.”
Ballal said he was severely beaten at the hands of Jewish settlers at his home on Monday, just outside the village of Susiya.
Settlers had come into the village throwing stones and harassing residents, including his neighbor, something Ballal says had been happening with increasing frequency since his Oscar win earlier this month.
He started filming before rushing home to his family, trying to block settlers from coming into his house. That’s when the attack began, he said, with several men attacking his head and body, including hitting him with guns.
“It was a hard, hard attack,” Ballal said. “You know, I feel I will die, because this attack was so hard, I bleed from everywhere. I’m crying from deeply in my heart. I feel pain everywhere in my body. So, they continue attacking me like 15-20 minutes.”
He said that, in addition to a plainclothes settler, there were two men present he described as “soldiers with guns,” although he could not say for sure who they were or which Israeli authority they might have represented.
The Israel Defense Forces and Israel Police have denied being involved in any beating.
Israeli authorities said that Ballal was detained along with several others on suspicion of throwing stones, damaging property and compromising the security of the area. A Jewish settler was arrested, as well.
The Palestinians — including Ballal — were questioned, held overnight and ultimately released “on conditions that include not contacting other people involved and self-bail,” according to a police statement.
Police say the investigation is continuing, but Ballal strongly denies he did anything wrong.
“I didn’t throw stones, I didn’t do any problems with the settlers,” Ballal said. “The settlers came attacking me and beating me. That’s it.”
Ballal’s Oscar-winning documentary focused on a community’s attempts to resist forced expulsion of Palestinians from a southern area of the West Bank by the Israeli government.
The number of Israeli settlers has dramatically increased in the West Bank in recent decades.
Palestinians, human rights groups and the United Nations have accused them of playing an unofficial role in the attempted displacement of Palestinians through the West Bank, with extremists carrying out violent attacks designed to intimidate, instill fear and ultimately force people out of a place they have called home for generations.
“The settler violence has worsened considerably since the war,” said Sari Bashi, a program director at Human Rights Watch. “The people whom the army doesn’t directly displace are left to fend for themselves among violent settlers who scare them off their land.”
Critics say the right-wing coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, at best, turned a blind eye to the violence and, at worst, outright encouraged it, with the ultimate goal, according to prominent settler activists and some far-right members of the government, of annexing the West Bank entirely.
The government has denied responsibility for settler violence and has primarily blamed Palestinians for the continued unrest, though sometimes it blames settlers as well. Netanyahu’s government, which refers to the West Bank by its biblical names of Judea and Samaria, argues that the area is replete with terrorist activity that targets Israelis both in West Bank settlements and inside Israel. The government argues its actions in the West Bank are necessary to keep Israelis safe.
Activists often say that the Israeli Police and the IDF, who have security control over most of the West Bank, fail to protect them from settler attacks or adequately prosecute cases of settler violence. The IDF intervenes when scuffles between settlers and activists escalate, but prosecuting settler violence is rare. From 2005 to 2024, only 3% of more than 1,000 investigations ended in convictions, according to the nongovernmental organization Yesh Din.
The settlers often cite a deep religious imperative for their actions. Others view attacks as vengeance for deadly Palestinian terror attacks. Many routinely deny responsibility for the West Bank acts of violence that have risen in recent years but have gone on for decades.
Ballal was released from the hospital on Tuesday. ABC News asked why he chose to speak publicly if he is afraid for his life.
“I’ve been afraid like this since I was born, until now,” Ballal said. “So, I have to speak. Yes, I’m afraid, but I live this situation all my life. So I hope, I hope, because I speak with [ABC News], it can change something.”
ABC News’ Guy Davies, Mike Pappano and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
