Israel kills 3 community kitchen workers amid ongoing Gaza genocide

Israel killed three community kitchen workers in Gaza on 17 May, as the apartheid state’s crimes roll on despite a supposed ‘ceasefire’.

Speaking about these killings in the city of Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera journalist Hind Khoudary said:

This shows that Israel is not only targeting people, but also organisations serving the community across Gaza

Al Jazeera reported that the community kitchen:

serves hot meals to displaced families

Israel killed five other people elsewhere in Gaza too, bringing the total of assassinations in Gaza since October 2025 to at least 871. Between October and now, there has supposedly been a ‘ceasefire’.

The total number of people Israel has killed during its genocide in Gaza since 2023 stands at 72,760, which includes over 20,000 children.

Israeli forces currently occupy roughly 60 percent of Gaza. And despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, Netanyahu’s far-right regime still enjoys near total impunity.

Outside Gaza, in the West Bank of Palestine, Israeli occupation forces have been accelerating their violent ethnic cleansing campaign, in collaboration with illegal settlers. This involves regular murders, including of children. And as Israeli newspaper Haaretz has said:

The state is supplanting settlers as the driving force of West Bank takeover.

With the state’s central role fully apparent, the ICC has now also sought arrest warrants for racist, settlement-advocating ministers Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Orit Struck, along with two military officials.

‘Giving Israel a licence to continue its crimes’

Speaking about crimes perpetrated by Israel on 18 May, UN human rights head for Palestine Ajith Sunghay said:

And why does it all seem so endless?

Because not enough is being done to stop it. The ceasefire has not led to any form of meaningful accountability for the violations committed in the preceding years. Nor has it led to any fundamental reckoning with the underlying driver – the protracted occupation.

Impunity only fuels recurrence. Most of the horrors documented here, and those documented for decades before, have gone unpunished, with no prospect of justice for the victims.

Beyond statements of condemnation, third States must urgently take every measure at their disposal and in conformity with international law to end the Israeli occupation, ensure the dismantlement of existing settlements, protect civilians, achieve accountability for serious violations by all parties, and ensure Palestinians are able to exercise their human rights.

In a context like this, lack of action is not passivity. It is a license.

Featured image via Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Image