Israel’s leaders slam a news report on a Gaza ‘killing field’ near food sites
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Scranton Shakespeare Festival; Michael Bradshaw Flynn; June 27 2025
There are 6 main stage productions: Sister Act; Julius Caesar; Timon of Athens; Hairspray; Little Shop of Horrors; and Romeo & Juliet.
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Opinion: Remembering Bill Moyers
Moyers started his career as a newspaper reporter in Marshall, Texas. He went on to work for President Kennedy, and later for the White House. He won more than 30 Emmys, and many other honors for his work. He died this week at the age of 91, after a long battle with cancer. He is survived by his wife, Susan, and their two children, David and Victoria. For more information on Moyers’ work, visit his website. For details on his funeral, visit www.moyers.org.
Moyers started his career as a teenage cub reporter at a newspaper in Marshall, Texas. He went on to work as an intern for then-senator Lyndon Johnson. He became ordained as Baptist minister, and a few years later, in 1960, he joined Johnson on the campaign trail, eventually following him to the White House after the Kennedy assassination.
“I work for him despite his faults,” he said once when he was Johnson’s press secretary, “and he lets me work for him despite my deficiencies.” They had a falling out, reportedly over the war in Vietnam, and Moyers returned to journalism for the next 6 decades.
He won the most prestigious awards of our profession, some in bunches: more than 30 Emmys, 11 Peabodys, 2 Columbia-Duponts, and many other honors for his PBS documentaries and interviews.
He interviewed newsmakers. But from the start of Bill Moyers Journal, to NOW with Bill Moyers, and to Wide Angle, he interviewed poets like Rita Dove, scholars like Joseph Campbell, and other writers, artists, religious leaders and historical figures like Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
He once asked Tutu how people who read the same Bible and prayed to the same God could wind up on opposite sides of grievously serious issues.
“We are human beings,” Tutu said to him, “who have been given, extraordinarily, by this God we worship the gift of freedom…God takes seriously the gift that God has given us. And we make choices. And the God, who is an omnipotent God, in many ways become impotent, because God has given us the gift to choose.”
In a media world which can overwhelm with breaking news, Bill Moyers asked questions that could be at once simple and probing in his Texas hill country tenor, steeped with a pastor’s compassion, and reminded us to try to find out what can last in the human heart.
I remember what seemed almost an incidental remark he made years ago at a long news meeting which we both attended.
“Is this a story that reaches into people?,” Bill Moyers asked.
We can honor his memory by asking ourselves that question as we go on with our work today.
Copyright 2025 NPR
Israel’s leaders slam a news report on a Gaza ‘killing field’ near food sites
Israel’s leaders slam a news report on a Gaza ‘killing field’ near food sites. The report is the latest to shed light on what critics say is a flawed plan by Israel. This week, for the first time in months, the United Nations was able to bring in some medical supplies into Gaza. The soldiers say they were ordered by commanders to fire at unarmed civilians who were approaching food distribution sites during off hours, even when the crowds posed no threat. The military says it rejects the accusations in the Haaretz article and that soldiers are not instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians. The U.N. says GHF offers a creative solution to keep aid from reaching Hamas, the group that Israel is at war with in Gaza. And the U.S. says a military body is being asked to investigate incidents at these distribution sites for suspected war crimes. But the military says reports of such “incidents are being examined” by military authorities, not the other way around. The army says it’s akin to a lethal version of the children’s game “red, green light” and calls it a “killing field”
toggle caption Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
A newspaper report published in Hebrew and English quoting Israeli soldiers saying commanders have ordered them to shoot at unarmed hungry crowds of people in Gaza trying to reach food distribution sites prompted a scathing response by Israel’s prime minister on Friday.
World U.S. to fund Gaza food plan mired in chaos and killings U.S. to fund Gaza food plan mired in chaos and killings Listen · 4:02 4:02
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a joint statement calling the Haaretz report “blood libel.”
“These are malicious falsehoods designed to defame the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], the most moral military in the world,” they added.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 500 people have been killed and more than 4,000 wounded by Israeli forces while seeking food aid in the past month.
The Haaretz report quotes multiple anonymous Israeli soldiers describing what they say are the military’s attacks on people trying to get food aid in Gaza since May 27. The soldiers say they were ordered by commanders to fire at unarmed civilians who were approaching food distribution sites during off hours, even when the crowds posed no threat.
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The report is the latest to shed light on what aid workers and critics say is a flawed plan by Israel to control food in Gaza after 11 weeks of full Israeli blockade and continued restrictions on the entry of aid into the territory. This week, for the first time in months, the United Nations was able to bring in some medical supplies into Gaza.
toggle caption Ariel Schalit/AP
NPR has not independently confirmed Haaretz’s reporting. The head of the U.N. told reporters the world doesn’t need reports like this to acknowledge massive violations of international law in Gaza.
“Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe. It is killing people,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said.
Troops describe firing at crowds of aid seekers
One soldier quoted in Haaretz says the army fires machine guns, grenade launchers and mortars at crowds — who pose no threat — while waiting for the distribution sites to open. The distribution sites are manned by U.S. contractors inside, in areas under Israeli military control. The soldier says there are no crowd-control measures, only gunfire being shot at crowds near these sites.
The soldier says it’s akin to a lethal version of the children’s game “red light, green light,” and calls it a “killing field.”
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Another soldier quoted in the report says Israeli commanders take the law into their own hands in Gaza.
Israel’s military says it rejects the accusations in the Haaretz article and that soldiers are not instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians. The military says reports of such “incidents are being examined” by military authorities. Haaretz says a military body is being asked to investigate incidents at these distribution sites for suspected war crimes.
These food distribution sites operate at erratic times and some days, not at all. They are run by a group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is receiving $30 million from the Trump administration to bolster its operations. The State Department says GHF offers a creative solution to keep aid from reaching Hamas, the group that Israel is at war with in Gaza.
toggle caption Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
There are only four GHF sites distributing food in Gaza. These fenced-off facilities were placed in expansive military “red zones,” where Israeli troops are positioned and where Palestinians have been told not to be, outside of the GHF’s erratic and often short operating times.
People in Gaza walk to these sites, three of which are far south, and grab food, without vetting or I.D. checks, according to witnesses and survivors who have spoken to NPR.
Inside these sites, people take what they can carry, ripping GHF boxes open. People in Gaza have told NPR that some of the canned food and other goods from these sites have ended up sold at exorbitant prices on the black market, suggesting looters and traders are among those taking the food.
GHF denies shootings are taking place near its sites, but has acknowledged challenges in getting food to people, describing it as a “learning loop.” It called on Israel to investigate the allegations made in the Haaretz story and publish the findings.
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Aid workers and medics call for end to GHF distribution plan
Doctors Without Borders, one of the many nongovernmental aid groups in Gaza refusing to work with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, says aid must not be controlled by a warring party to further its military objectives.
The medical NGO says one of its clinics has been receiving 10 or more patients a day with injuries from GHF distribution sites, but that the clinic does not have the lifesaving treatment needed for blood transfusions and surgery.
“This system is a slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid, and it must be immediately dismantled,” the aid group said.
Adil Husain, a physician from Dallas, Texas, who’s been volunteering in southern Gaza’s Nasser Hospital for the past two weeks, told NPR that every day he’s treating people shot near GHF sites. He called it a horror movie on repeat.
“I can’t tell you how many boys, young boys and adults that get rushed into my resuscitation bay, bleeding out from their abdomen, bleeding out from the head,” he said. “When I’m exposing them trying to look for their injuries, what I find is empty bags. Empty bags that they had only hoped to fill with food, just so that they could survive for a few more days.”
He says instead, people are left without food and with life-changing injuries. Dr. Husain shared images with NPR of a thin, frail-looking teenager who died after being shot in the head, and of two young boys, one who lost his eye and another now paralyzed from the neck down, whom he said were shot by the Israeli military near GHF sites while trying to get food this week.
Israel shifts focus back to Gaza as 46 more killed at aid sites, UN slams ‘abomination’ of US-backed system
Israeli forces kill another 46 people waiting for aid in the Palestinian territory. Rights groups and UN agencies slam the US-backed food distribution system. At least 516 people have been killed and nearly 3,800 wounded by Israeli fire since late May. Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday after a 12-day war in Gaza. But the country’s military chief later warned that Israel would now refocus on its campaign to crush the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the territory. The Israeli military said that a crowd had been identified in an area “adjacent” to its troops. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) called the system an “abomination” and condemned the “weaponisation of food” in Gaza, a spokesman for the UN human rights office said. The territory of more than two million people is suffering from famine-like conditions after Israel blocked all supplies from early March to the end of May and continues to impose restrictions, according to rights groups.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 21 people were killed and around 150 wounded by Israeli fire near an aid point in central Gaza early Tuesday, and that another 25 were killed in a separate incident in south Gaza.
“Every day we face this scenario: martyrs, injuries, in unbearable numbers,” paramedic Ziad Farhat told AFP at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.
“Hospitals cannot accommodate the number of casualties arriving,” he said.
Israel’s opposition leader and the families of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to widen a ceasefire with Iran to include the Palestinian territory.
But the country’s military chief later warned that Israel would now refocus on its campaign to crush the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the territory.
“Now the focus shifts back to Gaza — to bring the hostages home and to dismantle the Hamas regime,” chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said in a statement shared by the army.
Aid distribution tensions
Pressure grew Tuesday on the US- and Israeli-backed privately run aid group Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was brought into the Palestinian territory at the end of May to replace United Nations agencies.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) called the system an “abomination” while a spokesman for the UN human rights office, Thameen Al-Kheetan, condemned the “weaponisation of food” in Gaza.
According to figures issued on Tuesday by the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, at least 516 people have been killed and nearly 3,800 wounded by Israeli fire while seeking rations since late May.
The territory of more than two million people is suffering from famine-like conditions after Israel blocked all supplies from early March to the end of May and continues to impose restrictions, according to rights groups.
Writing in the Guardian newspaper, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF James Elder said 400 aid distribution points had dwindled to four under GHF while supplies in “jampacked” warehouses outside Gaza could not be brought in.
‘Tank shells’
Gaza civil defence spokesman Bassal reported a first deadly shooting Tuesday “with bullets and tank shells” near the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza where thousands of Palestinians gather each night for rations near a GHF site.
The Israeli military said that a crowd had been identified in an area “adjacent” to its troops.
Witness Ribhi Al-Qassas told AFP that troops had “opened fire randomly” at a crowd he estimated at 50,000 people.
The second incident took place in south Gaza about two kilometres from another GHF centre in Rafah governorate, Bassal said.
“Israeli forces targeted civilian gatherings near Al-Alam and Al-Shakoush areas with bullets and tank shells”, he told AFP.
Israeli restrictions on media in the Gaza Strip and difficulties in accessing some areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers and witnesses.
UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with GHF over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.
GHF has denied responsibility for deaths near its aid points.
On Monday, more than a dozen human rights organisations called on the organisation to cease its operations, warning of possible complicity in war crimes.
Ceasefire calls
After Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday after a 12-day war, Netanyahu faced renewed calls to agree a ceasefire with Hamas after more than 20 months of war in Gaza.
“It’s time to finish it there too. Bring back the hostages, end the war,” opposition leader Yair Lapid of the centre-right Yesh Atid party wrote on X.
Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel’s war against Iran was “contributing to the successes in Gaza, but it will still take a bit more time”.
The October 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Of the 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants in October 2023, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 56,077 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable. — AFP
Will Israel-Iran ceasefire hold? Analyst says both sides have strong incentives
Jonathan Panikoff is a former intelligence officer who now directs the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council. He says Iran’s military capabilities have been severely degraded and that Israel may be nearing its own limits after days of missile exchanges. He sees the potential for diplomacy, possibly mediated by countries like Oman or even China, but warns that a broader solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions remains elusive. “The balance of power in the region has certainly shifted towards Israel’s favor and away from Iran,” he said. “I think that this is probably going to be the beginning of the end, not the end of this conflict,” Panikoffs says. “It’s going to take quite a lot of cajoling over the coming weeks and months,” he says of a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue. “Iran is really facing a challenge in terms of how it’s going going to move forward,” he adds. “What happens to the threat to the region, including Arab Gulf states, including Russia?”
A shaky ceasefire between Israel and Iran began to take hold Tuesday under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, raising hopes for an end to the region’s most intense military confrontation in decades.
To understand what’s at stake and what might come next, Morning Edition spoke with Jonathan Panikoff, a former intelligence officer who now directs the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.
Panikoff says Iran’s military capabilities have been severely degraded and that Israel may be nearing its own limits after days of missile exchanges. He also sees the potential for diplomacy, possibly mediated by countries like Oman or even China. But Panikoff warns that a broader solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions remains elusive. “The balance of power in the region has certainly shifted towards Israel’s favor and away from Iran,” he said.
Panikoff told NPR’s Michel Martin what he sees as Iran’s diminished deterrence, the uncertain future of nuclear diplomacy, shifting regional dynamics and the potential for deeper ties between Russia and Iran.
This interview transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Michel Martin: So, Israel and Iran have been adversaries for decades. Just given everything we’ve already heard so far this morning, do you think the conditions are there, or maybe the incentives are there, to actually hold this ceasefire?
Jonathan Panikoff: I think the incentives are certainly there from Iran. Iran has seen its power significantly reduced in the region. It has seen its ability to defend against Israel, frankly, be obliterated. It just did not exist fundamentally in the way that I think even a lot of Iranian officials thought it was going to. And I think for Israel, after years of war in Gaza and certainly the last 12 days, it’s accomplished most of its objectives to really diminish Iran’s ballistic missile program and nuclear program, and may itself be running out of interceptor missiles to defend against Iran’s missile strikes that we’ve seen [going] into Israel, including overnight.
Martin: So, before Israel began bombing Iran, the U.S. was negotiating with Tehran over its nuclear capabilities. Do you think those negotiations will go forward, and what might we expect from them?
Panikoff: I think that this is probably going to be the beginning of the end, not the end of the end, presuming the ceasefire holds for this conflict, precisely because Iran’s nuclear program is still a question. President Trump may have significantly destroyed, or at least mostly destroyed, Fordo with the strikes, but there are real questions about whether Iran’s highly enriched uranium was ferried out of the site and whether it could ultimately be spun up in a smaller, secretive site and turned into 90 percent weapons-grade enriched uranium. That would be a real threat to Israel. To manage that, either there will need to be further strikes eventually when those sites are found, or there will still need to be some sort of fundamental diplomatic solution.
Martin: I guess that’s what I’m asking you. Do you think that a pathway to that exists?
Panikoff: I think the pathway probably exists indirectly for now. You can imagine that U.S. mediators, like Oman, maybe Norway or the Swiss, could continue to play a role in bringing the parties back to the table. Or you could even imagine an outside actor like China trying to convince the Iranians to come back. So I think that pathway exists, but it’s going to take quite a lot of cajoling over the coming weeks and months.
Martin: So, let’s broaden it out. Two weeks ago, the balance of power in the Middle East looked very different. How would you describe it now?
Panikoff: The balance of power in the region has certainly shifted toward Israel’s favor and away from Iran. And there’s a reason for that. The Iranian triad, on which its power projections were based, was ballistic missiles, its nuclear program and its proxy network. All three of those, over the last year or so, have been tremendously diminished, especially the latter two in the past two weeks of this war. Now I think Iran is really facing a challenge in terms of how it’s going to move forward. Will it reinvest billions of dollars to rebuild those entities at a time when its economy is struggling, which could lead to even further internal strife? Or will it try a different path, rebuilding some defenses over time, but not reestablishing the same proxy network or nuclear program that has long been a broad threat to the region, including Arab Gulf states?
Martin: What about Russia? Russia has been an ally of Iran for years, and of course, I think the world knows Russia has been tied down in its war against Ukraine. It has lost many people, lots of munitions and so forth. What happens to Russia now? What’s its role here?
Panikoff: I think there’s a real reason to be concerned over the long term about whether the nature of the relationship between Russia and Iran, which has largely been transactional, becomes much more strategic. If both Russia and Iran are viewing themselves as isolated on the world stage, they may decide there is more reason to work together. That could mean Russia reengaging with Iran and eventually deciding to provide defense systems again or ballistic missiles again.
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