Officials in Gaza say Israeli forces killed 274 Palestinians, including at least 64 children, in the Nuseirat refugee camp during an Israeli military daytime raid on Saturday to free four Israelis who had been held hostage in Gaza since October 7. The hostages had been held in two apartments in Nuseirat, one of the largest refugee camps in Gaza. For two hours Israeli forces attacked the area by air, land and sea. One Israeli soldier died in the raid. Hamas is claiming three other hostages were also killed. Over 700 Palestinians were injured inside the refugee camp. A survivor described the massacre.

Khaled al-Saadouni: “We were in Nuseirat camp. Special forces arrived from an Apache helicopter, and there was a white car with special forces. The Apache started to bomb and fire directly at people. There was a large number of martyrs and injured people. People fled. There’s a big number of displaced people. Schools and hospitals are filled with displaced people. There is a large number of martyrs, and firing was direct. We brought 10 injured people in one ambulance. One of them was shot directly. We barely made it out through the alleyways.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for an emergency U.N. Security Council session to discuss what he called a “bloody massacre” as the overall Palestinian death toll in Gaza has topped 37,000.

The United States reportedly provided intelligence to Israel to aid the hostage rescue effort, including drone imagery collected over Gaza. For months the U.S. has been flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Gaza.

Israel evacuated the hostages from a beach near where the U.S. built a temporary pier to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. The U.S. has denied the pier was used during the Israeli military operation. Israel is also denying claims that it used a humanitarian aid truck to infiltrate the refugee camp.

The Israeli military said the four hostages — Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv — were all in good medical condition.

Israel is facing increasing pressure to agree to a ceasefire and hostage deal. On Saturday night, hours after the hostages were freed, thousands of Israeli protesters took to the streets. In Tel Aviv, police fired water cannons and made at least 33 arrests.
On Sunday, Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz resigned from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and called for new elections.

Benny Gantz: “Regrettably, Netanyahu is preventing us from advancing toward true victory, which is the justification for the ongoing and painful cost of war. That is why we are leaving the emergency government today, with a heavy heart but with full confidence.”

Shortly after Gantz resigned, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir demanded a spot in the war cabinet.

This comes as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in the Middle East for meetings in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Qatar to push for the ceasefire and hostage deal outlined by President Biden.

The United Nations has added Israel to its so-called list of shame, a blacklist of nations and groups that violate the rights of children in armed conflicts. Other nations on the U.N. list include Russia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Syria, Burma, Afghanistan and Haiti. The U.N. is also adding the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad to the list of shame.

In Washington, tens of thousands of protesters formed a symbolic red line around the White House Saturday to protest the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. A major pro-Palestinian rally was also held in London on Saturday.

Meanwhile, in Canada, police fired tear gas and pepper spray on Friday to disperse protesters at McGill University in Montreal, where students had taken over an administrative building. Fifteen arrests were made.

In Spain, hundreds of protesters lied down on the ground outside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to symbolize the mass casualties in Gaza.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday called a snap election for June 30, following major losses in EU elections to the far-right National Rally party.

President Emmanuel Macron: “After having proceeded with the consultations as provided in Article 12 of our Constitution, I decided to give back to you the choice for the future of our Parliament with a vote. And so, I am dissolving tonight our National Assembly.”

Marine Le Pen’s far-right RN party won over 30% of the vote in preliminary tallies — more than twice as many votes as Macron. The RN announced 28-year-old Jordan Bardella as its candidate for prime minister.

The far right made gains elsewhere, including in Italy, Austria and Germany, where the extreme-right Alternative for Germany gained six seats and placed second behind the Christian Democrats. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats placed third with just 14 percent of the vote. Despite the boost for hard-right groups, centrist parties will still hold an outright majority in the 720-seat European Parliament. Nationalist, anti-immigrant groups are expected to control 130 seats.

On Saturday, an estimated 15,000 protesters took to the streets of Berlin to call out the rising power of the far right. Meanwhile, in Brussels, a group of scientists and climate activists on Friday blocked the entrance to the EU Commission.

Sebastian Gonzato: “We blocked the entrance to the European Commission because we are trying to push for degrowth. No political party really has degrowth on its agenda. And degrowth is a necessity if we want to survive this century, if we don’t want to face ecological, civilizational collapse. And so we need — really need — to talk about it.”

Doctors Without Borders recovered the bodies of 12 asylum seekers off the coast of Libya in the Mediterranean Sea and transported another 165 survivors of a shipwreck to Italy on Friday. Rescue workers warn the victory of the far right in EU elections will lead to more migrant deaths. Following the rescue mission, MSF blasted the “devastating and bloody European policies on migration and non-assistance for people taking the Mediterranean.” This is the head of the Red Cross in Spain’s Canary Islands describing the treacherous journey undertaken by thousands each month.

José Antonio Rodríguez Verona: “It’s a journey that, depending on where it starts, means up to 10 days at sea, where anything can happen, such as the ship sinking, tough weather conditions, storms. … It’s a route that has already taken on many lives, some of which we know about and many others we don’t, because they have disappeared.”

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, fighters with the Allied Democratic Forces, a group associated with the Islamic State, killed at least 41 people in an overnight attack Friday on a school in a village near the border with Uganda. The majority of victims were students. The ADF is also accused of another attack in eastern Congo earlier last week that killed at least 16 people.

In Sudan, the last hospital in El Fasher, North Darfur, has shut down after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces raided and looted it Saturday, opening fire inside the hospital. It’s not clear if anyone was killed or wounded in the attack. This comes as the World Food Programme warns Sudan is on track to become the “world’s largest humanitarian crisis,” as aid organizations struggle to get food to those in need.

On Friday, over 40 people were reported killed in RSF attacks on Omdurman, known as the twin city to the capital Khartoum. This came just two days after RSF fighters killed over 100 people, including dozens of children, in a village in al-Gezira state. The U.N. is warning the ongoing fighting in Sudan is creating a massive displacement crisis in the region.

Mohamed Refaat: “Some 12 million have been forced to flee their homes in Sudan, with over 2 million crossing borders into neighboring countries, mainly Chad, South Sudan and Egypt, often arriving in extremely vulnerable conditions and highly traumatized.”

In Uganda, environmental activist Stephen Kwikiriza is receiving hospital care after being released from a nearly weeklong detention Sunday, where he was reportedly beaten by members of the army. Kwikiriza is believed to have been targeted due to his protests against the French oil company TotalEnergies, which is involved in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project, known as EACOP. Local activists have been trying to stop development of the 900-mile pipeline, which is set to transport oil from Uganda to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean port of Tanga.

Narendra Modi has been sworn in as India’s prime minister for a third term. In a stunning upset, Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP lost its parliamentary majority in the recent election, forcing it to form a new coalition government. Modi becomes the first Indian leader since Jawaharlal Nehru to win three straight terms as prime minister.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has finally acknowledged taking more free vacations paid for by billionaire conservative megadonor Harlan Crow. In a filing on Friday, Thomas disclosed he accepted a pair of trips in 2019 — one to Indonesia and another to the Bohemian Grove in California. Last year, ProPublica revealed Thomas had failed to disclose at least 38 luxury trips gifted by Crow and three other right-wing billionaires dating back decades.

Environmental groups are criticizing the Biden administration for weakening a plan to make gas-powered SUVs and pickup trucks more fuel efficient. Last year, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration proposed hiking the average fuel economy standards for the vehicles to 58 miles per gallon by 2032. But under rules issued Friday, the figure has been cut to 50 miles per gallon — just a small increase from the current standard. Dan Becker of the Center for Biological Diversity said the new rule will leave automakers free to “make cars, SUVs and pickups that will guzzle and pollute for decades and keep America stuck on oil.”

A parole hearing is being held today for the imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who has been jailed since 1977. Amnesty International has urged the U.S. Parole Commission to grant the 79-year-old parole on humanitarian grounds. Peltier, who was a member of the American Indian Movement, was convicted of involvement in the killing of two FBI agents at the Pine Ridge Reservation, but he has long maintained his innocence. Supporters of Peltier fear today’s hearing could be his last chance to secure freedom. This is his first full parole hearing in 15 years.