Israel says it has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage kidnapped and taken into Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, as it continues its military offensive across the strip, killing at least 22 people overnight, according to health officials.
The prime minister’s office said Saturday that the body of Thai citizen Nattapong Pinta was returned to Israel in a special military operation. Pinta had come to Israel to work in agriculture. He had a wife and son.
Pinta was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and killed in captivity near the start of the war, said the government. His body was retrieved from the Rafah area, Israel’s defense minister said.
Israel said it found Pinta’s body based on information received from the hostage task force and military intelligence. The army said he was taken into Gaza by the Mujahideen Brigades, the small armed group that it said had also abducted and killed Shiri Bibas and her two small children.
This undated photo provided by the Hostage’s Family Forum shows Nattapong Pinta, with his wife and son.
Hostage’s Family Forum via AP
A statement from the hostage forum, which supports the hostages, said it stands with Pinta’s family and shares in their grief. It called on the country’s decision makers to bring home the remaining hostages and give those who have died a proper burial.
Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive by Hamas militants. Many of the Thai agricultural workers lived in compounds on the outskirts of southern Israeli kibbutzim and towns, and Hamas militants overran those places first. A total of 46 Thais have been killed during the conflict, according to Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Before Pinta’s body was retrieved, three Thai hostages remained in captivity and two were confirmed dead. The fate of Pinta was uncertain until today, according to the hostage forum.
This comes two days after the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages were retrieved. Judith Weinstein and Gad Haggai had been killed on October 7, and their bodies taken into Gaza. They had also lived on Kibbutz Nir Oz, CBS News previously reported. They had also been taken into Gaza by the Mujahideen Brigades.
The retrieval of Pinta’s body comes as Israel continues its military campaign across Gaza. Hospital officials said they received the bodies of nearly two dozen people Saturday.
Four strikes hit the Muwasi area in southern Gaza between Rafah and Khan Younis. In northern Gaza, one strike hit an apartment, killing seven people, including a mother and five children. Their bodies were taken to Shifa hospital.
Israel said Saturday that it’s responding to Hamas’ “barbaric attacks” and is dismantling its capabilities. It said it follows international law and takes all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted 251 hostages. They are still holding 55 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages from Gaza and recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians.
As Eid begins, Gazans gather to mourn and search for aid – CBS News
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Muslims worldwide are celebrating Eid, a holy time marked by prayers and community gatherings. But Elizabeth Palmer reports the war overshadows any celebrations in Gaza.
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Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and 11 other activists set sail for the Gaza Strip on Sunday afternoon, aboard a ship carrying aid. The mission is aimed at “breaking Israel’s siege” of the devastated territory, organizers said.
“Game of Thrones” actor Liam Cunningham and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament who is of Palestinian descent, are also among the crew. Hassan has been barred from entering Israel due to her active opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza.
The sailing boat Madleen — operated by activist group Freedom Flotilla Coalition — departed from the Sicilian port of Catania, in southern Italy.
“‘Madleen’ sails to Gaza today with twelve humanitarians and as much life-saving aid as she can carry, including baby formula, medical supplies, and more. She departs from European territorial waters, sailing entirely through international waters into Palestinian waters off Gaza,” the coalition wrote in a social media post Sunday. “Unarmed and nonviolent, ‘Madleen’ poses no threat. She sails in full accordance with international law. Any attack or interference will be a deliberate, unlawful assault on civilians.”
As the crew tries to reach the shores of Gaza, they hope their trip will raise “international awareness” over the ongoing humanitarian crisis, the activists said at a press conference on Sunday, ahead of departure.
“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” Thunberg said, bursting into tears during her speech.
“Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity. And no matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s not even near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide,” she added.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg with other activists from a human rights organization meets with journalists in Catania, Italy, Sunday, June 1, 2025, ahead of their departure for the Mideast.
Salvatore Cavalli / AP
Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has adamantly rejected genocide allegations against it as an antisemitic “blood libel.”
In mid-May, Israel slightly eased its blockade of Gaza after nearly three months, allowing a limited amount of humanitarian aid into the territory.
Experts have warned that Gaza is at risk of famine if more aid is not brought in.
U.N. agencies and major aid groups say Israeli restrictions, the breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting make it extremely difficult to deliver aid to Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians.
The activists expect to take seven days to get to their destination, if they are not stopped.
Thunberg, who became an internationally famous climate activist after organizing massive teen protests in her native Sweden, had been due to board a previous Freedom Flotilla ship last month.
The Freedom Flotilla human rights organization Madleen boat is docked near Catania’s harbor, Italy, Sunday, June 1, 2025, ahead of its departure for the Mideast.
Salvatore Cavalli / AP
That attempt to reach Gaza by sea, in early May, failed after another of the group’s vessels, the “Conscience,” was attacked by two alleged drones while sailing in international waters off the coast of Malta.
The group blamed Israel for the attack, which damaged the front section of the ship, in the latest confrontation over efforts to send assistance to the Palestinian territory devastated by nearly 19 months of war.
The Israeli government says the blockade is an attempt to pressure Hamas to release hostages it took during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the conflict. Hamas-led militants assaulted southern Israel that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas is still holding 58 hostages, 23 of whom are believed to be alive.
In response, Israel launched an offensive that has killed over 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. Israel’s bombardment and ground operations have destroyed vast areas of the territory and left most of its population homeless.
The Flotilla group was only the latest among a growing number of critics to accuse Israel of genocidal acts in its war in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies the allegations, saying its war is directed at Hamas militants, not Gaza’s civilians.
“We are breaking the siege of Gaza by sea, but that’s part of a broader strategy of mobilizations that will also attempt to break the siege by land,” said activist Thiago Avila.
Avila cited the upcoming Global March to Gaza — an international initiative also open to doctors, lawyers and media — which is set to leave Egypt and reach the Rafah crossing in mid-June to stage a protest there, asking Israel to stop the Gaza offensive and reopen the border.
Proposed Gaza ceasefire deal thrown into doubt – CBS News
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Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, called the response from the militant group Hamas to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire proposal “totally unacceptable,” adding that it “only takes us backward.” Imtiaz Tyab reports from Tel Aviv.
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Dozens of U.N. food trucks were blocked and offloaded by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as desperation mounts following Israel’s monthslong blockade, while talks of a ceasefire inch forward.
The U.N. Food Program said Saturday that 77 trucks carrying aid, mostly flour, were stopped by hungry people who took the food before the trucks were able to reach their destination.
“After nearly 80 days of total blockade, communities are starving – and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the WFP said in a statement. “This delivery is a start, but it’s not nearly enough.”
Displaced Palestinians, including women and children living in tents, receive food distributed by aid organizations in al Mawasi district of Khan Yunis, Gaza on May 30, 2025.
Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images
A nearly three-month Israeli blockade on Gaza has pushed the population of nearly 2.3 million people to the brink of famine. While the pressure slightly eased in recent days as Israel allowed some aid to enter, organizations say there still isn’t nearly enough food getting in.
The United Nations has called Gaza the “hungriest place on Earth.”
“To restore home, ease fear, and prevent further chaos, we must flood communities with food – now,” the WFP said. “Only consistent, large-scale aid can rebuild trust.”
A witness in the southern city of Khan Younis told The Associated Press the U.N. convoy was stopped at a makeshift roadblock and offloaded by desperate civilians in their thousands. Most people carried bags of flour on their backs or heads. He said at one point a forklift was used to offload pallets from the stranded trucks. The witness spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal.
People carry their sacks of flour distributed by charities in Khan Yunis, Gaza, where there is a food crisis due to Israeli attacks on May 31, 2025.
Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images
Hamas on Friday said it was reviewing a U.S.-led proposal for a temporary ceasefire that Israel has already accepted. President Trump said that negotiators were nearing a deal.
During the proposed 60-day ceasefire, a draft of the deal obtained by CBS News indicated that Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 dead hostages in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including some serving life sentences, and much-needed food aid and other assistance.
The United Nations said earlier this month that Israeli authorities have forced them to use unsecured routes within areas controlled by the Israeli military in the eastern areas of Rafah and Khan Younis, where armed gangs are active and trucks were stopped.
Israel’s military didn’t immediately respond for comment.
An internal document shared with aid groups about security incidents, seen by the Associated Press, said there were four incidents of facilities being looted in three days at the end of May, not including the convoy on Saturday.
The situation in Gaza highlights the growing desperation and urgent need for humanitarian assistance in the besieged enclave.
Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images
The U.N. says it’s been unable to get enough aid in because of fighting. On Friday, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said it only picked up five truckloads of cargo from the Palestinian side of the Kareem Shalom crossing, and the other 60 trucks had to return due to intense hostilities in the area.
An Israeli official said his country has offered the U.N. logistical and operational support but “the U.N. is not doing their job.” Instead, a new U.S- and Israeli-backed foundation started operations in Gaza this week, distributing food at several sites in a chaotic rollout. Israel says the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will replace the massive aid operation that the U.N. and others have carried out throughout the war.
It says the new mechanism is necessary, accusing Hamas of siphoning off large amounts of aid. The U.N. denies that a significant diversion takes place.
Cindy McCain, the WFP’s executive director, told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” last Sunday that there is no evidence to support Israel’s claims that Hamas is responsible for the looting of their aid trucks.
“These people are desperate, and they see a World Food Programme truck coming in, and they run for it,” she said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Hamas or any kind of organized crime, or anything. It has simply to do with the fact these people are starving to death.”
Smoke and dust rising over the destroyed and heavily damaged residential areas following the Israeli attacks in the northern Gaza Strip are seen from the Gaza-Israel border region on May 31, 2025.
Tsafrir Abayov/Anadolu via Getty Images
Meanwhile, Israel is continuing its military campaign across Gaza.
The Gaza Health Ministry said that at least 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours. It said three people were shot by Israeli gunfire early Saturday morning in the southern city of Rafah. Three other people were killed, parents and a child, when their car was struck in Gaza City.
The war began when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking 250 hostages. Of those taken captive, 58 remain in Gaza, but Israel believes 35 are dead, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there are “doubts” about the fate of several others.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 54,000 Gaza residents, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.
Breaking down latest Israel-Hamas ceasefire proposal – CBS News
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Israel has agreed to a U.S.-backed ceasefire plan, but Hamas has not. It comes as Israeli airstrikes killed at least 27 Palestinians in Gaza. Imtiaz Tyab has the latest.
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London – The controversial U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose operations got off to a chaotic start this week in the war-torn Palestinian territory, says it is winding down its Swiss operation after three months. The move comes as Swiss authorities said GHF was breaching rules for foundations registered in that country. GHF told CBS News that moving forward, its only operations would be based out of the United States.
The legal complication for GHF in Switzerland emerged as the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said one Palestinian was killed and 47 others were wounded when Israeli forces fired shots as people were seeking food at one of its aid distribution hubs in southern Gaza on Tuesday. The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Tuesday that troops had only fired “warning shots” to restore order at the site. GHF later said in a statement that “no shots were fired at Palestinian crowds” and “there were no casualties.” Some injured Palestinians could be seen in video footage of the incident verified by CBS News Confirmed, which showed hundreds of people around the distribution center.
Little has been made public about GHF, including who funds it. CBS News has been told by one source that GHF has employed at least 300 American contractors, all heavily armed, who have been given “as much ammunition as they can carry.”
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said, according to a document obtained by CBS News that appears to have been written by the group, that it was registering in both Delaware and Geneva, Switzerland. The Swiss “affiliate” was established in order to “address donors who would prefer to participate outside of the U.S. structure,” the document says.
“The Swiss GHF Board and Executive team will closely mirror that of the U.S. GHF and will adhere to the same principles, mission and values,” says the document.
A separate document seeking to register the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Switzerland, dated Jan. 31, 2025, was published as part of the country’s commercial register. The foundation is shown as being registered from Feb. 17.
According to the Swiss registration document, “the foundation pursues exclusively charitable and philanthropic objectives for the benefit of people in need of support for material, psychological or health reasons, and more specifically to provide humanitarian aid to those affected by the conflict in the Gaza Strip, including the secure provision of food, water, medicine, shelter and reconstruction.”
Displaced Palestinians receive food packages from GHF, a U.S.-backed foundation distributing humanitarian aid, in western Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on May 27, 2025.
AFP via Getty Images
It lists three individuals as leaders of the Swiss foundation: David Papazian, who the document says is from Armenia but based in the U.K.; Lolk Samuel Marcel Henderson, an American in Arlington, Virginia; and David Kohler, from Switzerland.
Subsequent documents, dated May 19 and May 23 respectively, announced the removal of Swiss national Kohler from the board of the foundation, and then the end of Swiss accounting firm OGH Expertises Comptables et Fiscales SA’s role as an auditor of the foundation.
Switzerland’s Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations, known as the ESA, told CBS News on Wednesday that, according to its assessment, the Swiss branch of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is “currently not fulfilling various legal obligations,” in the country.
The ESA said the aid group’s Swiss branch does not have the required signatory member of its board resident in Switzerland, that it doesn’t have the minimum three board members required by Swiss statutes, and that it did not appear to have a Swiss bank account, a valid Swiss address, or an auditor — all of which are requirements for foundations like GHF which are registered in the country.
“Based on this information, the ESA assumes that the Swiss foundation has not yet commenced its activities and is therefore inactive,” the authority told CBS News. “The ESA has informed the foundation of its legal requirements and requested that it clarify the situation. The necessary clarifications are currently under way.”
A Swiss non-governmental watchdog organization, TRIAL International, said it had filed two legal submissions to the Swiss government on May 20 and 21, with the Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations and the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, seeking to assess GHF’s compliance with the Swiss legal system, as well as with Switzerland’s Federal Act on Private Security Services Provided Abroad.
The legal submissions were “intended to urgently remedy potential breaches by the GHF of various rules of national and international law, in particular concerning ‘private security services’ within the framework of the foundation’s activities, such as the militarized security of distribution points and the control of individuals,” the NGO said in a statement.
Switzerland “has a moral but also a particular legal obligation to make sure that entities operating from its territory, themselves, respect the Geneva Conventions. That’s enshrined in the first article of the Geneva Conventions,” TRIAL International director Philip Grant told CBS News.
“So we just wanted to understand what they did” through the Swiss entity, he said.
Grant said it was unclear how much GHF activity had actually taken place in Geneva, which was part of the motivation for his group’s submissions. It was also looking to find out whether GHF had requested and received necessary approvals to engage private military services, the use of which is tightly regulated under Swiss law for organizations registered in the country.
In response to CBS News’ request for clarity, GHF said Wednesday that “the only GHF entity that is in use today is the foundation established in the United States by Loik Henderson in February 2025. That is the only entity through which GHF is operating and will operate moving forward. Swiss entity was created as a contingency; is not operational; and is being wound down.”
James Smith, a doctor who has worked inside Gaza, told CBS News that both the presence of armed contractors at aid distribution centers and the locations of GHF’s hubs in the south of Gaza raise red flags for humanitarian workers. He said the location of the hubs could potentially serve as a way to forcibly displace the population of Gaza to the south of the Strip.
“They are undignified. They are inhumane. We’ve seen people being corralled into cages in the baking heat,” Smith said.
Smith pointed out concerns raised by the United Nations, which has declined to work with the organization, about the methods of GHF and even “some of the people that, until the last couple of days, worked for GHF and have since resigned, saying that they cannot adhere to the humanitarian principles if they continue to work for this entity.”
“The risks posed by armed military actors, particularly those who are parties to a conflict, also providing humanitarian assistance should be and has been roundly condemned and is not something that any reputable humanitarian organization, academic of humanitarianism or humanitarian practitioner should ever support,” Smith said.
Israel says it killed Hamas leader as desperation grows in Gaza – CBS News
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the de facto leader of Hamas, Mohammed Sinwar, was killed in an Israeli airstrike near the entrance of Gaza’s European hospital earlier this month. It comes amid growing desperation in Gaza. Elizabeth Palmer reports.
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Israel’s military said Tuesday that it had killed another Hamas commander with its airstrikes on the Palestinian Gaza Strip. The Israel Defense Forces and the country’s ISA security agency said in a joint statement that fighter jets carried out an intelligence-based strike that killed Nasim Abu Ajina, whom they identified as the commander of a Hamas combat battalion in northern Gaza.
The IDF confirmed Tuesday that it had suffered two more military casualties as it ramps up ground operations in Gaza. It said in a statement that two soldiers were “killed during combat in north Gaza,” where there have been intense clashes over the last 24 hours.
The IDF and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have flatly rejected mounting calls for a cease-fire or even a humanitarian pause in their war against Hamas, insisting that any letup would merely give the group — long designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and most of Europe — time to reorganize. Hamas triggered the ongoing war with its unprecedented Oct. 7 terror attack on southern Israel, during which Israel says 1,400 people were killed and about 240 taken hostage.
The United Nations Secretary-General and a multitude of aid and humanitarian agencies, along with most of Israel’s neighboring nations, have issued increasingly desperate calls for a cease-fire as the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says Israel’s bombardment has killed over 8,500 people, including 3,500 children.
Israel insists the IDF is taking every possible precaution to preserve civilian lives, but it has refused to stop its assault, which it says is only targeting Hamas and allied groups.
A U.S. official told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin on Tuesday that the Israeli military’s immediate objective was to isolate Gaza City, which has been the seat of Hamas’ power in the 25-mile-long strip of land for almost 20 years.
But as part of Israel’s overall vow to “destroy Hamas,” it has also been carrying out targeted strikes aimed at killing virtually all of Hamas’ senior leadership. Israeli officials have named the members they’re targeting — and published a list of the growing number already killed.
The IDF and ISA said Tuesday that Abu Ajina had “directed the massacre on October 7” in two Israeli communities near the Gaza border, Kibbutz Erez and Moshav Netiv HaAsara.
It said Abu Ajina had previously “commanded Hamas’ Aerial Array,” a reference to the Palestinian faction’s drones and paragliders, the latter of which featured prominently in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
تمكنت طائرات حربية بتوجيه استخباري لهيئة الاستخبارات والشاباك من تصفية المدعو نسيم أبو عجينة قائد كتيبة بيت لاهيا في حماس والذي أرسل منفذي الهجمات البشعة التي وقعت في السابع من أكتوبر نحو كيبوتس إيرز ونتيف هعاسارا. وشغل في الماضي منصب… pic.twitter.com/wxnlZKX5KM
“His elimination significantly harms the efforts of the Hamas terrorist organization to disrupt the IDF’s ground activities,” the authorities said in their statement, which included a grainy video of the airstrike said to have killed the Hamas commander.
Among the other Hamas figures already killed by Israel — and that list includes more than 55 named members — are accused military commanders, intelligence officials and politicians.
The overall political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, hasn’t been in Gaza in years and spends most of his time in Qatar, where Hamas has its primary political office outside of Gaza. But some of Hamas’ most senior leaders are still believed to be in Gaza, and they remain on Israel’s wanted list.
At the top of that list is Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ top leader in the Gaza Strip and one of the founders of the group’s military wing of the terrorist organization, the Al-Qassam Brigades.
The current leaders of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif and his deputy, Marwan Issa, are also at the top of the list.
Israel says it is also targeting Tawfik Abu Naim, a head of internal security for Hamas in Gaza; Ahmed Randour, who commands Hamas’ forces in the northern part of Gaza; the group’s spokesman Abu Obeidah, and Muhammad Sinwar, commander of the southern area and a brother of the group’s overall leader in Gaza.
Tucker Reals is CBSNews.com’s foreign editor, based in the CBS News London bureau. He has worked for CBS News since 2006, prior to which he worked for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C., and London.
Chaos at Gaza aid hub staffed by armed American contractors – CBS News
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For the first time in more than a year of war in Gaza, a group of armed Americans is in the middle of it. They are part of a new system designed to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid. Imtiaz Tyab reports.
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