Israeli forces have opened fire again on Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid from a distribution site in Gaza, killing at least three people and injuring more than 30, as the United Nations demands an independent investigation into the repeated mass shootings of aid seekers in the strip.

The shooting erupted at sunrise on Monday at the same Israeli-backed aid point in southern Gaza where soldiers had opened fire just a day earlier, according to health officials and witnesses.

“The Israeli military opened fire on civilians trying to get their hands on any kind of food aid without any kind of warning,” Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

“This is a pattern that’s been widely condemned by international aid organisations because it enhances the breakdown of civil order without ensuring humanitarian relief can be received by those desperately in need.”

Witnesses said Israeli snipers and quadcopter drones routinely monitor aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is backed by Israel and the United States.

A Red Cross field hospital received about 50 people wounded in the latest shooting, including two who were dead on arrival, said Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross. Most had been hit by bullets or shrapnel. A third body was taken to Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis.

Moataz al-Feirani, 21, said he was shot in the leg while walking with thousands of others towards the food site.

“We had nothing, and they [the Israeli military] were watching us,” he told The Associated Press news agency, adding that surveillance drones circled overhead. The shooting began about 5:30am (02:30 GMT)  near the Flag Roundabout, he said.

The pattern of deadly violence around the GHF aid distribution site has triggered mounting international outrage, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday demanded an independent inquiry into the mass shooting of Palestinians.

“It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food,” he said. “I call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for perpetrators to be held accountable.”

The Israeli military has denied targeting civilians, claiming its soldiers fired “warning shots” at individuals who “posed a threat”.

The GHF has also denied the shootings occurred although doubts about its neutrality have intensified since its founding executive director, former US marine Jake Wood, resigned before operations even began after he questioned the group’s “impartiality” and “independence”.

Critics said the group functions as a cover for Israel’s broader campaign to depopulate northern Gaza as it concentrates aid in the south while bypassing established international agencies.

Aid is still barely trickling into Gaza after Israel partially lifted a total siege that for more than two months cut off food, water, fuel and medicine to more than two million people.

Thousands of children are at risk of dying from hunger-related causes, the UN has previously warned.

At least 51 people killed in 24 hours

Elsewhere in the territory, Israeli air attacks continued to hammer residential areas.

In Jabalia in northern Gaza, Israeli forces killed 14 people, including seven children, in an attack on a home, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence agency. At least 20 people remained trapped under the rubble.

Two more Palestinians were killed and several wounded in another attack in Deir el-Balah, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, while a drone attack in Khan Younis claimed yet another life.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that at least 51 Palestinians have been killed and 503 injured in Israeli attacks across the territory in the latest 24-hour reporting period alone.

Despite growing international condemnation, Israel’s military on Monday ordered the displacement of even more civilians from parts of Khan Younis, warning it would “operate with great force”.

Roughly 80 percent of the strip is now either under Israeli military control or designated for forced evacuation, according to new data from the Financial Times, as Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are crammed into an ever-shrinking patch of land in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border.

Israel has made little secret of its aim to permanently displace Gaza’s population as officials openly promote “voluntary migration” plans.

The Financial Times reported that the areas Palestinians are being pushed into resemble a “desert wasteland with no running water, electricity or even hospitals”.

Satellite images showed Israeli forces clearing land and setting up military infrastructure in evacuated areas.

Analysts who reviewed dozens of recent forced evacuation orders said the trend has accelerated since the collapse of a truce in March.

“The Israeli government has been very clear with regards to what their plan is about in Gaza,” political analyst Xavier Abu Eid told Al Jazeera.

“It is about ethnic cleansing.”

Amnesty International calls for an investigation into the ‘reckless’ attack in the violence-hit Zamfara state.

A military air strike in northwest Nigeria has killed at least 20 people, according to the military and local residents, prompting calls from human rights groups for an investigation into the attack.

The strike occurred over the weekend in Zamfara state, one of the regions worst affected by violence from armed groups, commonly referred to as “bandits”.

Nigerian Air Commodore Ehimen Ejodame said the strike followed intelligence that “a significant number of terrorists were massing and preparing to strike unsuspecting settlements”.

“Further intelligence confirmed that the bandits had killed some farmers and abducted a number of civilians, including women and children,” Ejodame said in a statement, adding that two local vigilantes were killed and two others injured in the crossfire.

However, according to residents cited by the AFP news agency, a group of local vigilantes pursuing a gang was mistakenly bombed by a Nigerian military jet.

The air force had been called in by villagers who had suffered an attack earlier in the weekend. Locals said an unknown number of people were also wounded in the strike.

“We were hit by double tragedy on Saturday,” said Buhari Dangulbi, a resident of the affected area. “Dozens of our people and several cows were taken by bandits, and those who trailed the bandits to rescue them were attacked by a fighter jet. It killed 20 of them.”

Residents told AFP that the bandits had earlier attacked the villages of Mani and Wabi in Maru district, stealing cattle and abducting several people. In response, vigilantes launched a pursuit to recover the captives and stolen livestock.

“The military aircraft arrived and started firing, killing at least 20 of our people,” Abdullahi Ali, a Mani resident and member of a local hunters’ militia, told the Reuters news agency.

Another resident, Ishiye Kabiru, said: “Our vigilantes from Maraya and nearby communities gathered and went after the bandits. Unfortunately, a military jet struck them.”

Alka Tanimu, also from the area, added: “We will still have to pay to get those kidnapped back, while the cows are gone for good.”

Amnesty International condemned the strike and urged a full investigation.

“Attacks by bandits clearly warrant a response from the state, but to launch reckless air strikes into villages – again and again – is absolutely unlawful,” the rights group said.

Nigeria’s military has previously acknowledged mistakenly hitting civilians during air operations targeting armed gangs.

In January, at least 16 vigilantes were killed in a similar strike in Zamfara’s Zurmi district.

In December 2022, more than 100 civilians were killed in Mutunji village while pursuing bandits. A year later, an attack on a religious gathering in Kaduna state killed at least 85 people.

Ukrainian drones struck multiple military airbases deep inside Russia on Sunday in a major operation a day before the neighbours held peace talks in Istanbul.

The Russian Defence Ministry said Ukraine had launched drone strikes targeting Russian military airfields across five regions, causing several aircraft to catch fire.

The attacks occurred in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur regions. Air defences repelled the assaults in all but two regions – Murmansk and Irkutsk, the ministry said.

“In the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire,” the Defence Ministry said. FPV drones are unmanned aerial vehicles with cameras on the front that relay live footage to operators, who in turn use those visuals to direct the drones.

The fires were extinguished, and no casualties were reported. Some individuals involved in the attacks had been detained, the Russian Defence Ministry said.

On Sunday night, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the “absolutely brilliant” Ukrainian drone attack on the Telegram messaging app.

But the Sunday attacks were only the latest in a series of audacious hits on Russian military facilities, territory and symbols of power over the past three years of war — often acknowledged by Kyiv, and in some cases widely believed to have been carried out by Ukrainian special forces.

What happened on June 1?

Zelenskyy said 117 drones had been used to attack the Russian bases on Sunday. “Russia has had very tangible losses, and justifiably so,” he said.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that it had hit Russian military planes worth a combined $7bn in a wave of drone strikes on Russian air bases thousands of kilometres behind the front line.

Targets included the Belaya airbase in Irkutsk, about 4,300km (2,670 miles) from the Ukrainian border, and the Olenya airbase in south Murmansk, some 1,800km (1,120 miles) from Ukraine.

Earlier on Sunday, multiple local media reports in Ukraine claimed that the operation was carried out by the SBU using drones smuggled deep into Russia and hidden inside trucks.

At least 41 Russian heavy bombers at four airbases were hit, the reports said. The strikes reportedly hit Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers, which Russia uses to fire long-range missiles at Ukrainian cities.

Russia is yet to confirm the extent of the damage, but the attack could mark Ukraine’s most damaging drone strike of the war to date.

Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, reporting from Kyiv, said it’s “an audacious strike, one that Ukraine has been waiting a long time and patiently to deliver, and it’s come after Russian air strikes into Ukraine have dramatically accelerated over the past couple of weeks”.

What’s the backdrop?

Both Russia and Ukraine have sharply ramped up their drone attacks against the other side in recent days.

Russia launched more than 900 kamikaze drones and 92 missiles last week, killing at least 16 civilians. Those attacks followed days of Ukrainian strikes on Russian military infrastructure in Russia’s Tula, Alabuga and Tatarstan regions, in which Kyiv used at least 800 drones.

Meanwhile, Ukraine sent a delegation to Istanbul led by its Defence Minister Rustem Umerov for talks on Monday with Russian officials. A previous round of talks, on May 16, led to a deal under which Ukraine and Russia exchanged 1,000 prisoners of war each. Monday’s talks led to an agreement on another prisoner swap.

Zelenskyy, who has previously voiced scepticism about Russia’s seriousness about peace talks, said that the Ukrainian delegation would enter the meeting in Istanbul with specific priorities, including “a complete and unconditional ceasefire” and the return of prisoners and abducted children.

Russia has said it has formulated its own peace terms and ruled out a Turkish proposal for the meeting to be held at the leaders’ level.

Monday’s meeting in Turkiye was spurred by US President Donald Trump’s push for a quick deal to end the three-year war. But the meeting did not lead to any major breakthrough.

Trump, who has increasingly demonstrated frustration with the lack of progress towards a ceasefire, recently vented his frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Something has happened to him,” Trump wrote on his social media platform on May 25, referring to Putin. “He has gone absolutely CRAZY!”

Trump told reporters, “We’re in the middle of talking and he’s shooting rockets into Kyiv and other cities.”

The US president is yet to react to Sunday’s Ukrainian attacks on Russian airbases.

The strikes are the latest in a series of stunning, headline-grabbing attacks that Russia has periodically suffered since it launched the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Crimea Bridge attacks, 2022 and 2023

In May 2018, four years after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, Putin drove a truck across a newly built bridge connecting the Russian mainland to the peninsula, enraging Ukrainians.

Ukraine would take its revenge, first in 2022 and then again in 2023.

In October 2022, a truck explosion that Russia blamed on Ukraine blew up a part of the bridge. Russia repaired the damage, and Putin tried to revive the symbolism of 2018, again driving across it, this time in a Mercedes.

But Ukraine would strike again. In July 2023, the bridge that serves as a crucial supply route for Russian forces in Ukraine was blown up. Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee said the strike was carried out by two Ukrainian sea drones. Officials said two people were killed and a child was wounded.

Black Sea Fleet attacks, 2023

In September 2023, Ukraine launched a series of attacks on occupied Crimea, using drones and missiles to target key facilities of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet near Sevastopol.

Satellite images showed that the first attack destroyed half of the Black Sea Fleet’s communications command centre in Verkhnosadove.

Ukraine followed up on that attack with a strike against the Saky airfield in Crimea, which was hosting 12 Russian combat aircraft, including Su-24 and Su-30 fighter-bombers, according to the Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne.

Then came the most devastating of the attacks, on September 22.

Ukraine hit the Black Sea Fleet command headquarters and claimed to have killed 34 officers, including fleet commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov. A further 105 soldiers were reportedly wounded.

Kremlin attack, 2023

In the dead of night in early May 2023, the ultimate symbol of Russian power for centuries — the Kremlin — came under attack, as flashes of light from small explosions over the red building’s citadel were seen in images and grainy video around the world.

Moscow said that two Ukrainian drones had been used in the attack on Putin’s residence, but had been disabled by electronic defences.

“We regard these actions as a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the president’s life, carried out on the eve of Victory Day, the May 9 Parade, at which the presence of foreign guests is also planned,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

Zelenskyy denied that his country had attacked the Russian capital or its president.

“We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory,” Zelenskyy told a news conference in Helsinki, Finland. But independent analysts, including from Western nations that are Ukrainian allies, believe Ukrainian special forces were behind the drone attacks on the Kremlin.

And a year later, Ukraine would blur the line between its territory and Russian land in the escalating war between the neighbours.

Kursk invasion, 2024 and 2025

Ukrainian forces launched a surprise attack on the Kursk region on August 6, 2024, taking Moscow by surprise. Russia began evacuating the neighbouring Belgorod region as the country’s forces were forced to confront Ukraine’s offensive in Western Russia.

At the height of the incursion, Ukrainian forces claimed nearly 1,400 square kilometres (540 square miles) of Kursk — roughly twice the size of Singapore.

By the start of 2025, Russia had most of the territory it lost in Kursk before Ukraine launched a second wave of attacks in January.

However, Kyiv suffered a major setback earlier this year after Trump temporarily cut off all military and intelligence assistance. By early March, Russia had recaptured most of the territory.