Today is
Sunday May 25, 2025
(WASHINGTON) -- More than a dozen World Food Programme trucks were looted in southern Gaza late Thursday as 2 million people in the Strip face "extreme hunger and famine without immediate action," the aid group said.
The organization said 15 trucks were looted "while en route to WFP-supported bakeries." The WFP, which is part of the United Nations, did not say who looted the trucks.
"These trucks were transporting critical food supplies for hungry populations waiting anxiously for assistance. Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity," the WFP said in a statement.
"Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity," the WFP continued. "We need support from the Israeli authorities to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster, more consistently, and transported along safer routes, as was done during the ceasefire."
The looting came just days after the Israeli government ended the blockade as a part of a three-phase plan to start getting more aid into Gaza. Aid trucks started slowly re-entering Gaza in the past two days, according to the U.N. and the Gaza Government Media Office.
An Israeli blockade on food and aid entering Gaza has been in place since March 2.
"WFP cannot safely operate under a distribution system that limits the number of bakeries and sites where Gaza’s population can access food. WFP and its partners must also be allowed to distribute food parcels directly to families -- the most effective way to prevent widespread starvation," the WFP said.
The Israeli blockage on humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip has caused widespread malnutrition and conditions likely to lead to famine, according to the U.N. and other international aid organizations.
One in five people in Gaza, about 500,000 people, faces starvation, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification platform said on May 12, according to the U.N.
The Israeli government is working with the U.S. to set up aid distribution points in southern and central Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday. But the plan faces criticism from established aid organizations that have been operating inside of Gaza for the past 19 months.
"We will not take part in any scheme that fails to respect international law and the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement about the U.S.-Israeli deal.
The Israeli-American system for distributing aid in Gaza is set to begin on Monday, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(DALTON, Ga.) -- The Georgia teen who was arrested in a case of mistaken identity -- and then detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over her undocumented status -- is saying a day after her release on bond that her time in custody was "life-changing."
Ximena Arias-Cristobal, 19, was arrested on May 5 in Dalton, Georgia, when her dark gray truck was mistaken for a black pickup that made an illegal turn. Those citations were later dropped once officials realized there was a mix-up, Dalton Assistant Police Chief Chris Crossen said.
But she was still detained by ICE after it was discovered she was an undocumented immigrant.
As she was being transferred to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, she stopped at some offices in Atlanta, she said.
"They had me in a room by myself for nine hours. I didn't know what was going on. It was never explained," Arias-Cristobal told Chattanooga, Tennessee, ABC affiliate WTVC Thursday after her release from detention..
"Being in Stewart changed my life. It's something that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. It's life-changing," she said.
Arias-Cristobal, a student at Dalton State College, was in the ICE detention center for two weeks.
"It was scary. I was terrified," Arias-Cristobal told WTVC.
“I won’t ever be the same,” she told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB in a separate phone interview.
Arias-Cristobal was released on a $1,500 bond and the government did not wish to appeal, according to her attorney.
"We do not have another hearing currently scheduled. It would be remarkable if it is before mid-2026," Charles Kuck, an attorney for Arias-Cristobal, told WTVC.
She was granted bond on Wednesday and reunited with family at her home on Thursday.
The teen came to the U.S. with her parents when she was 4 years old and is ineligible for relief from deportation through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which temporarily protects some migrants from deportation if they were brought to the country as children, an attorney for Arias-Cristobal told ABC News.
Arias-Cristobal was not eligible to register for the DACA program because it ended before she became eligible to apply at 16 years old.
The Department of Homeland Security said following her detainment that it is committed to ordering Arias-Cristobal to "self-deport" to Mexico and that she "admitted to illegally entering the United States and has no pending applications with USCIS."
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(SAN DIEGO) -- At least two people are confirmed dead and eight others injured after a small plane crashed in a neighborhood of San Diego on Thursday morning, spewing jet fuel and starting a large fire that damaged about 10 buildings and multiple cars, fire officials said.
The small private jet crashed seconds before landing at about 3:45 am. local time, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Five people were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation and a sixth person was injured while climbing out of a window, officials said. Two others were treated for minor injuries. All the injuries were treated at the evacuation center and no one was transferred from the scene.
All the fatalities appear to be from the plane itself, San Diego Assistant Fire Chief of Emergency Operations Dan Eddy said at a press conference earlier Thursday. Officials do not yet know how many people were aboard the plane.
Multiple homes have been destroyed in the neighborhood, according to Eddy, who said earlier the crash site looked "like a movie scene." One home was permanently destroyed, officials said Thursday.
There was dense fog in the area on Thursday morning and Eddy told reporters he could only see 40 to 50 feet in front of him.
In air traffic control audio from minutes before the crash, you can hear the pilot ask about the weather, according to LiveATC.net. Air traffic controllers told the pilot the weather station at Montgomery Airport was down and the pilot asks for more weather information.
The controller tells him the weather for nearby Miramar Airport, according to the audio.
"Ugh, that doesn’t sound great, but we'll give it a go," the pilot responds.
The plane was flying from Wichita, Kansas, to San Diego's Montgomery Gibbs Executive Airport when it crashed. The plane originated in Teterboro, according to FlightRadar24 records, before landing in Wichita at 1:50 a.m. Central time. It left for San Diego at 2:35 a.m. local time.
It was roughly 500 feet in the air at its last radar check-in, according to the FAA.
Over 100 people have been displaced as a result of the crash, according to officials. Murphy Canyon, the neighborhood where the crash happened, is one of largest military housing units in the world, according to San Diego Naval Base Commanding Officer Capt. Robert Heely.
Multiple elementary schools have been closed for the day due to the crash, according to officials
"Our city will be supporting these families who are impacted here. They're part of the military community that makes up our city," San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said at a press conference.
Several factors contributed to the crash, according to Gloria.
"Visibility was relatively low at the hour that the fight was making its approach to Montgomery Gibbs, the plane clipped a transmission line, an electricity transmission line and that caused it to fall into the Murphy Canyon neighborhood that's there," Gloria said in an interview on ABC News Live.
"Beyond that, we're going to wait for our professionals at the federal level to give us some more of the investigative results. But right now, [this] is a terrible tragedy of the loss of life of those aboard the plane," Gloria said.
The plane that crashed can hold eight to 10 people, including the pilot, but it's still unclear how many were on board.
"I can't quite put words to describe what this scene looks like, but with the jet fuel going down the street and everything on fire all at once, it was pretty horrific to see for the police officers and firefighters to run in there, start trying to evacuate people out of the way, and doing anything and everything they could to try to save somebody's life is really heroic," San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said at a press conference.
Residents were evacuated to a nearby school and officials went home to home to find out if there was anybody inside, Eddy said.
"I was half-asleep and I saw a flash at the window and heard a bang," said Jennifer Hoffman, who lives a couple blocks from the crash. "I thought it was lightning to be honest, I even checked the weather to see if it was raining out. And then I heard like bunches of pops and I was like, 'That can't be lightning.' I went downstairs, I checked outside and I saw the neighborhood behind us was bright red. It was awful."
The plane directly hit multiple homes and cars, setting them ablaze, before running down the street, Eddy said.
"There was a big explosion and I woke up, I looked out the window and there was fire all in front of my house," said neighborhood resident Jessica Schrader. "I just kept hearing explosions and the fire was up to right in front of my front door. So I'm trying to figure out how to escape with my kids."
"We yelled for our neighbors -- our neighbors put a ladder up to their fence, it's about 8-foot-tall," she said. "We were able to climb the ladder and jump onto their trampoline to escape -- me and my children."
There was no mayday call before this crash, according to radio traffic. The last communication was the pilot announcing on the radio that he was 3 miles out and landing. The tower was closed at the time and this is standard procedure.
The whole neighborhood is still on lockdown as investigators continue their work.
The National Transportation Safety Board was also en route to the scene.
ABC News' Sam Sweeney and Ayesha Ali contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.