Almost 60 people killed in Gaza, Hamas says, as Trump calls for ceasefire deal
Almost 60 people have been killed in new Israeli strikes in Gaza, Hamas-run health authorities have said, as residents reported heavy bombardments.
The Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Monday to people in large areas of the north, leading to further displacement.
Israeli officials are due in Washington for a new attempt at a ceasefire promoted by the Trump administration.
Salah, a 60-year-old father-of-five from Gaza City, said: "In the news we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground we see death and we hear explosions," Reuters reported him as saying.
"Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like earthquakes."
Health authorities said 10 people were killed in Zeitoun and at least 13 were killed southwest of Gaza City.
Medics said most of those 13 were hit by gunfire, but residents reported an airstrike, too.
They also said 20 people, including women, children and a local journalist were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a beachfront cafe in Gaza City.
The IDF ordered people to head south, saying it planned to fight Hamas militants operating in northern Gaza, including in the heart of Gaza City.
Donald Trump has urged Israel and Hamas to agree a ceasefire - as the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza reached 56,500, according to Hamas-run authorities.
"MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!," he wrote on social media on Sunday.
The US president had raised expectations of a possible agreement this week, but some Palestinians were doubtful of the latest efforts to end the 20-month war that has laid waste to most of Gaza.
"Since the beginning of the war, they have been promising us something like this: release the hostages and we will stop the war," said one Palestinian, Abdel Hadi al Hour. "They did not stop the war."
An eight-week ceasefire was reached in the final days of Joe Biden's US presidency, but Israel resumed the war in March after trying to get Hamas to accept new terms on next steps.
Meanwhile, Israeli attacks in Gaza also continued on Sunday.
At least 15 people were killed when an IDF airstrike hit a house sheltering displaced people in the Jabaliya al-Nazla area, according to an official in Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.
He said women and children made up more than half the dead.
During a visit to Israel's internal security service Shin Bet, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israel-Iran war and ceasefire have opened many opportunities.
"First of all, to rescue the hostages," he said. "Of course, we will also have to solve the Gaza issue, to defeat Hamas, but I estimate that we will achieve both tasks."
The war in Gaza, which has continued for more than a year and a half, began after Hamas militants launched attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages.
0:55
Talks between Israel and Hamas have stalled over whether or not the war should end as part of any ceasefire.
Hamas official Mahmoud Merdawi accused Mr Netanyahu of stalling progress on a deal, saying the Israeli leader insists on a temporary agreement that would free just 10 of the hostages.
Omer Dostri, a spokesperson for Mr Netanyahu, said that "Hamas was the only obstacle to ending the war", without addressing Mr Merdawi's claim.
Hamas says it is willing to free all the hostages in exchange for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops and an end to the war in Gaza.
Israel rejects that offer, saying it will agree to end the war if Hamas surrenders, disarms and goes into exile - something that the group refuses.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
24 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Clashes and arrests in Turkey over magazine cartoon allegedly depicting prophet Muhammad
Clashes erupted in Istanbul with police firing rubber bullets and teargas to disperse a mob on Monday after allegations that a satirical magazine had published a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. The clashes occurred after Istanbul's chief prosecutor ordered the arrest of the editors at LeMan magazine on grounds it had published a cartoon that 'publicly insulted religious values'. The magazine's editor-in-chief, Tuncay Akgun, said the image had been misinterpreted. 'This cartoon is not a caricature of prophet Muhammad in any way,' he told Agence France-Presse. 'In this work, the name of a Muslim who was killed in the bombardments of Israel is fictionalised as Muhammad. More than 200 million people in the Islamic world are named Muhammad. '[It] has nothing to do with prophet Muhammad. We would never take such a risk.' As the news broke, several dozen angry protesters attacked a bar often frequented by LeMan staffers in downtown Istanbul, provoking angry scuffles with police, an AFP correspondent said. The scuffles quickly became clashes involving between 250 to 300 people, the correspondent said. Founded in 1991, LeMan is famed for its political satire and has long been the bane of conservatives, especially following its support for France's Charlie Hebdo after its Paris offices were attacked in 2015 by Islamist gunmen who killed 12 following the magazine's publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. The interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, said on that X police had arrested the cartoonist responsible for the image as well as LeMan's graphic designer. 'The person named DP who made this vile drawing has been caught and taken into custody,' he wrote, adding: 'These shameless individuals will be held accountable before the law.' Others named in the arrest warrant were LeMan's editor-in-chief and its managing editor, media reports said. In a string of posts on X, LeMan defended the cartoon and said it had been deliberately misinterpreted to cause a provocation. 'The cartoonist wanted to portray the righteousness of the oppressed Muslim people by depicting a Muslim killed by Israel, he never intended to belittle religious values,' it said. 'We do not accept the stigma imposed on us because there is no depiction of our prophet. It takes a very malicious person to interpret the cartoon in this way." 'We apologise to our well-intentioned readers who we think were subjected to provocations.' The justice minister, Yilmaz Tunc, said an investigation had been opened on grounds of 'publicly insulting religious values'. 'Disrespect towards our beliefs is never acceptable,' he wrote on X. 'No freedom grants the right to make the sacred values of a belief the subject of ugly humour. The caricature or any form of visual representation of our prophet not only harms our religious values but also damages societal peace.' Istanbul's governor, Davut Gul, also lashed out at 'this mentality that seeks to provoke society by attacking our sacred values'. 'We will not remain silent in the face of any vile act targeting our nation's faith,' he said.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Trump's aid cut risks causing 14 million deaths, report finds
Donald Trump's move to cut most of the US funding towards foreign humanitarian aid could cause more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to research published in The Lancet medical journal on Monday.A third of those at risk of premature deaths are children, the research Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in March that President Trump's administration had cancelled over 80% of all programmes at the US Agency for International Development, or USAID."For many low- and middle-income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict," Davide Rasella, who co-authored the Lancet report, said in a statement. The funding cuts "risk abruptly halting - and even reversing - two decades of progress in health among vulnerable populations," added Rasella, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global report comes as dozens of world leaders are meeting in the Spanish city of Seville this week for a United Nations-led aid conference, the biggest one in a back over data from 133 nations, the team of researchers estimated that USAID funding had prevented 91 million deaths in developing countries between 2001 and also used modelling to project how funding being slashed by 83% – the figure announced by the US government earlier this year – could affect death cuts could lead to more than 14 million avoidable deaths by 2030, the projections found. That number included over 4.5 million children under the age of five – or around 700,000 child deaths a to Rubio, there were still approximately 1,000 remaining programmes that would be administered "more effectively" under the US State Department and in consultation with the situation on the ground has not been improving, according to UN month, a UN official told the BBC that hundreds of thousands of people were "slowly starving" in Kenyan refugee camps after US funding cuts reduced food rations to their lowest ever a hospital in Kakuma, in northwestern Kenya, the BBC witnessed a baby who could barely move and was showing signs of malnutrition, including having parts of her skin wrinkled and peeling.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Asian shares rise, dollar weaker as US bill debate lingers; gold jumps
TOKYO, July 1 (Reuters) - Asian shares crept higher and the dollar languished near multi-year lows on Tuesday as markets awaited a vote over U.S. President Donald Trump's landmark tax and spending legislation. Global shares reached an intraday record on Monday on trade optimism, but a marathon debate in the Senate over a bill estimated to add $3.3 trillion to the United States' debt pile weighed on sentiment. Japan's Nikkei (.N225), opens new tab gauge of shares sank as much as 1.1% as the yen climbed. Oil fell for a second consecutive session and gold advanced. A vote on Trump's sweeping tax-cut and spending bill had been expected during the Asian trading day on Tuesday, but debate raged on over a long series of amendments by Republicans and the minority Democrats. Trump wants the bill passed before the July 4 Independence Day holiday. As global trade negotiators scramble to get deals done before Trump's tariff deadlines, investors are also anticipating key U.S. labour market data on Thursday. "Trade is front and centre this week, but alongside that, we've obviously got the fate of the 'One Big Beautiful Bill', which is currently being debated in the Senate," said Ray Attrill, head of FX strategy at the National Australia Bank. Payrolls data later in the week "does have significant bearing, I think, on sentiment towards the potential timing of Fed rate cuts," he added in a podcast. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS), opens new tab was up 0.5%, led by South Korea's Kospi gauge (.KS11), opens new tab, rising 1.8%. The dollar dropped 0.3% to 143.62 yen . The greenback slid 0.1% to $1.1794 against the European single currency and earlier touched $1.1798, the weakest since September 2021. U.S. crude dipped 0.4% to $64.86 a barrel, weighed by expectations of an OPEC+ output hike in August. Spot gold rose 0.5% to $3,319.55 per ounce. Pan-region Euro Stoxx 50 futures were up 0.1% at while German DAX futures were up 0.2%.
