The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation accuses Hamas of killing five of its Palestinian staffers
The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is the only organisation distributing aid in Gaza, has accused Hamas of killing five of its staffers and possibly taking others hostage.
The organisation, which has replaced the UN in the Strip, said in a statement that around 10pm local time (4am AEST) 'a bus carrying more than two dozen members of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation team … were brutally attacked by Hamas.'
'We are still gathering facts, but what we know is devastating: there are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries, and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage,' the GHF said.
In an email to AFP the group said all the passengers on the bus were Palestinian and all were aid workers, who were en route to GHF's distribution centre in the area west of Khan Younis.
'We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms,' the group said. 'These were aid workers. Humanitarians. Fathers, brothers, sons and friends, who were risking their lives every day to help others.'
The organisation recently accused Hamas of threatening its drivers and staff. The Times of Israel reports the militants' threats forced GHF to close operations at its four sites on Saturday.
The privately funded aid group GHF began operations on May 26 after Israel completely cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, aiming to prevent Hamas from stealing aid and selling it back to Palestinians to finance its war against Jerusalem.
While the plan was hailed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a key turning point in the conflict, the rollout has been marked by violence and disorder, with accusations the Israeli military shot into crowds of civilians attempting to pick up aid.
Israeli authorities and the GHF – which uses contracted US security – deny any such incident took place, and some Gazans said the shooting had come from Hamas militants, not the Israeli side.
Two weeks ago, as the first two distribution sites opened, Israeli media reported that Hamas had placed barriers to block access to the sites in the southern city of Rafah and falsely told Gazans Israelis were arresting residents near those areas.
The group also threatened Palestinians they would 'pay the price' if they co-operated with the organisation, and told Palestinians to stay home, claiming Israel was using the company to collect intelligence information.
'Do not go to Rafah. Do not fall into the trap. Do not risk your lives. Your homes are your fortress. Staying in your neighbourhoods is survival, and awareness is your protection,' a statement published by the Hamas-linked Home Front said.
The US-based non-profit organisation Centre for Peace Communications last week released a video of a Gazan accusing the militant organisation of killing Palestinians at aid sites run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The man in the CPC video stresses: 'No one has an interest in (carrying out) these attacks except Hamas.
'Hamas would rather we die of hunger than let the American aid distribution system succeed.'
The United Nations and major aid groups have refused to co-operate with the foundation over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives. The Wall Street Journal
A senior Israeli official warns a strike could come as soon as Sunday unless Iran agrees to halt production of fissile material that can be used to make an atomic bomb. The Wall Street Journal
Tehran's move casts shadow over nuclear talks while Donald Trump says an Israeli strike 'could very well happen' but urges Israel not to attack.
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The Australian
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Israel-Iran: How Donald Trump decided to back Israel's attacks on Iran
The first act of 'Les Misérables' had just ended at the Kennedy Center Wednesday night when Sen. Lindsey Graham (Republican, South Carolina) pulled President Trump aside for a quick conversation about Iran. Graham applauded the Trump administration's handling of the nuclear issue without people getting killed. 'Yeah, we're trying,' Trump said about the sputtering negotiations with Tehran. 'But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do,' he said. Graham took that remark to mean Trump was referring to the possibility of an Israeli strike on its longtime enemy. The encounter came midway through a week that would see Trump go from trying to head off an Israeli attack to backing its sudden campaign of air strikes targeting Iran's nuclear facilities and senior military and civilian leaders, an abrupt shift that underscored the fraying prospects for a deal. Trump said Friday that he had been aware of Israel's attack plans and argued that the punishing operation makes a nuclear deal even more likely, though Iran said they were pulling out of a sixth round of talks scheduled for Sunday. 'They should have made a deal and they still can make a deal while they have something left — they still can,' Trump told The Wall Street Journal. Trump had seemed far less optimistic earlier in the week. On Sunday, he summoned his national-security team to Camp David and told them during a discussion on the Middle East that he was increasingly pessimistic Tehran would agree to a deal, according to US officials. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were due to speak the next day, and the president said he would tell the Israeli leader to delay any attacks until special envoy Steve Witkoff's diplomatic effort had run its course, US officials recounted. In a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in March, Trump had set a two-month time limit once talks got under way to reach a deal, a deadline that was due to expire this week. But Khamenei rejected a US proposal to allow Iran to temporarily continue uranium enrichment in the country if it agreed to eventually halt its domestic centrifuge operation. Always in the background was Netanyahu's push to launch strikes against Iran's nuclear sites, a threat that loomed ever larger. In a call Monday with Netanyahu, Trump said he wanted to see diplomacy with Tehran play out a little longer, according to US officials. But even Trump was losing faith in his strategy. Netanyahu raised his oft-expressed objection that Iran wouldn't make the deal Trump wanted and that Israel needed to keep preparing strikes, the officials added. Trump seemed to internalise the message. 'I'm getting more and more — less confident about it,' he said of the prospects for a nuclear deal with Iran in a New York Post interview published Wednesday. 'They seem to be delaying, and I think that is a shame, but I'm less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago.' Netanyahu had been seeking to head off a US-led negotiation with Iran over its nuclear program for years, arguing that only the destruction of its vast enrichment centrifuges and other facilities could guarantee Tehran wasn't secretly developing a bomb. The Israeli leader rejoiced when Trump in his first term tore up the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by then President Barack Obama, and he recoiled when Trump pushed for a tougher agreement during his second term in office. US intelligence agencies concluded in January that Israel was considering strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The intelligence analysis concluded Israel would push Trump's new team to back the assault, viewing the incoming president as more likely to join an attack than former President Joe Biden. The Israelis, according to the assessment, believed the window for halting Tehran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon was closing. In a sign of mounting concern about an Israeli attack and Iranian response, the State Department on Wednesday ordered the departure of all non-essential personnel from the US Embassy in Baghdad and authorised the departure of non-essential personnel and family members from Bahrain and Kuwait. At the same time, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth authorised the voluntary departure of military dependants from across the Middle East. Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, the top US commander in the Middle East, cancelled a congressional testimony scheduled for the next day and returned to Central Command's headquarters in Tampa. 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Trump, who began the week resistant to an assault on Iran, quickly embraced it as a successful campaign that could boost his diplomatic effort. 'Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left,' he posted on social media Friday, 'and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire.' Wall Street Journal Read related topics: Donald TrumpIsrael The Wall Street Journal The conflict in the Middle East is exacerbating a schism between conservatives over foreign policy. The Wall Street Journal Tehran's bruising fight with Israel has left its military weakened and unable to respond in kind to Israeli attacks.
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Iran threatens full blown war with deadly reply and chilling warning to other countries who defend Israel
Iran has launched deadly missile strikes on Israel followed by a chilling warning that it will target any countries who try to defend the Jewish state. The retaliatory action on Saturday killed at least three people and wounded dozens after Friday's blistering Israeli attacks on the heart of Iran's nuclear program. 'New round of Honest Promise 3 attacks,' Tehran's state television reported, referring to the name of the military operation. It came as a senior Iranian official said the nation would broaden the war if other countries got involved. 'Any country that attempts to defend the regime against Iran's operations will, in turn, see its regional bases and positions become new targets.' In response, Israel's defence minister Israel Katz warned Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that 'Tehran will burn' if it keeps firing missiles at Israeli civilians. Air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem early on Saturday, sending residents rushing into shelters as successive waves of Iranian missiles streaked across the skies. A man and a woman were killed in Israel and dozens wounded by a missile that landed near their homes, Israel's ambulance service said. Rescue teams were searching the rubble of apartment buildings that were destroyed in Rishon Lezion, a city outside of Tel Aviv where another person is believed to have died. Mr Katz said the Iranian leadership had crossed a red line by firing at civilians and will 'pay a heavy price for it'. In Iran, several explosions were heard in the capital Tehran. The Fars news agency said two projectiles hit Tehran's Mehrabad airport, which hosts an air force base. Iran's UN envoy Amir Saeid Iravani said 78 people, including senior military officials, have been killed in Israel's strikes on Iran and more than 320 wounded, most of them civilians. Tehran launched waves of air strikes on Saturday after two salvoes on Friday night, Fars reported. One of the waves targeted Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial hub, before dawn, with explosions heard as far as Jerusalem, witnesses said. Those were in response to Israel's original attacks on Iran early on Friday against commanders, nuclear scientists, military targets and nuclear sites. The US military helped shoot down Iranian missiles headed for Israel on Friday, two US officials said. Israel's military said Iran fired fewer than 100 missiles on Friday and most were intercepted or fell short. But several buildings in and around Tel Aviv were hit. The Israeli strikes on Iran throughout the day and the Iranian retaliation raised fears of a broader regional conflagration, although Iran's allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been decimated by Israel. 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The Age
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Trump desperately wants to play ‘peacemaker'. This is the time to prove he can
Witkoff had sought unsuccessfully to persuade Netanyahu to remain patient while United States-Iran negotiations proceeded. Those talks have been deadlocked. Some Trump allies privately acknowledge that his diplomatic efforts were faltering even before Israel's attack. His second term in office started with what seemed like a foreign policy win. Shortly before Trump's inauguration, Witkoff worked with aides to then-president Joe Biden to secure a long-sought ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants. But that accord fell apart within weeks. The US has also made little discernible progress towards a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, whose conflict Trump vowed to end before even taking office. And his administration has taken no visible steps towards expanding the Abraham Accords, a landmark pact brokered in Trump's first term to forge diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab neighbours. Loading 'Spiral of escalation' As Trump has struggled to seal peace accords, foreign policy divisions have opened inside his own administration. Dozens of officials, from the National Security Council to the Pentagon and the State Department, have been jettisoned amid the infighting. Even before Israel's attack, several administration officials had begun to privately question if Witkoff, who lacks diplomatic experience but has emerged as Trump's top negotiator, had overstayed his welcome. As Israel's attacks unfolded, some prominent Democrats expressed frustration that Trump had scrapped during his first term a deal between the US, Iran and European allies forged during the Obama administration. Trump and Republicans had condemned that deal, saying it would not have kept a nuclear bomb out of Tehran's hands. Democrats fault Trump for not yet coming up with a credible alternative. 'This is a disaster of Trump and Netanyahu's own making, and now the region risks spiralling toward a new, deadly conflict,' Democratic senator Chris Murphy said in a post on X. Whether these strikes will trigger a regional conflict remains unclear. Even so, analysts said, Tehran could see US assets in the region as legitimate targets. For example, Tehran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen could resume their bombing campaign against ships transiting the Red Sea. Also unclear is Israel's ability to permanently impede Iran's nuclear program. Loading Analysts doubt in particular the ability of Israel to destroy Iran's Fordow enrichment plant, which is buried deep underground. While Israel could probably do extensive damage, experts say a more lasting blow would require US military assistance, which US officials said had not been provided. Another question mark is just how effectively Tehran can respond. Israel has indicated that it has targeted several Iranian leaders in the bombing campaign, which is expected to continue in coming days. All these factors will decide if the blow to Trump's aspirations to be seen as a global peacemaker will be a terminal one, or merely a setback. 'If Israel is to be taken at its word that tonight's strikes were the first round in an all-out Israeli campaign against Iran's nuclear and missile programs, Iran's regime is now knee-deep within a potentially existential, life-or-death moment,' said Charles Lister, head of the Syria Initiative at the Middle East Institute. 'That paints tonight's strikes in a whole new, unprecedented light and makes the risk of a major spiral of escalation far more real than what we've seen play out before.'
