
Trump says Israel agrees to 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, urges Hamas to accept
"I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better – IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,' Trump said.
The news comes as Trump prepares to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for talks at the White House on Monday. The US president has shown increased interest in a ceasefire and hostage agreement in the region after the US brokered a peace agreement between Israel and Iran.
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, saying it will agree to end the war if Hamas surrenders, disarms and goes into exile, something that the group refuses.
Israeli Apache helicopters fly, near the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from Israel. Reuters
Hamas is still capable of landing fatal blows to Israeli forces. But US officials believe that the group's been significantly diminished as its centralised command and control capabilities have deteriorated over the course of the nearly 21-month conflict.
The president's promise that it was his best and final offer may find a skeptical audience with Hamas.
Trump has repeatedly issued dramatic ultimatums to pressure Hamas to agree to longer pauses in the fighting that would see the release of more hostages and a return of more aid to Gaza's civilian populace.
Associated Press

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Gulf Today
34 minutes ago
- Gulf Today
Former White House chef reveals US presidents' favourite comfort foods
Cristeta Comerford, a longtime White House executive chef who recently retired after nearly three decades of preparing meals for five presidents and their guests, says first families are 'just regular people' when they're at home in the private living areas of the executive mansion. 'It's not what you see on the news,' she told The Associated Press in an interview. Preparing the first families' meals was among Comerford's many culinary responsibilities. Meals mostly would be prepared in the main kitchen, then finished off in the residence kitchen on the second floor. 'At the end of the day, when you do the family meals upstairs, they're just regular people at home. They just want a good meal. They want to sit down with their family,' she said. 'If they have children, they eat together. And just to see that on a daily basis, it's not what you see on the news. 'It's the other side of them that we get to see,' she said. Comerford, who hung up her apron and chef's toque in July 2024 after nearly 20 years as top chef and nearly three decades on the kitchen staff, is the longest-serving chef in White House history. Her tenure spanned the presidencies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Each of the five families she served approached food differently, Comerford said at a recent White House Historical Association symposium on food and drinks. She was asked whether she'd describe any of the presidents as 'real foodies.' Tables are decorated during a press preview at the White House in Washington, on April 9, 2024, for the State Dinner for Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. File/Associated Press The Clintons liked healthier meals, Comerford said. Then-first lady Hillary Clinton hired the first American executive chef, Walter Scheib, and had the kitchen avoid serving heavy sauces and creams. She said, 'I learned so much' about Southwestern cuisine from Bush, the former Texas governor who liked Tex-Mex food. 'We made thousands of tamales for Christmas,' she said of the popular Mexican meal of stuffed corn dough wrapped in a corn husk and steamed until cooked. Comerford got ideas from the vegetable garden Michelle Obama started when she was promoting healthy eating, primarily for children. 'We used the garden as kind of like our backbone for our menu development,' she said. Trump and first lady Melania Trump are 'very, very classic eaters,' she said. Mrs. Trump 'loved Italian food, so we tend to do the pastas, but light ones.' Comerford didn't comment on President Trump's food choices, but he is known to like a well-done steak served with ketchup and fast food. Jill Biden was the first Italian American first lady, and the kitchen did 'a lot of Italian food, as well, because she loved Italian food.' Overall, 'it's different for each family,' said Comerford, 'but my job as the chef is to execute their style, their likes and their preferences.' A black-tie state dinner is the highest diplomatic honour the US reserves for its close allies. Comerford presided over 54 of these opulent affairs, including for France and Australia during Trump's first term. Sometimes, guest chefs were brought in to help. State dinners give presidents the opportunity to bring together hundreds of guests from the worlds of government, politics and other industries for an evening in which the three-course meal, decor and entertainment are designed to help foster relations by dazzling the visiting foreign leader. The first lady's staff and the social secretary typically have about two months to pull one together. Comerford said her team started by researching the visiting leader's likes and dislikes, then she used the information to create a menu using the best of American food while incorporating nuances from the country being recognized. She'd develop at least three different menus. Then came tastings for the first lady to make a final decision. Comerford, 62, started her career tending a salad bar at a Chicago airport hotel before working as a chef at restaurants in Austria and Washington. Scheib, then the White House executive chef, hired her in 1994 for a temporary gig preparing a state dinner for Nelson Mandela, South Africa's newly elected president. Cristeta Comerford shows the main course during a preview in the State Dining Room of White House in Washington, on Sept. 24, 2015, for the state dinner of the visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping. File/Associated Press Scheib then hired her as an assistant chef in 1995, and she succeeded him a decade later, becoming the first woman and first person of color to permanently hold the executive chef's position. Comerford is a naturalized US citizen who was born in the Philippines. Her husband, John Comerford, is a chef, too, and she credits him with sacrificing his career to be present for their daughter so she could thrive in hers. Their daughter is a pastry chef. When Comerford retired, assistant chef Tommy Kurpradit, whose parents are from Thailand, was named interim executive chef. Melania Trump, who worked with Comerford in the first Trump administration, has not named a successor. Comerford said she managed everything with 'a lot of prayers,' often said during her hourlong, early morning drive into the White House, but also by being versatile, humble, able to handle chaos and having faith in herself and her team. 'One thing with cooking at the White House, you don't just do fine dining meals,' she said. 'You have to know how to cook eggs and breakfast. You have to know to cook a smashburger.' It also helps to remember that the job is about the family. 'There's no ego in it,' Comerford said. White House culinary history includes chefs from China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand, as far back as the 19th century, according to Adrian Miller and Deborah Chang, co-authors of a new book, 'Cooking to the President's Taste: Asian Heritage Chefs in White House History.' Most sharpened their skills through service in the US military. Before Comerford, Pedro Udo, a Filipino trained in the US military, was the first Asian heritage chef to run the White House kitchen after he was promoted from meat chef to head chef in June 1957, according to the book. He prepared meals for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip later that year, and for Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in September 1959 during the Cold War. But his stint ended after less than four years when the new first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, hired acclaimed French chef René Verdon in early 1961. Miller said the book offers a 'unique window' on the presidency. 'We get a look at the presidents, but also the presidents got a look at Asian American life in maybe ways that they hadn't before,' he told the AP in an interview. 'And I think, you know, for the presidents that decided to open that window and find out more about the people who were providing, comforting them through amazing food, I think our nation is better for them.' Associated Press


Gulf Today
36 minutes ago
- Gulf Today
French detainees in Iran charged with spying for Israel
Two French nationals detained for more than three years in Iran have been charged with spying for Israel's intelligence agency Mossad, diplomatic and family sources told the media on Wednesday. They have also been charged with "conspiracy to overthrow the regime" and "corruption on earth", the Western diplomatic source and the sister of Cecile Kohler, who is being detained along with Jacques Paris, told the media. "We have been informed of these accusations," the diplomatic source said. "All we know is that they have seen a judge who confirmed the three charges," said Kohler's sister, who said the two French nationals were still being denied access to independent lawyers. All three charges carry the death penalty. Iran had previously claimed the two had been arrested for spying but had not revealed exactly whom. Tehran has not confirmed the new charges. "These charges, if they are confirmed, are completely unfounded," the French diplomatic source told AFP. "Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris are innocent," the source added, demanding that the pair are given access to lawyers. The news came a day after the French charge d'affaires in Iran was able to visit the pair in prison. The fate of Kohler and Paris had been unknown since Israel targeted Tehran's Evin prison in an air strike last week, before a US-proposed ceasefire between the Middle East foes came into force. Iran's judiciary said the Israeli strike on the prison had killed at least 79 people. It has also said the Iranian prison authority transferred inmates out of Evin prison, without specifying their number or identifying them. Kohler, 40, and Paris, her 72-year-old partner, have been held in Iran since May 2022. Iran is believed to hold around 20 European nationals, many of whose cases have never been publicised, in what some Western governments including France describe as a strategy of hostage-taking aimed at extracting concessions from the West. Three Europeans, who have not been identified, have also been arrested in the wake of the current conflict, two of whom are accused of spying for Israel, according to the authorities. Agence France-Presse

Gulf Today
37 minutes ago
- Gulf Today
Iran ends cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog after Israel, US strikes
Iran officially suspended its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog on Wednesday, a move the United States described as "unacceptable". It came after last month's 12-day conflict between Iran and Israel, which saw unprecedented Israeli and US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and sharply escalated tensions between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. On June 25, a day after a ceasefire took hold, Iranian lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to suspend cooperation with the Vienna-based IAEA. State media confirmed on Wednesday that the legislation had now taken effect. The law aims to "ensure full support for the inherent rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran" under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, with a particular focus on uranium enrichment, according to Iranian media. Washington, which has been pressing Tehran to resume the negotiations that were interrupted by Israel's resort to military action on June 13, hit out at the Iranian decision. "We'll use the word unacceptable, that Iran chose to suspend cooperation with the IAEA at a time when it has a window of opportunity to reverse course and choose a path of peace and prosperity," State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi waits for an emergency meeting of the agency's Board of Governors to discuss the situation in Iran following the US attacks on the country's nuclear facilities, at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, June 23, 2025. Reuters The spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres said the decision was "obviously concerning". Separately, the Pentagon said on Wednesday that US intelligence assessments indicated that the strikes on Iran's nuclear sites set the country's atomic programme back by up to two years. "We have degraded their programme by one to two years at least -- intel assessments inside the (Defense) Department assess that," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told journalists, later adding: "We're thinking probably closer to two years." While IAEA inspectors have had access to Iran's declared nuclear sites, their current status is uncertain amid the suspension. On Sunday, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said the inspectors' work had been suspended but denied there had been any threats against them or IAEA chief Rafael Grossi. He said that the "inspectors are in Iran and are safe", but "their activities have been suspended, and they are not allowed to access our sites". 'Deceptive and fraudulent' The new legislation did not specify any exact steps following the suspension. The ISNA news agency cited lawmaker Alireza Salimi as saying that the inspectors now needed approval from Iran's Supreme National Security Council to access nuclear sites. This handout satellite image shows activity near the perimeter building and southern holes caused by the June 22 US airstrike on the Fordo (Fordow) Fuel Enrichment Plant complex, about 30 kilometres north of Qom in central Iran. AFP Separately, the Mehr news agency cited lawmaker Hamid Reza Haji Babaei as saying that Iran would stop allowing IAEA cameras in nuclear facilities, though it was unclear if this was a requirement of the new law. After parliament passed the bill, it was approved by the Guardian Council and President Masoud Pezeshkian formally enacted the suspension on Wednesday, according to state television. In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar urged European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal to trigger the "snapback" mechanism and reinstate all UN sanctions on Iran. The snapback, set to expire in October, was part of the nuclear accord that collapsed after Trump unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018. Iran began scaling back its commitments a year later. Iranian officials have warned that the mechanism could prompt their withdrawal from the non-proliferation treaty. Israel, widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, is not an NPT signatory. Germany's foreign ministry spokesman Martin Giese said that Iran's move to suspend cooperation with the IAEA was a "disastrous signal". Since the Israeli and US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Tehran has sharply criticised the IAEA for its silence and condemned a June 12 UN resolution accusing Iran of non-compliance, which Iranian officials say provided a pretext for the attacks. On Wednesday, senior judiciary official Ali Mozaffari accused Grossi of "preparing the groundwork" for Israel's raids and called for him to be held accountable, citing "deceptive actions and fraudulent reporting". Damage Iran has rejected Grossi's requests to visit bombed sites, saying they smacked of "malign intent". Britain, France and Germany have condemned unspecified "threats" against the IAEA chief. Destroyed cars sit at the parking lot Evin prison after Israeli air strikes the previous month, in Tehran, on Tuesday. AFP On Monday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said that the vote to halt cooperation reflected public "concern and anger". Israel's 12-day war killed top Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists and drew waves of retaliatory drone and missile fire. On June 22, Israel's ally the United States launched unprecedented strikes of its own on Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz. More than 900 people were killed in Iran during the conflict, according to the judiciary. Iran's retaliatory attacks killed 28 people in Israel, according to authorities. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has acknowledged "serious" damage to the sites. But in a recent interview with CBS, he said: "One cannot obliterate the technology and science... through bombings." Agence France-Presse