At least 95 killed in Gaza as Israel escalates Rafah demolitions
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At least 95 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes over the past 24 hours, as attacks intensified across the Gaza Strip and demolitions surged in Rafah, where Israel is advancing a plan to forcibly relocate hundreds of thousands of residents.
According to an investigation by Al Jazeera's Sanad unit, demolition operations in southern Gaza's Rafah Governorate have sharply escalated in recent months as part of the controversial relocation effort.
Satellite imagery reviewed by Sanad and data from the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) show the number of destroyed buildings in Rafah rose from 15,800 on April 4 to 28,600 by July 4 — a surge of 12,800 demolitions in three months.
The demolition spike aligns with Israel's expanded military push into Rafah, launched in late March, and a defence ministry plan to transfer 600,000 residents into areas critics have likened to 'concentration camps,' with possible expansion to the entire population of Gaza.
A view shows beams of light in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border on July 13, 2025. — Reuters
Read: New Gaza-bound aid boat leaves Italy
Ceasefire talks
US President Donald Trump said that discussions are ongoing over the conflict in Gaza and expressed hope for progress in the coming week, despite stalled ceasefire talks in Doha.
A view shows beams of light in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border on July 13, 2025. — Reuters
'Gaza — we are talking and hopefully we're going to get that straightened out over the next week,' Trump told reporters, reiterating comments he made on July 4.
Gaza — we are talking and hopefully we're going to get that straightened out over the next week
US President
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Meanwhile, The New York Times on Sunday rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's dismissal of its report claiming he extended the Gaza war to retain political power, stating his office 'does not refute the facts'.
Read more: At least 60 Palestinians killed, 180 wounded in Israeli strikes today
Smoke rises following an explosion in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border on July 13, 2025. — Reuters
The investigation, published Friday, drew on over 110 interviews and internal documents, alleging Netanyahu delayed a ceasefire and blocked a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal to appease far-right allies and maintain his coalition.
In a statement, Netanyahu's office called the report a 'rehash of long discredited claims'. In response, a Times spokesperson defended the reporting, saying it 'shows in detail how prolonging the Gaza war helped Mr Netanyahu to stay in power'.
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Express Tribune
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The writer is a retired major general and has an interest in International Relations and Political Sociology. He can be reached at tayyarinam@ and tweets @20_Inam While covering the Iran-Israel-US war in June this year, I had concluded that: a) the combined US-Israeli attack had badly damaged the Irani nuclear infrastructure and ambition, without obliterating it, as President Trump had claimed; b) Iran will never abandon its nuclear ambition and will sooner than later acquire nuclear arms; c) the Shia arc stands eclipsed before a Sunni crescent given that Iran's 3H proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis) stand militarily degraded, and its client state Syria is out of Tehran's orbit; d) in 'missile economics' Iran retains the capability to target Israel with precision using cruise and ballistic missiles and that threat remains; e) contrary to Western expectations, Iranians rallied around clerics whose grip on power remains firm 'for now'; f) the battle redefines the nature of warfare, especially the non-contact conflict, particularly for India and Pakistan. Population on both sides must now contend with intense psy ops; and g) 'counterintelligence' and espionage emerge as niche force-multipliers in warfare. An eminent US scholar of Irani descent, Prof Vali Nasr recently published his new book, Iran's Grand Strategy: A Political History. The venerable professor, who has visited Pakistan and has previously worked with Richard Holbrooke, is a keen observer of the region. His MIT/Harvard educated father, Seyyed Hossein Nasr is also a respected scholar of Islam and a former professor at George Washington University. Mr Hossein has undertaken critical work on Allama Iqbal. Back to the work of Prof Vali Nasr, who concedes Iran's role in almost every crisis in the Middle East, that has caused 'serial humiliations' to Tehran recently. First, Prof Nasr thinks Iran's contemporary strategic vision is driven more by Iran's 'national security rooted in regional rivalries', and lesser by its revolutionary intent. Although Islam remains the language of Iran's politics, whose 'aims are now secular in nature'. Second, the eight years' war against Iraq in 1980s deeply affected every facet of Irani sociology and body politics. Western analysts generally downplay the effects of this conflict, as it mainly ended in a stalemate, despite overwhelming Western support to Iraq; and the West Plus subsequently took an embarrassing U-turn against Baghdad under Saddam Hussein. The ensuing strategic culture has guided Iran's behaviour blending 'encirclement fears with outsized ambition'. The response to Iraqi invasion in September 1980 strengthened Iran's ayatollahs; engendered some sort of strategic autonomy; and ushered in self-sufficiency, religious zeal and patriotism. There are chronicled tales of Basij Militia's heroism in the literature pertaining to Irani resolve during the war. Consequently, the war made Tehran lean towards and depend upon proxy power, and owing up the anti-Israel cause. A popular slogan among Irani volunteers was — "The path to Jerusalem runs through Karbala". Third, the strategic shift and revolutionary zest caused events like the 1979 storming of American embassy in Tehran and the ensuing 'Iran Hostage Crisis' for 444 days; the 1987 demonstration by Irani pilgrims at Mecca wanting to 'uproot the Saudi rulers'; the 1988 downing of Flight 655 by the US; and the 1992 bombing of Israeli embassy in Argentine, to mention a few. Khomeini perceived the US determined for regime change in Tehran, and his characterisation of the US, the 'Great Satan', was that of a dog, that needed to be firmly confronted to make it back off. Fourth, when President Rafsanjani pursued the 'Grand Bargain with the Great Satan' in the 1990s, and President Khatami in 2003 wrote a conciliatory letter to Washington, Khamenei - the successor to the leader of revolution, Imam Khomeini - held the view that rapprochement with the US was not possible. 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