At least 34 killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as ceasefire prospects inch closer
The strikes began late on Friday and continued into Saturday morning, among others killing 12 people at the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City, which was sheltering displaced people, and eight more living in apartments, according to staff at Shifa hospital where the bodies were brought.
Six others were killed in southern Gaza when a strike hit their tent in Muwasi, according to the hospital.
The strikes come as US President Donald Trump said there could be a ceasefire agreement within the next week. Taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, the president said: 'We're working on Gaza and trying to get it taken care of.'
A man carries the wrapped body of a child who was killed along with others in an Israeli strike that targeted a school in northern Gaza, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)
An official with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that Israel's minister for strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, will arrive in Washington next week for talks on Gaza's ceasefire, Iran and other subjects. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Talks have been on and since Israel broke the latest ceasefire in March, continuing its military campaign in Gaza and furthering the dire humanitarian crisis.
Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, fewer than half of them believed to be still alive. They were among some 250 hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 2023, sparking the 21-month-long war.
The war has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It says more than half of the dead were women and children.
There is hope among hostage families that Mr Trump's involvement in securing the recent ceasefire between Israel and Iran might exert more pressure for a deal in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is riding a wave of public support for the Iran war and its achievements, and he could feel he has more space to move toward ending the war in Gaza, something his far-right governing partners oppose.
Hamas has repeatedly said it is prepared to free all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war in Gaza. Mr Netanyahu says he will end the war only once Hamas is disarmed and exiled, something the group has rejected.
Palestinians carry humanitarian aid packages near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centre in Khan Younis, southern Gaza (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)
Meanwhile, hungry Palestinians are enduring a catastrophic situation in Gaza. After blocking all food for more than two months, Israel has allowed only a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May.
Efforts by the United Nations to distribute the food have been plagued by armed gangs looting trucks and by crowds of desperate people offloading supplies from convoys.
Palestinians have also been shot and wounded while on their way to get food at newly formed aid sites, run by the American and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to Gaza's health officials and witnesses.
Palestinian witnesses say Israeli troops have opened fire at crowds on the roads heading toward the sites. Israel's military said it was investigating incidents in which civilians had been harmed while approaching the sites.
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NBC News
30 minutes ago
- NBC News
Iran holds funeral for commanders and scientists killed in war with Israel
Large crowds of mourners dressed in black lined streets in Iran's capital Tehran as the country held a funeral on Saturday for top military commanders, nuclear scientists and some of the civilians killed during this month's aerial war with Israel. At least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among those mourned at the funeral, according to state media, including armed forces chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards commander General Hossein Salami, and Guards Aerospace Force chief General Amir Ali Hajizadeh. Their coffins were driven into Tehran's Azadi Square adorned with their photos and national flags, as crowds waved flags and some reached out to touch the caskets and throw rose petals onto them. State-run Press TV showed an image of ballistic missiles on display. Mass prayers were later held in the square. State TV said the funeral, dubbed the 'procession of the Martyrs of Power', was held for a total of 60 people killed in the war, including four women and four children. In attendance were President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures including Ali Shamkhani, who was seriously wounded during the conflict and is an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as Khamenei's son Mojtaba. 'Today, Iranians, through heroic resistance against two regimes armed with nuclear weapons, protected their honour and dignity, and look to the future prouder, more dignified, and more resolute than ever,' Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who also attended the funeral, said in a Telegram post. There was no immediate statement from Khamenei, who has not appeared publicly since the conflict began. In past funerals, he led prayers over the coffins of senior commanders ahead of public ceremonies broadcast on state television. Israel launched the air war on June 13, attacking Iranian nuclear facilities and killing top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq. Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said it aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons. Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has said it has 'no credible indication' of an active, coordinated weapons program in Iran. Bagheri, Salami and Hajizadeh were killed on June 13, the first day of the war. Bagheri was being buried at the Behesht Zahra cemetery outside Tehran mid-afternoon on Saturday. Salami and Hajizadeh were due to be buried on Sunday. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would consider bombing Iran again, while Khamenei, who has appeared in two pre-recorded video messages since the start of the war, has said Iran would respond to any future U.S. attack by striking U.S. military bases in the Middle East. A senior Israeli military official said on Friday that Israel had delivered a 'major blow' to Iran's nuclear project. On Saturday, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Israel and the U.S. 'failed to achieve their stated objectives' in the war. According to Iranian health ministry figures, 610 people were killed on the Iranian side in the war before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday. More than 4,700 were injured. Israel's health ministry said 28 were killed in Israel and 3,238 injured.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Abstruse yet monumental: the scope and impact of the US supreme court's birthright citizenship ruling
The US supreme court opinion on Friday in a case challenging Donald Trump's attempt to unilaterally end the country's longstanding tradition of birthright citizenship doesn't actually rule on the constitutionality of the president's order. That question – of whether the president can do away with a right guaranteed by the the fourteenth amendment to the US constitution – is still being debated in the lower courts. Instead, the supreme court focused on the question of whether individual district court judges could block federal policies nationwide. The decision is both abstruse and monumental, experts say. It doesn't immediately change anything about how citizenship is granted in the US, and it profoundly shifts the ways in which the federal courts work. To help understand the implications of the ruling, the Guardian spoke with Efrén Olivares, vice-president of litigation and legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, a non-profit advocacy group. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. First, what exactly does the supreme court's ruling mean, today, for immigrants across the US who are expecting parents? The immediate impact is null. The supreme court explicitly said for the next 30 days, the executive order ending birthright citizenship will not go into effect. The right to citizenship by birth in the United States continues. Anyone born today, tomorrow, next week, two weeks from now in the US will be a citizen. We can anticipate that before those 30 days run out, there will be another ruling from one of the trial courts or district courts that will shed more light on this issue long-term. Does this mean that states and immigrant rights' groups that have sued over Trump's executive order denying birthright citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants and foreign visitors will have to change how they are challenging the policy? There were three lawsuits filed on behalf of individuals and organizations against this executive order. All three were seeking to enjoin – which means stop – the enforcement of this executive order. Because it's an executive order of national scope, the rulings of the lower courts in these cases were national in scope, right? Then, the supreme court chimed in and said that is inappropriate for a court to block a policy nationwide, and that a court's ruling should only apply to the plaintiffs or parties right in front of them. So now, those challenging the order may move to seek a class certification, essentially to pursue a class-action lawsuit. Already, the immigration aid groups Casa and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project have filed an amended complaint seeking class-action relief in their challenge to Trump's birthright citizenship order. Class-action litigation has existed for years, and what that means is that now the party in front of the court is asking the court to rule not just on its own behalf, but also on behalf of everyone else similarly situated. The class-action suits are most commonly used in cases where people are seeking monetary relief – for example, in instances where there are defects in car manufacturing. In that type of case, anyone who bought this type of car between X and Y dates would be entitled to compensation. The supreme court ruling could now make class-action litigation much more common. How might the supreme court's ruling here impact other immigration cases? Because up to this point, federal judges' authority to freeze policies across the US – with so-called 'nationwide injunctions' – has served as a powerful check on executive power. It has been used to block policies instituted by both Democratic and Republican administrations. What is ironic is that the supreme court has been perfectly fine with nationwide injunctions in the past. For example, justices enjoined the Biden administration's cancellation of student loans. And they had no problem with a nationwide injunction in that case. This latest ruling on injunctions will affect any case that challenges a policy with national implications. We are particularly tracking the deployment of federal or military troops to do immigration enforcement, and continuation of unlawful, discriminatory enforcement of immigration laws on the basis of race. But this ruling will impact lots of cases. It can be immigration policy, it can be an environmental policy, it can be a voting rights policy – all of those things are regulated at the federal level. So now, if federal policy is challenged, unless it is challenged in a nationwide class-action lawsuit, a lower court's ruling would only apply in the state or states where that policy is challenged? Yes, we may have a patchwork of rulings that vary depending on what state you live in. One of the challenges to the birthright citizenship order, for example, was brought by individuals and organizations in Maryland, DC and Massachusetts. If that case is successful, but you live in Nebraska or Wisconsin or Texas, you may not have the same rights to citizenship as if you are in Maryland, DC or Massachusetts. That is totally inconsistent with our system of law for 250 years. In the supreme court's majority opinion, justice Amy Coney Barrett even alluded to the infeasibility of citizenship rules being different in different states. She summarizes the plaintiffs' argument that ''patchwork injunction' would prove unworkable, because it would require [the states] to track and verify the immigration status of the parents of every child, along with the birth state of every child for whom they provide certain federally funded benefits'. And she ultimately writes that courts can issue injunctions to ensure that a victorious plaintiff receives 'complete relief'. What exactly does that mean? I think they're trying to leave the door open for nationwide injunctions to be OK in certain contexts, and it's unclear what those contexts will be. If you have a national, nationwide class action, a nationwide injunction is the only way to give relief to everyone in the class. Still, in practice, I am worried that the language of the ruling lends itself to inconsistent applications based on the court's or the judge's political ideologies.
Glasgow Times
an hour ago
- Glasgow Times
Trump says he is terminating trade talks with Canada over tax on tech firms
Mr Trump, in a post on his social media network, said Canada had just informed the US that it was sticking to its plan to impose the digital services tax, which applies to Canadian and foreign businesses that engage with online users in Canada. The tax is set to go into effect on Monday. 'Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period,' Mr Trump said in his Truth Social post. Mr Trump's announcement was the latest move in the trade war he has launched since taking office for a second term in January. Progress with Canada has been a roller coaster, starting with the US president repeatedly suggesting it would be absorbed as a US state. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press via AP) Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Friday that his country would 'continue to conduct these complex negotiations in the best interests of Canadians. It's a negotiation'. Mr Trump later said he expects that Canada will remove the tax. 'Economically we have such power over Canada. We'd rather not use it,' Mr Trump said in the Oval Office. 'It's not going to work out well for Canada. They were foolish to do it.' When asked if Canada could do anything to restart talks, he suggested Canada could remove the tax, predicted it will but said: 'It doesn't matter to me.' Mr Carney visited Mr Trump in May at the White House. Mr Trump last week travelled to Canada for the G7 summit in Alberta, where Mr Carney said Canada and the US had set a 30-day deadline for trade talks. The digital services tax will hit companies including Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb with a 3% levy on revenue from Canadian users. It will apply retroactively, leaving US companies with a two billion US dollar (£1.4 billion) bill due at the end of the month. 'We appreciate the Administration's decisive response to Canada's discriminatory tax on US digital exports,' Matt Schruers, chief executive of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said in a statement. Canada and the US have been discussing easing a series of steep tariffs Mr Trump imposed on goods from America's neighbour. The Republican president earlier told reporters that the US was soon preparing to send letters to different countries, informing them of the new tariff rate his administration would impose on them. Mr Trump has imposed 50% tariffs on steel and aluminium as well as 25% tariffs on cars. He is also charging a 10% tax on imports from most countries, though he could raise rates on July 9, after the 90-day negotiating period he set would expire. Canada and Mexico face separate tariffs of as much as 25% that Mr Trump put into place under the auspices of stopping fentanyl smuggling, though some products are still protected under the 2020 US-Mexico-Canada Agreement signed during Mr Trump's first term. Addressing reporters after a private meeting with Republican senators on Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declined to comment on news that Mr Trump had ended trade talks with Canada. 'I was in the meeting,' Mr Bessent said before moving on to the next question. About 60% of US crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of US electricity imports as well. Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminium and uranium to the US and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager to obtain. About 80% of Canada's exports go to the US. Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said it is a domestic tax issue, but it has been a source of tensions between Canada and the US for a while because it targets US tech giants. 'The Digital Services Tax Act was signed into law a year ago so the advent of this new tax has been known for a long time,' Mr Beland said. 'Yet, President Trump waited just before its implementation to create drama over it in the context of ongoing and highly uncertain trade negotiations between the two countries.'
