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AS IT HAPPENED
Blinken to visit Middle East next week to push ceasefire plan as war enters ninth month
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit the Middle East next week to push a plan for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, the State Department announced Friday. Blinken, who will be paying his eighth visit to the region since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, will visit Israel and key US Arab partners Egypt, Jordan and Qatar from Monday through Wednesday, the State Department said. Read our blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.
Issued on: 07/06/2024 – 03:21
Modified: 07/06/2024 – 22:47
2 min
Food and good stalls are set-up by vendors outside the burnt out ruins of the building (L) housing the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), in the Jabalia refugee camp, in the north
Food and good stalls are set-up by vendors outside the burnt out ruins of the building (L) housing the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), in the Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip on June 7, 2024. © Omar Al-Qattaa, AFP
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FRANCE 24
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This blog is no longer being updated. For more coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, please click here.
Summary:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit the Middle East next week to push a plan for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, the State Department announced Friday.
Israeli strikes hammered large parts of the Gaza Strip from the ground, air and sea on Friday, targeting several homes including at least one in a refugee camp, witnesses said.
The US Central Command said on Friday it has re-established the temporary pier in Gaza, which will allow delivery of humanitarian aid to the war-torn enclave.
At least 11 Yemeni employees of UN agencies have been detained by Yemen’s Houthi rebels under unclear circumstances, authorities said Friday.
Hamas has not yet given its response to the latest proposal for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza to mediators and is still studying it, Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said on Thursday.
At least 36,731 Palestinians have been killed and 83,530 wounded in Israel’s war in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. Some 1,170 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and 250 people were taken hostage, with about 120 remaining in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. Many have been declared dead by Israeli authorities.
Last to first
10 hours ago
Yemen’s Houthi rebels detain 11 UN staffers and others in sudden crackdown, officials say
Eleven Yemeni employees of United Nations agencies have been detained by Yemen’s Houthi rebels under unclear circumstances, authorities said Friday, as the rebels face increasing financial pressure and air strikes from a US-led coalition. Others working for aid groups also likely have been taken.
The detentions come as the Houthis, who seized Yemen’s capital nearly a decade ago and have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition since shortly after, have been targeting shipping throughout the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
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10 hours ago
White House awaiting official Hamas response to ceasefire proposal
The White House said on Friday it was still awaiting an official response by Hamas to the latest ceasefire proposal for the Gaza conflict.
Spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron would discuss the issue during a meeting on Saturday.
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12 hours ago
Palestinian Authority welcomes UN calling out Israel for violations against children
A decision to add Israel’s military to a global list of offenders who have committed violations against children is “a step closer to holding Israel accountable for its crimes,” the Palestinian president’s spokesperson said on Friday.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh made his comment to Reuters after Israel’s UN envoy said he had been officially notified of the decision by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to add the Israeli military to the list.
The list is included in a report on children and armed conflict that is due to be submitted to the UN Security Council on June 14.
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12 hours ago
Yemen’s Houthis target two vessels in Red Sea
Yemen’s Houthis launched two military operations in the Red Sea, targeting “vessel Elbella and vessel AAL GENOA”, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a televised speech on Friday.
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12 hours ago
Israel says strike on UN Gaza school killed 17 militants
Israel’s army said on Friday it had killed 17 militants the day before in an air strike on a UN school in central Gaza, raising its previous toll from nine.
Thursday’s Israeli strike hit a school operated by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in the Nuseirat area of central Gaza where thousands of displaced people were sheltering.
The nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said that at least 37 people were killed in the strike.
“Since the targeted strike the (Israeli army) has confirmed the identity of 17 terrorists that were operating from the school,” the military said in a statement.
A worker of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) inspects damage to the rooftop of an UNRWA-run school that was previously hit by Israeli bombardment in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip on June 7, 2024. © Eyad Baba, AFP
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13 hours ago
Blinken to visit Mideast next week to push ceasefire plan
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit the Middle East next week to push a plan for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, the State Department announced Friday.
Blinken, who will be paying his eighth visit to the region since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, will visit Israel and key US Arab partners Egypt, Jordan and Qatar from Monday through Wednesday, the State Department said.
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13 hours ago
Israel ‘disgusted’ at army’s inclusion on upcoming UN blacklist
The upcoming inclusion of Israel on a UN list of countries and armed forces failing to protect children in war prompted a furious Israeli response Friday.
“I am utterly shocked and disgusted by this shameful decision,” UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on his X social media account that the UN had “added itself to the blacklist of history when it joined those who support the Hamas murderers.”
“The IDF is the most moral army in the world; no delusional UN decision will change that,” he wrote.
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13 hours ago
UN chief to call out Israel for violations against children
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has added Israel’s military to a global list of offenders who have committed violations against children, said Israel’s UN envoy Gilad Erdan, describing the decision as “shameful”.
Erdan said he was officially notified of the decision on Friday. The global list is included in a report on children and armed conflict that is due to be submitted to the UN Security Council on June 14.
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14 hours ago
Gaza town says mayor killed in Israeli strike on water station
A spokesman for the Nuseirat municipality in central Gaza said Friday that the town’s mayor, Iyad al-Maghari, had been killed in an Israeli strike while visiting a water pumping station.
Maghari had been at the water management facility that serves Nuseirat when an air strike hit it at around 10:30pm (19:30 GMT) on Thursday, spokesman Muhammad al-Salhi told AFP at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where mourners gathered ahead of the funeral.
“We were surprised by a treacherous and cowardly attack on the mayor inside the plant, which led to the martyrdom of the mayor, Dr Iyad Al-Maghari, and four members of his family,” Salhi said.
The Israeli army told AFP on Friday that they plan to publish shortly a statement about the incident.
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14 hours ago
Women and children of Gaza are killed less frequently as war’s toll rises, AP data analysis finds
The proportion of Palestinian women and children being killed in the Israel-Hamas war appears to have declined sharply, an Associated Press analysis of Gaza Health Ministry data has found, a trend that both coincides with Israel’s changing battlefield tactics and contradicts the ministry’s own public statements.
The trend is significant because the death rate for women and children is the best available proxy for civilian casualties in one of the 21st century’s most destructive conflicts. In October, when the war began, it was above 60%.
For the month of April, it was below 40%. Yet the shift went unnoticed for months by the UN and much of the media, and the Hamas-linked Health Ministry has made no effort to set the record straight.
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15 hours ago
Swedish police detain 19 pro-Palestinian activists who barricaded themselves inside university
Swedish police detained 19 pro-Palestinian activists who barricaded themselves in the country’s main technical education and research university on Friday.
After two hours, police carried out the masked activists from the third floor of a Royal Institute of Technology building in Stockholm. They are likely to be prosecuted for trespassing and disobeying the police, according to police.
International pressure has been mounting on Israel to limit civilian bloodshed in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
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16 hours ago
Gaza aid pier re-established after storm damage, says US military
The United States on Friday reestablished a temporary pier to boost aid deliveries into Gaza after the structure suffered storm damage and underwent repairs in a nearby port, the country’s military said.
“US Central Command (CENTCOM) successfully reestablished the temporary pier in Gaza, enabling the continued delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza,” the military command responsible for the Middle East said in a social media post.
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18 hours ago
At least 36,731 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during Israel-Hamas war, says health ministry
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Friday that at least 36,731 people have been killed in the territory during eight months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes at least 77 deaths over the past day, a ministry statement said, adding that 83,530 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
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19 hours ago
Yemen’s Houthi rebels detain at least nine UN staffers, say officials
At least nine Yemeni employees of UN agencies have been detained by Yemen’s Houthi rebels under unclear circumstances, authorities said Friday, as the rebels face increasing financial pressure and air strikes from a US-led coalition.
Regional officials, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, confirmed that those held include staff from the United Nations human rights agency, its development programme, the World Food Programme and one working for the office of its special envoy. The wife of one of the staff members has also been detained. The UN declined to immediately comment on the information.
“We condemn in the strongest terms this dangerous escalation, which constitutes a violation of the privileges and immunities of United Nations employees granted to them under international law, and we consider it to be oppressive, totalitarian, blackmailing practices to obtain political and economic gains,” the organisation said in a statement.
The Mayyun Organisation for Human Rights also named other aid groups whose employees were detained by the Houthis across four provinces the rebels hold: Amran, Hodeida, Saada and Saana.
The Houthis and their affiliated media organisations did not immediately acknowledge the detentions.
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20 hours ago
Several Gaza homes targeted, including in refugee camp, in Israeli assaults
Israeli strikes targeted several homes in the Gaza Strip Friday, including in a refugee camp.
According to medical sources who spoke to AFP, a home near a medical centre in the Bureij refugee camp was targeted, leaving several people wounded, and at least six people were killed in an attack on a home in the Maghazi camp.
Casualties were also reported in Gaza City, after a home there came under attack, and witnesses said Israeli fighter jets were striking the Al-Sultan neighbourhood in the southern city of Rafah.
Gaza also came under fire from the sea, with Israeli warships bombarding homes in the fishermen’s port area, among others, west of Gaza City.
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21 hours ago
Unemployment nears 80 percent in Gaza, says UN agency
Unemployment in the Gaza Strip has reached 79.1 percent since the Israel-Hamas war erupted, while the West Bank has seen joblessness hit nearly 32 percent, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said in its fourth assessment of the impact of the war on employment. The figures give a combined unemployment rate of 50.8 percent.
“This excludes Palestinians who have given up on finding a job,” said Ruba Jaradat, ILO regional director for Arab States. “The situation is much worse.”
Even before the war, around half of Gaza’s population lived below the poverty line.
“Imagine with this very high level of unemployment, people will not be able to secure food for themselves and for their families,” Jaradat said.
In terms of the economy, the real gross domestic product (GDP) has contracted by nearly 33 percent in the Palestinian Territories since the start of the war, with an estimated contraction of 83.5 percent in the Gaza Strip and 22.7 percent in the West Bank, according to data published by the ILO.
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a day ago
Yemen’s Houthi rebels unveil solid-fuel ‘Palestine’ missile that resembles Iranian hypersonic weapon
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have unveiled a new, solid-fuel missile in their arsenal that resembles aspects of a missile earlier displayed by Iran that Tehran described as flying at hypersonic speeds.
The rebels fired the new “Palestine” missile, complete with a warhead painted like a Palestinian keffiyeh, at the southern Gulf of Aqaba port of Eilat in Israel on Monday. The attack set off air raid sirens but caused no reported damage or injuries.
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a day ago
Israel’s Netanyahu set to address joint meeting of US Congress on July 24
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is set to address a joint meeting of Congress on July 24, setting the stage for what is expected to be a contentious speech amid the context of the Israel-Hamas war.
Congressional leaders confirmed the date of the address late Thursday after formally inviting Netanyahu to come speak before lawmakers last week. It is the most recent show of wartime support for the longtime ally despite mounting political divisions over Israel’s war in Gaza.
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a day ago
Russia and China wrangle with US over UN resolution on Gaza ceasefire plan
Russia and China, which hold veto powers in the UN Security Council, on Thursday raised concerns over a US draft resolution that would back a proposal – outlined by President Joe Biden – for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Algeria, the Security Council’s only member from the Arab world, also signalled it was not ready to back the text, said diplomats. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes by the US, France, the UK, China or Russia, which are the council’s permanent members, to pass.
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Yesterday’s key developments:
At least 37 people were killed in an Israeli air strike early Thursday on a UN-run school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the Israeli strike on the school, where some 6,000 displaced people were sheltering, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister Mohammed Mustafa said in Baghdad that the PA was ready to re-establish “unified” Palestinian leadership after the Gaza war.
A senior Hamas official said that US President Joe Biden’s proposed Gaza ceasefire deal was “just words” and the Palestinian militant group had not received any written commitments related to a truce.
Spain said it will join South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, its foreign minister announced.
About casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry:
Gaza’s health ministry collects data from the enclave’s hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent. For more on the health ministry’s casualty figures, click here.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP & Reuters)
