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AS IT HAPPENED
Israeli defense minister vows ‘every effort’ on freeing hostages in US talks
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday vowed during a visit to Washington to work to bring back hostages from Gaza, and urged close cooperation with the United States after recent strains in the relationship. Gallant met with CIA chief Bill Burns, the key US pointman in negotiations to free hostages from Hamas, and later went into talks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Read our liveblog to see how all the day’s events unfolded.
Issued on: 24/06/2024 – 06:34
Modified: 24/06/2024 – 16:56
2 min
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant arrives at the US Department of State ahead of a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, DC on June 24, 2024.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant arrives at the US Department of State ahead of a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, DC on June 24, 2024. © Saul Loeb, AFP
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Summary:
A US-backed proposal to wind down the eight-month-long war in Gaza was cast into doubt on Monday after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he would only be willing to agree to a “partial” ceasefire deal that would not end the war. His comments sparked anger among Israeli citizens whose family members are being held hostage by Hamas.
The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNWRA) was sued in New York Federal Court on Monday by 101 Israelis, including people who survived Hamas’s October 7 attack or had relatives who were killed in it. The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages for what they allege was UNRWA’s “aiding and abetting Hamas’s genocide, crimes against humanity, and torture,” which they said violated international and US federal law.
At least 37,626 Palestinians have been killed and 86,098 injured in Israel’s war in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. The Hamas-led October 7 attacks resulted in the deaths of more than 1,190 people, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures. Some 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
11 hours ago
Biden ‘disturbed’ by woman’s alleged drowning attack on US-Palestinian child in Texas
The 42-year-old, identified as Elizabeth Wolf, allegedly approached a mother who was wearing a hijab at a suburban apartment pool near Dallas. She then asked whether the mother’s six-year-old son and three-year-old daughter belonged to her and also made racial statements, according to US media reports.The woman reportedly grabbed the boy, who was able to wrangle free, then grabbed the girl, whom she pushed underwater.
The woman, identified as Elizabeth Wold, has been charged with capital murder, court records show, following the May incident which gained national attention over the weekend.
“No child should ever be subjected to a violent attack, and my heart goes out to the family,” Biden said on X on Monday. “I am deeply disturbed by the reports of an attempted drowning of a 3-year old Palestinian-American at a neighborhood pool,” he said.
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12 hours ago
Explosives hidden in a warehouse were detonated in Amman, says Jordan police
The authorities said the explosives found on Monday were hidden by the same group of suspects who stored the explosives uncovered on Saturday in a crowded residential area close to a military airport used by U.S. army planes.
Iran has denied being behind such attempts.
Security sources say some of the arms are bound for the neighboring Israeli-occupied West Bank, adding that they have arrested several Jordanians linked to Palestinian militants.
Security officials said the incidents were terror-related based on the quantities of explosives found. They said it is linked to Iran’s clandestine efforts to recruit agents to undertake sabotage acts within the kingdom to destabilize a key ally of Washington in the region.
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12 hours ago
Hamas ‘operative’ and family expelled from Brazil
Brazil has deported a Palestinian man and his family after Brazilian federal police were alerted by the United States that a “Hamas operative” was traveling to the South American country, Brazilian authorities said on Monday.
Muslim Abuumar along with his pregnant wife, son and mother-in-law, were detained on Friday entering the country at Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos airport and put on a Qatar Airways flight back to Doha two days later, police sources told Reuters.
“The request came from the U.S. Department of State,” a senior federal police officer said. “It was proven before a judge that (Abuumar) was deeply involved with Hamas,” he said.
Brazilian police sources, however, said Abuumar was not coming for a visit but to stay in Brazil and become a spokesman for Hamas. Once source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the large amount of luggage he brought with his family showed he was planning to stay longer.
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14 hours ago
France, Jordan urge Israel to lift Gaza aid restrictions
French President Emmanuel Macron and King Abdullah II of Jordan Monday called on Israel to lift all land-based “restrictions” on the delivery of aid to war-torn Gaza, the presidency said.
Meeting in Paris, Macron and Abdullah II reiterated the need for an “immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza” and called for the release of all hostages—including two French nationals. They also “expressed their deep concern about the situation in the West Bank and strongly condemned the violence committed by settlers”, the French presidency said in a statement.
They agreed to continue to work together on a “lasting and credible solution” to the war based on the “two-state solution” and welcomed reforms undertaken by the Palestinian government and called for them to be continued.
Referring to the intensification of tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border, Macron and Abdullah II warned against a “conflagration that would be catastrophic for the region”, and reiterated their calls to all parties for “responsibility and restraint”.
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14 hours ago
UN chief accuses Israel of misinformation
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres accused Israel on Monday of spreading misinformation about him during the more than eight-month-long war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“I’ve heard the same source many times saying that I never attacked Hamas, that I never condemned Hamas, that I am a supporter of Hamas,” Guterres told a news conference on information integrity, without naming Israel. “I have condemned Hamas 102 times, 51 of them in formal speeches, the others in different social platforms,” he said. “The truth, in the end, always wins.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said the condemnations by Guterres were “empty words when compared to his actions”.
“His sole aim has been to help Hamas survive this war. We find it despicable that the secretary-general refuses to abide by the UN’s standards and paints a distorted picture of events on the ground,” Erdan said. “Antonio Guterres is an accomplice to terror and should resign today.”
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15 hours ago
US ‘shocked’ by video of wounded Palestinian tied to Israeli military jeep
The US State Department on Monday said a video of a wounded Palestinian man strapped on an Israeli military jeep in the West Bank city of Jenin on Saturday was “shocking” and urged a swift investigation to hold those responsible to account.
At a State Department news briefing, a reporter asked: “Isn’t that basically the army using Palestinians as human shields?” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller responded: “I will say we saw that video. It was shocking. The practice was absolutely unacceptable. Humans should never be used as human
shields.”
The Israeli military earlier said in a statement on the incident that its forces had violated military protocol and that the “conduct of the forces in the video … does not conform to the values” of the Israeli
military and the incident will be investigated. The military said the man was transferred to medics for treatment.
Violence in the West Bank, already on the rise before the Israel-Hamas war began in October, has escalated since then with frequent army raids on militant groups, rampages by Jewish settlers in Palestinian villages and deadly Palestinian street attacks.
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17 hours ago
Israeli military confirms death of hostage held in Gaza
The Israeli military on Monday confirmed the death of a soldier held hostage by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip since Hamas’s October 7 attack.
In a separate statement the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said that Mohammad Alatrash was killed during the October attack on southern Israel and his body taken captive by Hamas militants.
Israeli authorities had previously confirmed Alatrash, a sergeant major in the Israeli military’s Bedouin Trackers Unit, had been taken hostage.
Alatrash, 39, is survived by two wives and 13 children, the forum said in a statement.
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17 hours ago
Israeli defense minister vows hostage efforts in US talks
Israel’s defense minister on Monday vowed during a visit to Washington to work to bring back hostages from Gaza, and urged close cooperation with the United States after strains in the relationship.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with CIA chief Bill Burns, the key US pointman in negotiations to free hostages from Hamas, and later went into talks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“I would like to emphasise that it is Israel’s primary commitment to return the hostages, with no exception, to their families and homes,” Gallant said before starting his meetings.
Gallant is also expected to meet in Washington with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, senior White House official Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, who is focusing on tensions over Lebanon.
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18 hours ago
EU agrees on more sanctions on Hamas, violent Israeli settlers
The European Union has reached a political agreement on further sanctions against Palestinian militant group Hamas and violent Israeli settlers, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday.
He did not provide any more details on the sanctions.
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18 hours ago
Israeli victims sue UNWRA over Hamas’s October 7 attack
The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNWRA) was sued in New York Federal Court on Monday by dozens of Israelis who accused it of aiding and abetting the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The 101 plaintiffs, including people who survived the attack or had relatives who were killed in it, are seeking unspecified damages for what they allege was UNRWA’s “aiding and abetting Hamas’ genocide, crimes against humanity, and torture,” which they said violated international law and the federal Torture Victim Protection Act.
They want UNRWA held liable for allegedly funneling more than $1 billion from a Manhattan bank account to benefit Hamas, including for weapons, explosives and ammunition, and accuse UNRWA of providing “safe harbor” to the militants in its facilities, and letting its schools use Hamas-approved textbooks to indoctrinate Palestinian children to support violence toward and hatred of Jews and Israel. They also said the attack was “foreseeable” to the defendants, regardless of whether they knew the specifics.
UNRWA declined to comment, saying it had yet to be served with the lawsuit. The agency has said it takes accusations of staff misconduct seriously, and terminated 10 staff members accused by Israel of involvement in the attack. Two others died, it has said.
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19 hours ago
Explosion reported near ship off Yemen coast
A merchant vessel in the Arabian Sea reported an explosion in close proximity to it on Monday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said.
UKMTO said the crew was reported safe and the vessel was proceeding to its next port of call.
The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) later identified the vessel as Liberian-flagged container MSC SARAH V, saying it was attacked by a missile while navigating the Arabian Sea but was not hit. The ship was sailing 246 nautical miles southeast of Yemen’s Nishtun.
The ship reported a missile landing in the water approximately 50 meters off the starboard side of the ship, JMIC said.
“The vessel was likely attacked due to perceived Israeli association,” JMIC’s note added.
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19 hours ago
Several dead in Israeli air strike on Gaza aid supplies
Two Israeli air strikes targeting aid supplies killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza on Monday, medics said.
One strike at a food distribution centre in Gaza City, near the Shati historic refugee camp, killed three people. Another, near Bani Suhaila town in the southern Gaza Strip, killed at least eight, including guards who accompany aid trucks, the medics said.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which denies attacking aid efforts and accuses militants of causing harm to civilians by operating among them.
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19 hours ago
Morocco sends 40 tons of medical aid to Gaza
Morocco has begun sending 40 tons of medical aid to Palestinians in war-torn Gaza, the Moroccan foreign ministry said on Monday.
The aid includes surgery equipment and supplies to treat burns and fractures as well as medicine for children, it said.
The aid was transported by air and will be loaded into Palestinian red crescent trucks at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, which was first used by Morocco to deliver aid in March, a senior diplomatic source told Reuters.
Moroccan authorities say they are using their ties to Israel to promote peace and defend the rights of Palestinians, but there have been many protests in Moroccan cities criticising these ties since the onset of the war in Gaza.
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19 hours ago
Israeli military chief says Hamas’s Rafah brigade nearly dismantled
The chief of staff of Israel’s military said on Monday that Hamas’s brigade in the southern Gaza city of Rafah is nearly dismantled.
“We are clearly approaching the point where we can say we have dismantled the Rafah Brigade, that it is defeated not in the sense that there are no more terrorists, but in the sense that it can no longer function as a fighting unit,” said Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi.
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21 hours ago
UNRWA chief urges pushback against Israel’s efforts to disband it
The head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) on Monday called on partners to fight back against efforts by Israel to have the organisation disbanded as it provides humanitarian assistance to Gaza and across the region.
“Israel has long been critical of the agency’s mandate. But it now seeks to end UNRWA’s operations, dismissing the agency’s status as a United Nations entity supported by an overwhelming majority of member states,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said at a meeting of the agency’s advisory commission in Geneva. “If we do not push back, other UN entities and international organisations will be next, further undermining our multilateral system.”
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has for years called for UNRWA to be dismantled, accusing it of anti-Israeli incitement. Last month, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed the preliminary reading of a bill aimed at designating UNRWA as a terrorist organisation.
Several countries halted their funding to UNRWA following accusations by Israel that some of the agency’s staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Most donors have since resumed their funding. Lazzarini said that UNRWA still lacked the necessary resources to fulfil its mandate.
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21 hours ago
Gaza at ‘high risk’ of famine, draft report says
Despite a recent influx of aid in northern Gaza, the territory as a whole remains at “high risk” of famine after Israel’s offensive in Rafah, a draft report said Monday.
The report, by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), said more than 495,000 people, or more than a fifth of the population of 2.3 million, are expected to experience the highest level of starvation in the coming months.
In early May, Israel launched ground operations in the southernmost city of Rafah, leading to the closure of the Rafah crossing with Egypt and repeated disruptions to the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel. “The humanitarian space in the Gaza Strip continues to shrink and the ability to safely deliver assistance to populations is dwindling,” the draft report said. “The recent trajectory is negative and highly unstable.”
Israel says it allows hundreds of trucks to enter through multiple crossings on a near-daily basis and blames UN agencies for not distributing it, saying containers are stacking up at Kerem Shalom, Gaza’s main cargo terminal. UN agencies and aid groups say they often cannot access Kerem Shalom because of fighting in the area and that Israeli restrictions, difficulties coordinating with the army and the collapse of law and order greatly hinder their work. They say it is impossible to address the crisis without a complete cease-fire.
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a day ago
Palestinian unity talks in China postponed, Palestinian officials say
Reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah due to be held in China this month have been delayed and no new date has been set, officials of the Palestinian factions told Reuters on Monday.
After hosting a meeting of Palestinian factions in April, China said Fatah – which is led by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas – and Hamas had expressed the will to seek reconciliation through unity talks in Beijing. Fatah and Hamas officials had previously said the meeting would take place in mid-June.
With the factions deeply divided, analysts had held out little hope of the talks achieving a breakthrough towards a reconciliation deal that could create a unified Palestinian administration for the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas since 2007.
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim, who had attended the previous meeting, told Reuters the meeting was postponed and no new date had been set for another meeting, blaming Fatah which he said had requested the delay. Three Fatah officials confirmed the postponement.
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a day ago
Netanyahu again claims US withholding arms shipments, days after Washington denies it
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that there had been a “dramatic drop” in US weapons deliveries for Israel’s war effort in Gaza, doubling down on a claim that the Biden administration has denied and underscoring the growing strains between the two allies.
Netanyahu told his Cabinet that the drop had occurred four months ago, saying only that “certain items arrived sporadically but the munitions at large remained behind”.
FRANCE 24’s Fraser Jackson reports from Washington.
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a day ago
‘Rampant’ looting and smuggling impeding aid delivery in Gaza, says UNRWA chief
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned Monday that a breakdown of civil order in Gaza had allowed widespread looting and smuggling and blocked aid delivery.
Since the war erupted in the Gaza Strip more than eight months ago, the Palestinian territory “has been decimated”, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told the agency’s advisory body, warning that “the breakdown of civil order has resulted in rampant looting and smuggling that impede the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid”.
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a day ago
Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 37,626
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 37,626 people have been killed during more than eight months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes at least 28 deaths over the past day, a ministry statement said, adding that 86,098 had been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
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Yesterday’s key developments:
A top US military official warned Sunday that Iran could launch a military response in the event of an Israeli attack on Lebanon. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the US would most likely not be able to defend Israel.
Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that there was a “dramatic drop” in US arms deliveries for Israel’s war effort in Gaza.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday headed to the US for talks on the next phase of the Gaza war and the hostilities against Hezbollah on the Lebanon border.
An aerial drone likely launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck and damaged a vessel in the Red Sea on Sunday, officials said, in what would be the latest attack by the group targeting the vital maritime corridor.
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 AP, AFP and Reuters)
