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ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
🔴 Live: Fighting rages on in Gaza as major powers push for ceasefire
Heavy fighting rocked Gaza on Tuesday after G7 and Arab powers urged both Israel and Hamas to agree to a truce and hostage-release deal outlined by US President Joe Biden. Meanwhile Slovenia became on Tuesday the latest EU nation to recognise Palestine as an independent state in a parliament vote. Follow our liveblog for all the latest developments.
Issued on: 05/06/2024 – 01:42
Modified: 05/06/2024 – 10:34
7 min
A person carries a Palestinian child, who was wounded in an Israeli strike, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, June 4, 2024.
A person carries a Palestinian child, who was wounded in an Israeli strike, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, June 4, 2024. © Ramadan Abed, Reuters
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FRANCE 24
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FRANCE 24
Summary:
Heavy fighting rocked Gaza on Tuesday after G7 and Arab powers urged both Israel and Hamas to agree to a truce and hostage release deal outlined by US President Joe Biden. Mediator Qatar said it had yet to see statements from either side “that give us a lot of confidence”, but the foreign ministry said Doha was “working with both sides on proposals on the table”.
Slovenia recognised a Palestinian state on Tuesday after its parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move, following in the recent steps of three other European countries.
US President Joe Biden swiped at Binyamin Netanyahu in an interview with Time magazine published Tuesday, saying there was “every reason” to conclude the Israeli prime minister was dragging out the Gaza war to save himself politically.
An independent group of experts warned Tuesday that it’s possible that famine is underway in northern Gaza but that the war between Israel and Hamas and restrictions on humanitarian access have impeded the data collection to prove it. “It is possible, if not likely,” the group known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, said about famine in Gaza.
At least 36,550 Palestinians have been killed and 82,959 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.
10:33am: Netanyahu says Israel is prepared for strong action in the north
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu toured the country’s northern border with Lebanon on Wednesday and said that Israel was prepared for strong action in the north.
9:39am: Israel to phase out use of military detention camp
Israel is phasing out the use of a military-run detention camp for Palestinians captured during the Gaza war where rights groups alleged there has been abuse of inmates, justice officials said on Wednesday.
State attorneys told the Supreme Court that inmates held at the Sde Teiman site, which was opened after Hamas’s October 7 assault on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, would be gradually transported to permanent holding facilities.
The transfers have started and most prisoners would be relocated within a couple of weeks. This would allow conditions to improve in the meantime, they said.
State attorney Aner Helman, responding to a petition filed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, told the court that 700 inmates had already been moved to Ofer, a military stockade in the West Bank. Another 500 were slated to be transferred in the coming weeks, leaving 200 at Sde Teiman whose future was yet to be decided.
Israel’s military is investigating the deaths of Palestinians captured during the Gaza war as well as the Sde Teiman facility.
9:08am: Gunman fires shots at US Embassy in Lebanon, army says
A gunman fired shots at the US Embassy in Lebanon on Wednesday and was injured in an exchange of fire with the army.
The army said the attacker, a Syrian national, was taken to hospital for treatment and that it was continuing to comb the area.
The US Embassy said “small arms fire” was reported in the vicinity of its entrance at around 8:34 am local time, adding that its facility and team were safe.
A security source told Reuters that a member of the embassy’s security team was wounded in the attack, and that the Lebanese army wounded one of the attackers in the stomach and was combing through the area to find the other attackers.
The embassy lies north of Beirut in a highly secured zone with multiple checkpoints along the route to the entrance. It moved there from Beirut following a suicide attack in 1983 which killed more than 60 people.
8:27am: Blast at Israeli base injures nine soldiers
Nine Israeli soldiers were injured, two of them seriously, when ordnance exploded at a military base in the south, the army announced on Wednesday.
“An explosion of munitions occurred on a military base in southern Israel. The incident is under investigation,” an army statement said of the Tuesday blast. It added that the injured soldiers were receiving treatment.
Israeli media reported that the explosion took place at a base in the Negev Desert.
3:11am: US House passes proposal sanctioning ICC after it sought Netanyahu arrest warrant
The US House of Representatives passed legislation Tuesday that would sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) for requesting arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.
The 247-155 vote amounts to Congress’ first legislative rebuke of the war crimes court since its stunning decision last month to seek arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas. The move was widely denounced in Washington, creating a rare moment of unity on Israel even as partisan divisions over the war with Hamas intensified.
While the House bill was expected to pass Tuesday, it managed to attract only modest Democratic support, despite an outpouring of outrage at the court’s decision, dulling its chances in the Senate. The White House opposes the legislation, calling it overreach.
3:08am: US says still waiting for response from Hamas on ceasefire proposal
A response from Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Israel’s ceasefire proposal that US President Joe Biden revealed on Friday is still being awaited, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday.
“We are waiting for a response from Hamas” through the Qatari mediators, Sullivan said.
CIA Director Bill Burns will be in Doha to consult with Qatari mediators on the Gaza ceasefire proposal, Sullivan added.
A spokesman for Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, reiterated on Tuesday it could not agree to any deal unless Israel makes a “clear” commitment to a permanent truce and complete withdrawal from Gaza.
For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has also repeated that there can be no permanent peace unless Hamas is eradicated, as he struggles with profound political divisions at home over the US-backed truce proposal.
1:46am: Columbia University and Jewish student agree on settlement that imposes more safety measures
Columbia University has agreed to take additional steps to make its students feel secure on campus under a settlement reached Tuesday with a Jewish student who had sought a court order requiring the Ivy League school provide safe access to the campus amid protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
The law firm representing the plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed as a class action complaint, called the settlement a “first-of-its-kind agreement to protect Jewish students from extreme on-campus Gaza war protestors”.
Under the agreement, Columbia must create a new point of contact — a Safe Passage Liaison — for students worried for their safety. The liaison will handle student safety concerns and coordinate any student requests for escorts through an existing escort program, which must remain available 24/7 through at least December 31, according to the agreement.
The settlement also makes academic accommodations for students who couldn’t access campus to complete assignments or exams, among other provisions.
1:20am: Board shuts down Columbia Law Review website after article criticising Israel is published
Student editors at the Columbia Law Review say they were pressured by the journal’s board of directors to halt publication of an academic article written by a Palestinian human rights lawyer that accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and upholding an apartheid regime.
When the editors refused the request and published the piece Monday morning, the board – made up of faculty and alumni from Columbia University’s law school – shut down the law review’s website entirely. It remained offline Tuesday evening, a static homepage informing visitors the domain “is under maintenance.”
Several editors at the Columbia Law Review described the board’s intervention as an unprecedented breach of editorial independence at the periodical, which is run by students at Columbia Law School. The board of directors oversees the nonprofit’s finances but has historically played no role in selecting pieces.
Yesterday’s key developments:
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan accused Israel on Tuesday of prolonging truce negotiations and repeated the Palestinian militant group’s position which rejects any deal that excludes a permanent ceasefire.
French President Emmanuel Macron called on Hamas on Tuesday to accept the ceasefire agreement put on the table by his US counterpart Joe Biden, saying that the Palestinian militant group bore a “crushing” responsibility.
Mediator Qatar said Tuesday it was waiting for a “clear position” from Israel on a proposed Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal outlined by US President Joe Biden. “We have yet to see a very clear position from the Israeli government towards the principles laid out by Biden,” foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said, adding there had been no “concrete approval” from either side.
Israel believes that more than a third of the remaining Gaza hostages are dead, a government tally showed on Tuesday, as the United States sought to advance their recovery under a proposal to wind down the war with Hamas.
Israeli authorities were battling intense forest fires Tuesday in the north of the country that broke out shortly after rocket and drone strikes from neighbouring Lebanon, forcing the partial evacuation of one town.
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)
