Footage from the occupied West Bank city of Hebron shows Israel installing mobile housing units in a section of the city formally under the control of the Palestinian Authority, raising fears of further settlement expansion.
Published On 9 Jul 20259 Jul 2025
President Donald Trump has threatened to impose more tariffs on nations aligning themselves with BRICS.
The BRICS bloc of developing nations aims to challenge the US-led economic order. In theory, it has the clout to push through reforms to global governance. But critics say the expanded group faces rifts among its members.
BRICS leaders have criticised US policies, including trade tariffs, during the gathering in Brazil’s Rio de Janiero, but they shied away from naming Washington directly.
President Donald Trump responded by threatening a 10% levy on any country that aligns itself with BRICS policies.
And the UN special rapporteur says global companies should be held accountable for profiting from the genocide in Gaza.
Surge in Red Sea attacks after months of calm potentially signals revival of Houthis’ campaign over Gaza war.
Five crew members have been rescued from a Liberian-flagged cargo ship in the Red Sea after a suspected attack from Yemen’s Houthi group, according to a maritime monitor. The attack is so far known to have killed at least three sailors out of the 22-member crew and wounded two.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre (UKMTO), run by the British military, said on Wednesday that “search and rescue operations commenced overnight” after Monday’s attack on the Greek-owned Eternity C.
UKMTO had said on Tuesday that the ship sustained “significant damage” and “lost all propulsion”. UK-based security firm Ambrey told the AFP news agency that the badly damaged vessel had sunk off Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah, which is under the control of the Houthis.
20250708-UKMTO_WARNING_INCIDENT_027-25-UPDATE 003https://t.co/yo0ifPJbtT#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/7VTJBPT8Tt
— UKMTO Ops Centre (@UK_MTO) July 9, 2025
The Houthis, who say they are targeting Israel-linked ships as part of a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians under relentless Israeli fire, to pressure the Israeli military to end its assault on Gaza, have not claimed responsibility for the attack.
However, it came one day after they claimed responsibility for attacking another cargo ship – the Magic Seas – in the Red Sea, causing it to sink. All the crew were rescued.
The assaults mark the first attacks on shipping in the Red Sea since late 2024, potentially signalling the start of a new armed campaign threatening the waterway, which had begun to see more traffic in recent weeks.
After Sunday’s attack on the Magic Seas, the Houthis declared that ships owned by companies with ties to Israel were a “legitimate target”, pledging to “prevent Israeli navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas … until the aggression against Gaza stops and the blockade is lifted”.
Yemen’s exiled government, the European Union’s Operation Aspides military force and the US State Department blamed the rebels for the attack on Eternity C.
“These attacks demonstrate the ongoing threat that Iran-backed Houthi rebels pose to freedom of navigation and to regional economic and maritime security,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
“The United States has been clear: We will continue to take necessary action to protect freedom of navigation and commercial shipping from Houthi terrorist attacks,” she added.
The bulk carrier had been heading north towards the Suez Canal when it came under fire by men in small boats and by bomb-carrying drones on Monday night, with security guards on board firing their weapons, according to Operation Aspides and Ambrey, cited by The Associated Press news agency.
Operation Aspides told AFP on Tuesday that three people had been killed, with at least two injured, including “a Russian electrician who lost a leg”.
Authorities in the Philippines told AFP that there were 22 crew on the Eternity C, all but one of them Filipinos.
The Eternity C’s operator, Cosmoship Management, has not commented on casualties or injuries.
In separate incidents, Israel’s military and the Houthis exchanged strikes on Sunday, with Israel saying it had bombed three ports and a power plant in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, prompting the Iran-allied group to fire more missiles towards Israeli territory.
Israel said it struck the ports of Hodeidah, Ras Isa and as-Salif on the Red Sea coast as well as the Ras Kathib power plant.
It said it also struck a radar system on the Galaxy Leader, which was seized by the Houthis and remains docked in the port of Hodeidah.
Rome Statute signatories Italy, France and Greece accused of ‘violating’ international legal order by letting alleged war criminal fly over territory.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, has hit out at countries that allowed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fly over their airspace en route to the United States, suggesting that they may have flouted their obligations under international law.
Albanese said on Wednesday that the governments of Italy, France and Greece needed to explain why they provided “safe passage” to Netanyahu, who they were theoretically “obligated to arrest” as an internationally wanted suspect when he flew over their territory on his way to meet United States President Donald Trump on Sunday for talks.
All three countries are signatories of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002, which last year issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated during Israel’s war on Gaza.
“Italian, French and Greek citizens deserve to know that every political action violating the int’l legal order, weakens and endangers all of them. And all of us,” Albanese wrote on X.
Albanese was responding to a post by human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber, who had said the previous day that the countries had “breached their legal obligations under the treaty [Rome Statute], have declared their disdain for the victims of genocide, and have demonstrated their contempt for the rule of law”.
Netanyahu’s visit to the US, during which he and Trump discussed the forced displacement of Palestinians amid his country’s ongoing ceasefire negotiations with Hamas, was not his first sortie since the ICC issued the warrant for his arrest.
In February, Netanyahu travelled to the US, which is not party to the Rome Statute, becoming the first foreign leader to meet Trump after his January inauguration.
Then, in April, Netanyahu visited Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban in Budapest, the latter having extended his invitation just one day after the ICC issued the arrest warrant, withdrawing the country’s ICC membership ahead of the Israeli leader’s arrival.
From Hungary, Netanyahu then flew to the US for a meeting with Trump, his plane flying 400km (248 miles) further than the normal route to avoid the airspace of several countries that could enforce an arrest warrant, according to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.
Member states of the ICC are expected to take subjects of arrest warrants into custody if those individuals are on their territory.
In practice, the rules are not always followed. For instance, South Africa, a member of the court, did not arrest Sudan’s then-leader Omar al-Bashir during a 2017 visit, despite an ICC warrant against him.
European Union countries have been split on the ICC warrant issued for Netanyahu.
Some said last year they would meet their ICC commitments, while Italy has said there were legal doubts. France has said it believes Netanyahu has immunity from ICC actions.
Bloodied children were taken from the wreckage of a Gaza City tent camp reportedly hit by Israeli shelling.
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French President Emmanuel Macron has called for British support to recognise the state of Palestine and help defend Ukraine as he arrived in the United Kingdom for the first state visit by a European leader since Brexit.
Macron, in a rare address to both houses of the British parliament on Tuesday, celebrated the return of closer ties between France and the UK, and said the two countries must work together to end “excessive dependencies” on the United States and China.
The French president’s three-day trip came at the invitation of King Charles III. Macron was earlier greeted by the royal family, including heir-to-the-throne Prince William and his wife, Princess Catherine, before they travelled in horse-drawn carriages to Windsor Castle.
Macron then set out to parliament where he said the two countries needed to come together to strengthen Europe, including on defence, immigration, climate and trade.
“The United Kingdom and France must once again show the world that our alliance can make all the difference,” the French president said in English. “The only way to overcome the challenges we have, the challenges of our times, will be to go together hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.”
Macron also promised that European countries would “never abandon Ukraine” in its war against invading Russian forces, while demanding an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza.
He then urged the UK to work together with France on recognising a Palestinian state, calling it “the only path to peace”.
“With Gaza in ruin and West Bank being on a daily basis attacked, the perspective of a Palestinian state has never been put at risk as it is,” Macron said. “And this is why this solution of the two states and the recognition of the State of Palestine is… the only way to build peace and stability for all in the whole region.”
He listed the geopolitical threats France and the UK face, and argued they should also be wary of the “excessive dependencies of both the US and China”, saying they needed to “de-risk our economies and our societies from this dual dependency”.
Macron went on to set out the opportunities of a closer union, saying they should make it easier for students, researchers and artists to live in each other’s countries, and seek to work together on artificial intelligence and to protect children online.
The speech symbolised the improvement in relations sought by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s centre-left Labour Party, as part of a broader reset of ties with European allies following the rancour over London’s departure from the European Union.
Later on Tuesday evening, King Charles hosted a banquet for the Macrons at Windsor Castle, with 160 guests, including politicians, diplomats and celebrities such as Mick Jagger and Elton John.
Charles used his speech at the opulent state banquet to christen a new era of friendly relations, upgrading the “entente cordiale” – an alliance dating from 1904 that ended centuries of military rivalries – to an “entente amicale”.
“As we dine here in this ancient place, redolent with our shared history, allow me to propose a toast to France and to our new entente. An entente not only past and present, but for the future – and no longer just cordiale, but now amicale,” the king said.
The UK and France marked the three-day visit with an announcement that French nuclear energy utility EDF would invest 1.1 billion pounds ($1.5bn) in a nuclear power project in eastern England.
The two also said France would lend the UK the Bayeux Tapestry, allowing the 11th-century masterpiece to return for the first time in more than 900 years, in exchange for London loaning Paris Anglo-Saxon and Viking treasures.
Politics will take centre stage on Wednesday, when Macron sits down for talks with Starmer on migration, defence and investment.
Despite tensions over post-Brexit ties and how to stop asylum seekers from crossing the English Channel in small boats, the UK and France have been working closely to create a planned military force to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire with Russia.
The two leaders will dial in to a meeting of the coalition on Thursday “to discuss stepping up support for Ukraine and further increasing pressure on Russia”, Starmer’s office confirmed on Monday.
They will speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, according to the French presidency.
Starmer is hoping the UK’s support for Ukraine will help persuade Macron to take a different approach to stopping people smuggling, with London wanting to try out an asylum seekers’ returns deal.
This would involve the UK deporting one asylum seeker to France in exchange for another with a legitimate case to be in the country. A record number of asylum seekers have arrived in the UK on small boats in the first six months of this year. Starmer, whose party is trailing Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party in the polls, is under pressure to find a solution.
France has previously refused to sign such an agreement, saying the UK should negotiate an arrangement with all EU countries.
‘Hospitals are rationing. Ambulances are stalling. Water systems are on the brink,’ UN humanitarian office says.
The United Nations humanitarian office, OCHA, has warned that the fuel crisis in Gaza due to the Israeli blockade has reached a “critical point” and will cause further deaths and suffering in the besieged Palestinian territory.
OCHA said the fuel powering vital functions in Gaza, including water desalination stations and hospitals’ intensive care units, is running out quickly, with “virtually no additional accessible stocks left”.
“Hospitals are rationing. Ambulances are stalling. Water systems are on the brink,” the office said in a statement.
“The deaths this is likely causing could soon increase sharply unless the Israeli authorities allow new fuel in – urgently, regularly and in sufficient quantities.”
Israel has imposed a suffocating siege on Gaza since early March.
Over the past weeks, it has allowed some food into Gaza to be distributed through a United States-backed group at sites where hundreds of aid seekers have been shot dead by Israeli fire.
But fuel has not entered the territory in months.
Senior World Food Programme official Carl Skau also decried the lack of fuel in Gaza.
“The needs are greater than ever, and our capacity to respond has never been more constrained. Famine is spreading, and people are dying trying to find food,” Skau said in a social media post.
“Our teams in Gaza are doing their best to deliver aid and are often caught in the crossfire. We are suffering from shortages of fuel, spare parts and essential communications equipment.”
The director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, said that the situation at the medical centre is alarming due to the lack of fuel supplies.
“We don’t have enough fuel left until morning. If fuel is not available, generators cannot run, and hospitals find it difficult to provide care,” Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera.
“Blood banks, nurseries and oxygen stations are not operating because of a lack of fuel. Patients will be doomed to certain death if fuel is not provided to hospitals.”
The health sector in Gaza has already been pushed to the brink under Israeli bombardment and repeated displacement orders.
Aid workers and health experts have been reporting a rise in preventable diseases in the territory amid the dire humanitarian situation.
On Tuesday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the enclave is seeing an uptick in cases of meningitis, a potentially deadly disease, especially among children.
“The catastrophic conditions in shelters, the severe shortage of drinking water, the spread of sewage, and the accumulation of waste are driving the health situation to further deterioration,” the ministry said.
Meningitis, which causes inflammation around the brain and spinal cord, can be caused by a bacterial infection.
In addition to the humanitarian crisis, Israel is pressing on with its intense bombardment of the territory. Medical sources told Al Jazeera that Israeli attacks killed at least 95 Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday.
Israeli attacks killed dozens of displaced people in and around tents in the al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis and in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp.
UN experts and rights groups have described Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza as a genocide.
United States President Donald Trump has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for a second time in 24 hours to discuss a possible ceasefire deal in Gaza.
The unscheduled talks on Tuesday evening lasted just over an hour, with no media access.
Ahead of the meeting, Trump said he would be speaking with Netanyahu “almost exclusively” about Gaza.
“We gotta get that solved. Gaza is… it’s a tragedy, and he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to,” he said.
The two men had also met for several hours during a dinner at the White House on Monday during Netanyahu’s third visit to the US since the president began his second term on January 20.
Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said the latest meeting was “tightly sealed with very little information coming out”.
“The fact that it was so hermetically sealed, the fact that there has been no clear readout of exactly what was discussed, the fact that the meeting lasted just over an hour before the prime minister returned to his residence – all of it may indicate that there’s some kind of stumbling block, something that is clouding the optimistic position that the two leaders have adopted over the past 24 hours,” Hanna said.
Shortly before the unscheduled meeting, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said the issues keeping Israel and Hamas from agreeing had dropped to one from four, and he hoped to reach a temporary ceasefire agreement this week.
“We are hopeful that by the end of this week, we’ll have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire. Ten live hostages will be released. Nine deceased will be released,” Witkoff told reporters at a meeting of Trump’s Cabinet.
But Netanyahu, meeting with the speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, said Israel’s campaign in the Palestinian enclave was not done and that negotiators are “certainly working” on a ceasefire.
“We have still to finish the job in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy Hamas’s military and government capabilities,” the Israeli leader said.
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Jordan, said Israeli media are reporting that Netanyahu is facing “extreme pressure” to reach a deal on Gaza.
“But still, there’s been no breakthrough,” she said from the Jordanian capital, Amman.
“Israeli media is also talking about a delay in the travel plans of Witkoff to Doha, although earlier in the night, he had sounded very optimistic about possibly reaching a deal. Because according to him, only one issue remained problematic – which is, ‘Where will the Israeli army redeploy to?’” Odeh said.
“Now, this is important, because Israel wants to maintain control over the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. According to the Israeli minister of defence, Israel plans to build a tent city in Rafah, where it will concentrate the population, control who enters, not allow anyone to leave, and then push the population out of Gaza to implement, according to the Israelis, the Trump plan of depopulating Gaza and taking over the enclave,” she added.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed at least 57,575 Palestinians and wounded 136,879 others. Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the war, and nearly half a million people are facing famine within months, according to United Nations estimates.
An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Some 50 captives remain in Gaza, with 20 believed to be alive.
Trump has strongly supported Netanyahu, even wading into domestic Israeli politics by criticising prosecutors over a corruption trial against the Israeli leader on bribery, fraud and breach-of-trust charges, which Netanyahu denies.
In his remarks to reporters at the US Congress, Netanyahu praised Trump, saying that there has never been closer coordination between the US and Israel in his country’s history.
Trump aide says Washington ‘hopeful’ a 60-day truce between Israel and Hamas can be reached by the end of the week.
An aide to United President Donald Trump has suggested a Gaza ceasefire is close, saying Washington hopes to see an agreement finalised by the end of the week.
“We’re in proximity talks now, and we had four issues, and now we’re down to one after two days of proximity talks,” special US envoy Steve Witkoff told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
“So we are hopeful that by the end of this week, we will have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire.”
Witkoff said the deal would see the release of 10 Israeli captives and the bodies of nine. He added that the Trump administration thinks the deal “will lead to a lasting peace in Gaza”.
Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters in Washington, DC, that while Israel “still has to finish the job in Gaza”, negotiators are “certainly working” on a ceasefire.
Trump and Netanyahu dined together on Monday at the White House during the Israeli leader’s third US visit since the president began his second term on January 20.
The two leaders are to meet again later on Tuesday.
“He’s coming over later. We’re going to be talking about, I would say, almost exclusively Gaza. We’ve got to get that solved,” the US president told reporters at a cabinet meeting in the White House on Tuesday.
“It’s a tragedy, and he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to.”
Qatar confirmed on Tuesday that Hamas and Israeli delegations are in Doha to discuss the ceasefire proposal.
“There is a positive engagement right now. The mediation teams – the Qataris and the Egyptians – are working around the clock to make sure that there is some consensus built on the framework towards the talks,” Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 57,500 Palestinians, internally displaced nearly the entire population of the enclave and placed hundreds of thousands of people on the verge of starvation.
United Nations experts and rights group have described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide.
Netanyahu suggested on Monday that the US and Israel are working to ensure the mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza – an idea first proposed by Trump in February.
Israeli officials have been framing the push to remove all Palestinians from Gaza Gaza as an effort to encourage “voluntary migration” from the territory.
“If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave. It shouldn’t be a prison. It should be an open place and give people a free choice,” Netanyahu told reporters.
Rights advocates said the removal of Palestinians from Gaza, which would amount to ethnic cleansing, cannot be considered voluntary.
Prominent legal expert Ralph Wilde said that with the widespread destruction, siege and daily attacks in Gaza, the concept of free choice to stay there or leave “is a lie”.
“It’s forced displacement because that isn’t a choice that is made freely,” Wilde told Al Jazeera.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would meet with President Trump again on Tuesday to discuss a Gaza ceasefire. He also praised Washington’s “unprecedented” military ties with Israel following a meeting with Capitol Hill lawmakers.
Published On 8 Jul 20258 Jul 2025
Top British diplomat David Lammy says the US-backed aid distribution mechanism in Gaza is ‘not doing a good job’.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has decried the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying that the United Kingdom could take further action against Israel if a ceasefire deal to end the war in the Palestinian territory does not materialise.
Speaking to the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Lammy also criticised the new aid distribution mechanism in Gaza via a group backed by the United States and Israel, dubbed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
“We’ve been very clear that we don’t support the aid foundation that has been set up,” Lammy said. “We it’s not doing a good job. Too many people are close to starvation. Too many people have lost their lives. We have led globally on our condemnation the system that has been set up.”
Hundreds of Palestinians have been gunned down by Israeli fire while seeking GHF assistance over the past weeks.
Asked by a legislator whether the British government will take measures against Israel if the “intolerable” situation in Gaza continues, Lammy said: “Yes, we will.”
Last month, the UK joined Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway in sanctioning Israeli government ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich for inciting violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.
Weeks earlier, the UK had also suspended talks for a free trade agreement with Israel over the blockade on Gaza, which has sparked a starvation crisis in the territory. And last year, London halted some arms exports to Israel.
While welcoming the moves, some Palestinian rights supporters have criticised them as symbolic and failing to impose serious consequences on Israel for its apparent abuses of international humanitarian law.
On Tuesday, Lammy condemned settler violence and the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying that they are “flouting international law”.
Pressed on whether the UK’s pressure on Israel has led the Israeli government to alter its behaviour, Lammy acknowledged that the change is “not sufficient”. Still, he defended London’s record, including recent moves against Israel and support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
“I am very, very comfortable that you would be hard pressed to find another G7 partner or another ally across Europe that’s doing more than this government has done,” he said.
Ultimately, Lammy played down the UK’s sway in the Middle East, saying that it is “but one actor”.
The UK is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. It is also a major trade partner of Israel. And according to numerous media reports, the British Royal Air Force has conducted hundreds of surveillance flights over Gaza to help locate Israeli captives in the territory.
The UK has also cracked down on Palestinian rights activists at home, recently banning the advocacy group Palestine Action and arresting dozens of its supporters.
The Labour government in the UK has not recognised Palestine as a state – a move that several European countries have made over the past year.
Lammy said London wants its recognition of Palestine to be part of a concrete push towards the two-state solution, not just a symbolic gesture.
He added that the UK wants to recognise Palestine at a moment that helps shift “the dial against expansion, against violence, against the horrors that we’re seeing in Gaza, and towards the just cause that is the desire for Palestinian statehood”.
But Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Emily Thornberry warned Lammy that with settlement expansion and annexation threats, if the UK continues to delay the decision to recognise Palestine, “there won’t be anything left to recognise”.
“We should recognise a Palestinian state and then work towards ensuring that one happens practically,” Thornberry said. “But if we continue to hold back, it’ll slide through our fingers.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met United States President Donald Trump at the White House, with the two leaders repeating their controversial proposal to forcibly transfer thousands of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip.
Trump and Netanyahu met for dinner in the Blue Room of the White House on Monday as indirect talks in Qatar between Israel and Hamas on US-backed proposals for a 60-day ceasefire to end the 21-month Gaza war appeared to gather some momentum.
Netanyahu told reporters present at the meeting that the US and Israel were working with other countries to give Palestinians a “better future”, suggesting that the residents of Gaza could move to neighbouring nations.
“If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave. It shouldn’t be a prison. It should be an open place and give people a free choice,” Netanyahu said.
“We’re working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realise what they always say, that they wanted to give the Palestinians a better future. I think we’re getting close to finding several countries.”
Trump, who earlier this year caused outrage when he floated his idea of relocating Palestinians and taking over the Strip to turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East”, said there had been “great cooperation” on the matter from “surrounding countries”.
“So something good will happen,” he added.
“This is something the Israelis have been saying for some time, calling it the ‘voluntary migration’ of Palestinians from their homelands. But of course, this has been condemned as ethnic cleansing,” Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said, reporting from Amman, Jordan.
Former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas told Al Jazeera that just because there are ongoing reports and statements about relocating Palestinians in Gaza to other countries, it does not mean that there is a “practical plan”.
“The fact that the Israeli defence minister blurts some ideas out, or even the prime minister, or even the president of the United States, doesn’t mean there is a plan,” he said.
“In early February, Trump spoke about a Palestinian Riviera, and within 36 hours, he changed that from a Riviera for the Palestinians to the Palestinians will be expelled,” he added.
Pinkas explained that amid reports that the Boston Consulting Group, which has been asked to come up with a plan to relocate Palestinians, it “doesn’t mean it’s implementable, it doesn’t mean it’s practical”.
“[It] is a recipe for catastrophe because it ensures that no [post-war] agreement in Gaza is durable,” Pinkas said.
Trump and Netanyahu met as Israeli and Hamas negotiators held a second day of indirect talks in Qatar, seated in different rooms in the same building. Proposals for a 60-day pause in fighting envisage a phased release of Hamas-held captives and Palestinian prisoners, Israeli troop withdrawals from parts of Gaza, and discussions on completely ending the war.
But a sticking point is whether the ceasefire will end the war altogether. Hamas has said it is willing to free all the captives in exchange for all Palestinian prisoners and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu says the war will end once Hamas surrenders, disarms and goes into exile – something the Palestinian group refuses to do.
In advance of Netanyahu’s visit to the US, Trump predicted that a ceasefire deal could be reached this week. But Netanyahu appeared cagey, ruling out a full Palestinian state, saying Israel will “always” keep security control over the Gaza Strip.
Monday’s talks in Qatar ended with no announcements. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, who played an important role in crafting the proposals, is expected to join negotiators in Qatar this week.
Trump and Netanyahu’s discussions came just over two weeks after the former ordered the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites in support of Israeli air strikes, before announcing a ceasefire in the 12-day Israel-Iran war.
During their meeting, Netanyahu gave Trump a letter that he said had been used to nominate the US president for the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump, appearing pleased by the gesture, thanked him.
“So much of this is about optics,” said Al Jazeera’s Phil Lavelle, reporting from Washington, DC. “Of course, the [Israeli] prime minister will be very keen to make sure that this is seen back home as a major success … He is very keen to make sure that he is portrayed as being back in the good favours of Donald Trump.”
Trump has made little secret of the fact that he covets a Nobel, trumpeting recent truces that his administration facilitated between India and Pakistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda.
During the meeting, Trump indicated that Iranian officials have reached out to the US to schedule talks about Iran’s nuclear programme. Negotiations had started in April but were scuppered after Israel launched attacks last month.
“We have scheduled Iran talks, and they … want to talk. They took a big drubbing,” said the US president.
Sitting at the table with Trump, Witkoff said the meeting would be soon, perhaps in a week.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, released on Monday, that he believed Tehran could resolve its differences with Washington through dialogue.
Netanyahu, who also met Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday, is due to meet Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday morning (about 13:30 GMT).
A July 5 CNN article reported on three incidents in Melbourne, Australia: attempted arson at a synagogue, a confrontation at a restaurant and three cars set on fire near a business. The piece was scant on the details of the alleged crimes and the identities of the perpetrators, but it did clarify that the business “has been targeted by pro-Palestine protesters in the past”.
That the author chose to conflate activism in support of the Palestinian cause with violent acts that are low on facts and high on conjecture is indicative of how Western media have come to operate. Media reports are increasingly linking by default acts of aggression to activism they call “pro-Palestinian”.
Here are more examples: Before his name was released, we learned that a gunman shouted, “Free, free Palestine,” in a shooting rampage that killed two Israeli embassy staff members outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, on May 21. Reports linked the suspect to what news outlets described as “pro-Palestinian” advocacy.
When on June 1 an Egyptian national attacked demonstrators voicing support of Israel in Colorado, the media also linked the incident to “pro-Palestinian protests”.
Softly landing on the term “pro-Palestinian” allows reporters to meet editorial standards for brevity. But brevity is not a fixed journalistic value. Accurately informing the public is.
The word “pro-Palestinian” has become political shorthand for a well-worn and misleading coupling: Palestinian advocacy and violence. Stripped of critical context, the term offers news consumers a reductive explanation – a violent act distilled and opaquely linked to “Palestinian” entities as imagined and understood through a narrow and distorted lens.
A failure to engage with contexts is not neutral omission. Rather, it is an affront to knowledge processes and a bow to power structures that govern mainstream journalistic storytelling.
What historical, cultural and religious claims do Palestinians make? Most news consumers in the West are unprepared to answer this question. In a closed information ecology, they rarely encounter these claims in full – or at all.
Like many who have followed the historical arc of all things Palestine or reported on it, I’ve used the term pro-Palestinian myself. It felt functional at the time: concise and seemingly understood.
Now, however, that shorthand misleads. Any word that is prefaced by “pro-” demands honest re-examination. When circumstances shift and new meanings emerge, the hyphenation clanks as anachronistic. We’re in one of those moments – a circumstance that is the epicentre of global opprobrium, humanitarian collapse and spectacular moral failure.
To describe activism and peaceful protests against the genocidal violence in Gaza as “pro-Palestinian” is disparaging. Opposing the strategic starvation of a trapped population is hardly pro-Palestinian. It is pro-humanity.
Is it “pro-Palestinian” to call for the end of violence that has claimed the lives of more than 18,000 children? Is it “pro-Palestinian” to call for the end of starvation that has killed dozens of children and elderly? Is it “pro-Palestinian” to express outrage at Gaza parents forced to carry body parts of their children in plastic bags?
The term “pro-Palestinian” operates within a false linguistic economy. It flattens a grossly unequal reality into a story of competing sides as if an occupied, bombarded and displaced people were an equal side to one of the most advanced armies in the world.
Gaza is not a side. Gaza is, as one UNICEF official put it, a “graveyard for children”. It is a place where journalists are killed for bearing witness, where hospitals are obliterated and universities reduced to rubble, where the international community is failing to uphold minimal standards of human rights.
In an era of impatience with rigour, “pro-Palestinian” is the rhetorical crutch that satisfies the manufactured need for immediate alignment (fandom) without critical thought. It permits bad-faith actors to stigmatise dissent, dismiss moral clarity and delegitimise outrage.
To call Elias Rodriguez, who carried out the shooting in Washington, DC, a “pro-Palestinian” shooter is a framing device that invites readers to interpret words of Palestinian solidarity as potential precursors to violence. It encourages institutions, including universities, to conflate advocacy with extremism and put a chill on free expression on campus.
Obfuscations in the conventions of reportage, euphemism or rhetorical hedging are the last things we need in this catastrophic moment. What’s needed is clarity and precision.
Let us try something radical: Let us say what we mean. When people protest the destruction of lineage and tillage in Gaza, they are not “taking a side” in some abstract pro-and-con debate. They are affirming the value of life. They are rejecting the idea that one people’s suffering must remain invisible for another’s comfort.
If people are advocating for human rights, then say so. If they believe that Palestinian life is worthy of dignity, safety and memory, say so.
And if they are calling for the “liberation” of Palestine and use phrases like “free Palestine” – phrases charged with decades of political, historical and emotional weight – that too deserves clarity and context. Liberation and freedom in most of these calls do not imply violence but a demand for freedom from occupation, siege, starvation, statelessness, and killing and imprisonment with impunity.
Collapsing these diverse expressions into a vague label like “pro-Palestinian” blurs reality and deepens public misunderstanding.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
A 16-month-old Palestinian baby is among a growing number of children in Gaza suffering from meningitis, as overcrowding, poor sanitation, and collapsing healthcare caused by Israel’s war on the enclave drive a surge in cases.
Published On 7 Jul 20257 Jul 2025
Children’s toys were found in the rubble after an Israeli strike on a Gaza clinic killed several people.
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Negotiations resume in Qatar as the Israeli leader is set to hold talks with the US president, who has said a deal could be reached this week.
Israel and Hamas are set to hold indirect talks in Qatar for a second day, aimed at securing a ceasefire and a captive deal in Gaza, ahead of a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United States President Donald Trump in Washington, DC.
The latest round of negotiations on the war in Gaza began on Sunday in Doha, aiming to broker a deal on a truce and the release of captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. The US president has said a deal could be reached this week.
Before departing for the US on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israeli negotiators were given clear instructions to achieve a ceasefire under conditions that Israel has accepted.
“We’ve gotten a lot of the hostages out, but pertaining to the remaining hostages, quite a few of them will be coming out,” he told journalists, adding that his meeting with Trump could “definitely help advance this” deal.
Of the 251 captives taken by Palestinian fighters during the October 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 people the Israeli military says are dead.
Netanyahu had previously said Hamas’s response to a draft US-backed ceasefire proposal, conveyed through Qatari and Egyptian mediators, contained “unacceptable” demands.
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Jordan because Israel has banned the network from reporting in Israel and the occupied West Bank, said Netanyahu “cannot seem to be going against Trump’s wishes”, adding that the Trump-Netanyahu meeting is being set up as a “very important meeting” for Israel’s regional agenda, not just on Gaza.
“There are disagreements within the Israeli cabinet that it will find difficult to adopt, especially on the issues of redeployment and food aid distribution,” she said, stressing that Netanyahu is under pressure both from Trump and his coalition back home.
Trump is expected to meet the Israeli leader around 6:30pm local time (22:30 GMT) on Monday, the White House said, without the usual presence of journalists.
The truce talks have been revived following last month’s 12-day Israeli and US air strikes on Iran.
The US-backed proposal for a 60-day ceasefire envisages a phased release of captives, Israeli troop withdrawals from parts of Gaza and discussions on ending the war entirely.
Concluding the war has been the main sticking point in past rounds of talks, with Hamas demanding a full end to the conflict in return for releasing all captives, and Israel insisting it would fight on until Hamas is dismantled.
Some of Netanyahu’s hardline coalition partners oppose ending the fighting. But, with Israelis having become increasingly weary of the 21-month-old war, his government is expected to back a ceasefire.
Since Hamas’s October 2023 attack and the subsequent Israeli offensive in Gaza, mediators have brokered two temporary halts in the fighting. They have seen captives freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.
Recent efforts to broker a new truce have repeatedly failed, with the primary point of contention being Israel’s rejection of Hamas’s demand for a lasting ceasefire.
Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza has killed more than 57,500 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health authorities, led to a hunger crisis, displaced nearly all the population, and left most of the besieged territory in ruins.
Three-year-old Amr al-Hams lies immobile in his southern Gaza hospital bed with shrapnel embedded in his brain from an Israeli air strike.
Unable to walk or speak, his eyes dart around, searching for his mother, his aunt Nour believes.
Amr’s mother, Inas, was nine months pregnant when she took the family to visit her parents in northern Gaza. That night, their tent was struck. The attack killed his mother, her unborn baby, two of Amr’s siblings and his grandfather.
Amr survived after being rushed to intensive care with a breathing tube. His grief-stricken father is nearly speechless.
Now at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Amr has left intensive care but suffers from severe malnutrition. The fortified milk he requires vanished during Israel’s months-long blockade.
Nour feeds him mashed lentils through a syringe. She sleeps beside him, changes his nappies and comforts him during seizures.
“I tell him his mother will be back soon,” she says. “Other times, I give him a toy. But he cries. I think he misses her.”
Doctors say Amr needs immediate evacuation from the conflict zone. Without specialised care and therapy, his brain injuries will likely cause permanent damage.
“His brain is still developing,” Nour says. “Will he walk again? Speak again? So long as he is in Gaza, there is no recovery.”
“There’s a lot more settler violence than we saw a couple of months ago.”
Human rights activist Andrey X says that attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank are on the rise and that they’ve found a new method to displace Palestinians.
Published On 7 Jul 20257 Jul 2025
Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 82 people as negotiations between Israel and Hamas towards a ceasefire deal begin in Qatar.
On Sunday, at least 39 people were killed in Gaza City alone. A midnight attack on the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in the region also trapped victims under debris.
Witnesses have described apocalyptic scenes as neighbours retrieve body parts, including those of children.
Mahmoud al-Sheikh Salama, a survivor of one strike, said it took place at 2am (23:00 GMT on Saturday) while he was sleeping.
“We heard a loud explosion and shortly after, another one. We rushed over… and people were trapped under the rubble – four families, a large number of residents,” he told Al Jazeera.
“We tried to search for survivors and managed to pull out two people alive from under the debris after about three hours of struggle and breaking through. We got two out alive – the rest were martyred and are still trapped.”
Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said Israel’s current military escalation in Gaza is “a chilling and brutal reminder” of the opening weeks of the war because of the intensity and scale of each attack.
“In the span of two hours, we have counted at least seven air strikes across the Gaza Strip,” he said.
“A local community kitchen in the northern part of Deir el-Balah was also struck and three people were killed, including the main operator behind it.”
Besides Gaza City, medical sources at hospitals told Al Jazeera that at least nine Palestinians were killed by Israeli army fire near aid distribution centres operated by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) since the morning.
Five were killed near the Netzarim Corridor, located just south of Gaza City, which splits the Strip down the middle. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Israeli forces killed at least 743 Palestinians in attacks at sites run by the GHF since late May.
The GHF has drawn widespread criticism, with multiple reports that its contractors, as well as Israeli forces, have opened fire on desperate aid seekers. Two American contractors were wounded with non-life-threatening injuries on Saturday during an attack on an aid site.
“The attack – which preliminary information indicates was carried out by two assailants who threw two grenades at the Americans – occurred at the conclusion of an otherwise successful distribution in which thousands of Gazans safely received food,” the GHF said.
The United States on Saturday blamed Hamas for the attack. Gaza’s Government Media Office rejected these accusations.
“We categorically and unequivocally reject the claims issued by the US State Department alleging that the Palestinian resistance threw explosives at American personnel operating at sites run by the so-called ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – GHF,’” the media office said in a statement.
Meanwhile, indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas towards a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip have begun in Qatar.
“Negotiations are about implementation mechanisms and hostage exchange, and positions are being exchanged through mediators,” an unnamed official told the AFP news agency.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday said that there is “a good chance” a Gaza captive release and ceasefire deal could be reached with Hamas this week, “as they’re close”.
Trump told reporters such a deal meant “quite a few hostages” could be released. Trump is set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday at the White House.
The US president said last week that Israel has agreed to the conditions for a 60-day ceasefire, and negotiators could meet to carve out a path to finally end Israel’s nearly 21-month war on Gaza.
On Friday, Hamas said it responded to a US-backed Gaza ceasefire proposal in a “positive spirit”.
On Sunday, before boarding his flight to Washington, DC, Netanyahu also said he believed his discussions with Trump on Monday would help advance talks on a Gaza deal.
“I believe the discussion with President Trump can certainly help advance these results,” he said, adding that he is determined to ensure the return of captives held in Gaza and remove the threat of Hamas to Israel.
Analysts, however, say that Netanyahu wants to continue the retaliatory war on Gaza until he can gain enough political leverage to dismiss the court cases against him in Israel and build enough popular support to remain the country’s leader.
Netanyahu is on trial for corruption and is still widely blamed in Israeli society for the security failures that led to Hamas’s deadly attack on October 7, 2023.
“Israel and Netanyahu are not interested in reaching a ceasefire,” Adnan Hayajneh, a professor of international relations at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera, adding that there is a “very slim chance” of a ceasefire.
“What Israel wants is clear… a land without a people,” Hayajneh said.
“So, Palestinians are given three choices… starve to death… get killed… [or] leave the land. But Palestinians have so far proven they will not leave the land, no matter what.”
BRICS countries have been in disagreement over how strongly to denounce Israel’s bombing of Iran and its actions in Gaza.
Brazil’s president says the world must act to stop what he describes as an Israeli “genocide” in Gaza as leaders from 11 emerging BRICS nations gathered in Rio de Janeiro.
“We cannot remain indifferent to the genocide carried out by Israel in Gaza, the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians and the use of hunger as a weapon of war,” President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told leaders from China, India and other nations on Sunday.
His comments came as Gaza truce talks between Israel and Hamas resumed in Doha and as pressure mounted to end the 21-month war, which began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel.
Lula said “absolutely nothing could justify the terrorist actions” of Hamas on that day, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly Israeli civilians.
But he also offered fierce criticism of Israel’s subsequent actions. Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 57,418 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians.
BRICS countries have been in disagreement over how strongly to denounce Israel’s bombing of Iran and its actions in Gaza.
Leaders in Rio called for reform of traditional Western institutions while presenting BRICS as a defender of multilateral diplomacy in an increasingly fractured world.
With forums such as the G7 and G20 groups of major economies hamstrung by divisions and the disruptive America First approach of United States President Donald Trump, expansion of BRICS has opened new space for diplomatic coordination.
In his opening remarks, Lula drew a parallel with the Cold War’s Non-Aligned Movement, a group of developing nations that resisted formally joining either side of a polarised global order.
“BRICS is the heir to the Non-Aligned Movement,” Lula told leaders. “With multilateralism under attack, our autonomy is in check once again.”
BRICS nations now represent more than half the world’s population and 40 percent of its economic output.
Leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and China gathered for the its first summit in 2009. The bloc later added South Africa and last year included Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as members. This is the first summit of leaders to include Indonesia.
Some leaders were missing from this year’s summit, however. Chinese President Xi Jinping chose to send his prime minister in his place. Russian President Vladimir Putin is attending online because of a warrant issued for his arrest by the International Criminal Court.
Still, several heads of state were gathering for discussions at Rio’s Museum of Modern Art on Sunday and Monday, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
More than 30 nations have expressed interest in participating in BRICS, either as full members or partners.