[🇧🇩] Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?

[Saif]

Israel fire near aid centre in Gaza kills 31

The Gaza civil defence agency said Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting to enter a US-backed food distribution centre on Wednesday, killing 31 and wounding ‘about 200’...

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Israel fire near aid centre in Gaza kills 31
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 12 June, 2025, 01:07

The Gaza civil defence agency said Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting to enter a US-backed food distribution centre on Wednesday, killing 31 and wounding ‘about 200’.

‘We transported at least 31 martyrs and about 200 wounded as a result of Israeli tank and drone fire on thousands of citizens on their way to receive food from the American aid centre,’ civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

Restrictions imposed on media in the Gaza Strip and the difficulties of access on the ground mean AFP is not able to independently verify the death tolls announced by the civil defence agency.

Bassal said thousands of Palestinians had been gathering since 2:00am (2300 GMT Tuesday) in the hope of reaching the US and Israeli-backed food distribution centre.

‘Israeli tanks fired several times, then at around 5:30am intensified their fire, coinciding with heavy fire from drones targeting civilians,’ he said.

Mohammad Abu Salima, head of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, said it had received the bodies of 24 people killed while waiting to enter the aid centre and was treating 96 who had been wounded.

Al-Awda hospital, in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, said in a statement that it had received seven bodies and was treating 112 people who had been wounded in the same incident.

There have been a series of deadly shootings since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation first opened aid distribution points in the Palestinian territory on May 27, as Israel faced mounting international condemnation over the humanitarian conditions.

Israel recently allowed some deliveries to resume after barring them for more than two months and began working with the newly formed, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

But UN agencies and other aid organisations have criticised the GHF and the United Nations refuses to work with it, citing concerns over its practices and neutrality.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday that ‘Israeli military operations have intensified in recent days, with mass casualties reported’.

The Hamas attack that triggered the war in October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says at least 54,981 people, the majority of them civilians, have been killed in the territory since the start of the war. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.

Out of 251 people taken hostage during the Hamas attack, 54 are still held in Gaza including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli ‘starvation’ of Gaza a ‘war crime’

Israel’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and its targeting of aid distribution points is causing civilians to starve which constitutes a war crime, Sweden’s foreign minister said Thursday.

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Israeli ‘starvation’ of Gaza a ‘war crime’
Agence France-Presse . Stockholm 12 June, 2025, 22:30

Women cry as they mourn the death of a loved one killed during overnight Israeli bombardment on Thursday, at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, amid the on-going war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. | AFP photo

Israel’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and its targeting of aid distribution points is causing civilians to starve which constitutes a war crime, Sweden’s foreign minister said Thursday.

In early June, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said deadly attacks on civilians around aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip constituted ‘a war crime’, while several rights groups including Amnesty International have accused Israel of genocide.

Israel has vehemently rejected that term.

‘To use starvation of civilians as a method of war is a war crime. Life-saving humanitarian help must never be politicised or militarised,’ Maria Malmer Stenergard said at a press conference.

‘There are strong indications right now that Israel is not living up to its commitments under international humanitarian law,’ she said.

‘It is crucial that food, water and medicine swiftly reach the civilian population, many of whom are women and children living under wholly inhumane conditions,’ she said.

Sweden announced in December 2024 it was halting funding to the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA after Israel banned the organisation, accusing it of providing cover for Hamas militants.

Swedish international development minister Benjamin Dousa told Thursday’s press conference that Stockholm was now channelling aid through other UN organisations, and was ‘the fifth-biggest donor in the world ... (and) the second-largest donor in the EU to the humanitarian aid response in Gaza’.

The country’s humanitarian aid to Gaza since the start of the war in October 2023 currently amounts to more than 1 billion kronor ($105 million), while funding earmarked for Gaza for 2025 totals 800 million kronor, he said.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority said internet and fixed-line communication services were down in Gaza on Thursday following an attack on the territory’s last fibre optic cable it blamed on Israel.

‘All internet and fixed-line communication services in the Gaza Strip have been cut following the targeting of the last remaining main fibre optic line in Gaza,’ the PA’s telecommunications ministry said in a statement, accusing Israel of attempting to cut Gaza off from the world.

‘The southern and central Gaza Strip have now joined Gaza City and the northern part of the Strip in experiencing complete isolation for the second consecutive day,’ the ministry said in a statement.

It added that its maintenance and repair teams had been unable to safely access the sites where damage occurred to the fibre optic cable.

‘The Israeli occupation continues to prevent technical teams from repairing the cables that were cut yesterday’, it said, adding that Israeli authorities had prevented repairs to other telecommunication lines in Gaza ‘for weeks and months’.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said the communication lines were ‘directly targeted by occupation fores’.

It said the internet outage was hindering its emergency services by impeding communication with first responder teams in the field.

‘The emergency operations room is also struggling to coordinate with other organisations to respond to humanitarian cases.’

Maysa Monayer, spokeswoman for the Palestinian communication ministry, told AFP that ‘mobile calls are still available with very limited capacity’ in Gaza for the time being.

Now in its 21st month, the war in Gaza has caused massive damage to infrastructure across the Palestinian territory, including water mains, power lines and roads.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli fire kills 22 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed 22 people across the Palestinian territory on Thursday, including 16 who were waiting to collect aid.

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Israeli fire kills 22 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 13 June, 2025, 00:45

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed 22 people across the Palestinian territory on Thursday, including 16 who were waiting to collect aid.

The distribution of food and basic supplies in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip has become increasingly fraught and perilous, exacerbating the territory’s deep hunger crisis.

Civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir said that the Al-Awda Hospital received 10 dead and around 200 wounded, including women and children, ‘after Israeli drones dropped multiple bombs on gatherings of civilians near an aid distribution point around the Netzarim checkpoint in central Gaza’.

He said that Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital received six dead following Israeli attacks on aid queues near Netzarim and in the Al-Sudaniya area in northwestern Gaza.

The Israeli army said it was looking into the reports when asked for comment by AFP.

Restrictions imposed on media in the Gaza Strip and the difficulties of access on the ground mean AFP is not able to independently verify the death tolls announced by the civil defence agency.

Mughayyir said another six people were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza.

The US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation accused Palestinian militant group Hamas of attacking aid workers en route to a distribution centre on Wednesday, saying at least five people were killed.

GHF said a bus carrying its staff to a distribution site near the southern city of Khan Yunis was ‘brutally attacked by Hamas’ around 10:00pm (1900 GMT).

In an email to AFP, the group added that all five of the people killed were Palestinian aid workers for GHF.

In a post on X, Israel’s foreign ministry accused Hamas of ‘weaponising suffering in Gaza — denying food, targeting lifesavers and forsaking its own people’.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed while trying to reach GHF distribution points since they began operating in late May, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.​

 

[Saif]

While the world marches for Gaza, the West remains silent

This silence is not accidental. It is carefully engineered

www.thedailystar.net

While the world marches for Gaza, the West remains silent

I've been trying to follow the Global March to Gaza for over a month now. The only glimpses I've found come from Al Jazeera, Turkey's Anadolu Ajansı, and a handful of Palestinian news portals.

But the march is happening -- right now -- and most of the Western world either doesn't seem to notice or is blatantly choosing not to. It's most likely the latter.

Across every inhabited continent, thousands are mobilising: marching, chanting, risking arrest, demanding justice for Gaza. Among them are doctors and teachers, imams and priests, students and elders -- united in historic solidarity.

And yet, if you turned on your television this morning, scrolled through your feed, or flipped through a newspaper, you'd barely know it was happening.

This silence is not accidental. It is carefully engineered.

Picture this: a convoy of nine buses carrying nearly a thousand activists, backed by unions, bar associations and rights groups, departing Tunis and crossing into Libya -- en route to Egypt's Rafah crossing. They're supported by Tunisian labour leaders and legal defenders, standing in defiance of a siege in what the UN calls "the hungriest place on Earth". Even yesterday, Swiss activists set out for Egypt.

Their goal is symbolic and profound: to break the blockade, deliver aid, bear witness to genocide, and pressure world leaders into action -- much like the Madleen crew, whose mission was intercepted just days ago.

The convoy is expected to arrive in Cairo today. From there, they plan to march through Sinai, traverse El Arish, and reach Rafah -- even while knowing Egypt may deny them entry and Israeli forces await at the border.

This is a truly global movement. Activists from 50 countries are converging in Cairo under banners like the Palestinian Youth Movement, Codepink, and Jewish Voice for Labour -- with support from 150 organisations across 31 nations. Hundreds more are joining from Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Mauritania. Some will come by land, others by sea.

On the Mediterranean, the aid ship Madleen, bound for Gaza with humanitarian supplies and carrying Greta Thunberg, a French MEP, a journalist and many more, was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters. All passengers were detained -- some later deported, others imprisoned in Israel. The act drew international condemnation -- from France, Spain and Turkey.

The stakes could not be higher. Gaza has been under siege for more than 20 months. A genocidal war has killed over 54,900 Palestinians and injured more than 126,000. Aid distribution sites have become death zones -- Israeli forces have killed over 224 Palestinians gathering food since May 27 alone, wounding nearly 2,000. Schools lie in ruins, hospitals are bombed out, water is scarce. Hunger is weaponised. Gaza is collapsing.

And still, the Western media says almost nothing.

This diverse, global act of civilian resistance doesn't fit the dominant narrative where Palestine is framed as fringe insurgency, Israel as self-defence. To acknowledge thousands marching peacefully against genocide would dismantle that fiction. So, the silence holds -- no live feeds, no front pages, no analysis. Just vacuum. A sickening and deliberate vacuum.

In fact, over 100 BBC employees have allegedly accused the British broadcaster of pro-Israel bias in its coverage of the Gaza war. The claim was made in an open letter sent to BBC director Tim Davie and signed by more than 230 figures in the UK's media industry and other sectors, who said the public broadcaster has failed to provide "fair and accurate" coverage of the conflict.

The letter, first seen by The Independent, said the BBC must "recommit to fairness, accuracy and impartiality".

Behind that vacuum stands the United States -- the world's most powerful enabler of this violence. Washington sends $3.8 billion in unconditioned military aid to Israel each year. Its vetoes at the UN Security Council block ceasefires and investigations. Its diplomatic shield allows siege, bombing, displacement and starvation to continue with impunity.

Every bomb dropped, every sniper's bullet, every bulldozed home carries the imprint of American complicity.

And because the US sits at the centre of global media power, it shapes narratives at will. Palestinian suffering is erased. Israeli violence is sanitised. Headlines mimic government talking points, not witness testimony. What you see is not journalism; it's narrative warfare.

But silence cannot contain solidarity.

The people are marching -- they are acting how they can. And you can too, in your own way. Share livestreams; amplify images; write to political leaders and demand an end to arms transfers, call for ceasefire and UN investigations, insist on open humanitarian corridors; organise vigils, teach-ins, divestment campaigns, legal actions; support grassroots Palestinian media and aid organisations.

Don't ask, "How do I go to Gaza?" or "Can I adopt a Palestinian child?" Recognise your abilities, your logistics -- and direct your emotions through logic. We all have roles to play -- and every single act matters.

Because the choice is clear: in the face of genocide and silence, neutrality is not peace. It is violence. Standing by means siding with power. But going over your own head will also be of no help. Extend help within your means -- but extend it anyhow.

Make no mistake: this march, and every other act in support of the Palestinian people at this point in time, is not just mere protest.

All of this combined has now become a moral reckoning. This defines history.

When people touch the cables of silence, they spark cracks. When voices break through the cover-up, truth begins to seep.

If the world's media won't show the march, we must. If the powerful won't act, we must. If neutrality is not an option, then action becomes an obligation.

The march is underway. So is history.

We can walk with it or stay silent and be left behind. But history remembers voices, not voids.

Let them blackout the outlets. Let them scrub the headlines.

They cannot erase the footsteps. They cannot mute the movement.

The world is walking. And they -- nay, none of us -- will stop.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli fire kills 35 people in Gaza, many at aid site

The Gaza health ministry said on Saturday that at least 274 people have so far been killed, and more than 2,000 wounded.

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Israeli fire kills 35 people in Gaza, many at aid site
Reuters Cairo
Published: 14 Jun 2025, 20: 13

Military vehicles manoeuvre in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, 11 June, 2025. Reuters

Israeli fire and airstrikes killed at least 35 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, most of them near an aid distribution site operated by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, local health authorities said.

Medics at Al-Awda and Al-Aqsa Hospitals in central Gaza areas, where most of the casualties were moved to, said at least 15 people were killed as they tried to approach the GHF aid distribution site near the Netzarim corridor.

The rest were killed in separate attacks across the enclave, they added. There has been no immediate comment by the Israeli military or the GHF on Saturday's incidents.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral.

The Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday that at least 274 people have so far been killed, and more than 2,000 wounded, near aid distribution sites since the GHF began operations in Gaza.

Hamas, which denies Israeli charges that it steals aid, accused Israel of "employing hunger as a weapon of war and turning aid distribution sites into traps of mass deaths of innocent civilians."

Later on Saturday, health officials at Shifa Hospital in Gaza said Israeli fire killed at least 12 Palestinians, who gathered to wait for aid trucks along the coastal road north of the strip, taking Saturday's death toll to at least 35.

The Israeli military ordered residents of Khan Younis and the nearby towns of Abassan and Bani Suhaila in the southern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and head west towards the so-called humanitarian zone, saying it would forcefully work against "terror organisations" in the area.

The war in Gaza erupted 20 months ago after Hamas-led militants raided Israel and took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on 7 October, 2023, Israel's single deadliest day.

Israel's military campaign since has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the densely populated strip, which is home to more than two million people. Most of the population is displaced, and malnutrition is widespread.

Despite efforts by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar to restore a ceasefire in Gaza, neither Israel nor Hamas has shown willingness to back down on core demands, with each side blaming the other for the failure to reach a deal.​

 

[Saif]

Tens of thousands protest in Netherlands over Israel's actions in Gaza

Tens of thousands of protesters, including families with children, gathered in the Netherlands on Sunday to oppose Israel's siege of Gaza and the Dutch government's policy on the war. The second major rally in a month drew an estimated 150,000 people to The Hague, according to organisers. Particip

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Tens of thousands protest in Netherlands over Israel's actions in Gaza

REUTERS
Published :
Jun 15, 2025 21:40
Updated :
Jun 15, 2025 21:40

The body of a Palestinian is transported on a car as mourners attend the funeral of Palestinians who were killed, according to medics, in Israeli fire, at Al-Shifa hospital, in Gaza City, Jun 12, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Tens of thousands of protesters, including families with children, gathered in the Netherlands on Sunday to oppose Israel's siege of Gaza and the Dutch government's policy on the war.

The second major rally in a month drew an estimated 150,000 people to The Hague, according to organisers. Participants dressed in red to create a "red line" against ongoing Israel attacks and alleged war crimes against Palestinians.

Demonstrators sang, held speeches and marched past the International Court of Justice, which is hearing a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide. Last year the court ordered Israel to halt a military assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah and allow access for humanitarian aid.

Israel rejects allegations of war crimes and genocide, and says its campaign is in self defence, targeting Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The war in Gaza began 20 months ago after Hamas-led militants raided Israel and took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on Oct 7, 2023.

Israel's military campaign since has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the densely populated strip, which is home to more than two million people. Most of the population is displaced, and malnutrition is widespread.

In May, now caretaker Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp asked the European Union to reconsider cooperation agreements with Israel. Demonstrators on Sunday called for the caretaker government to speak out against what they said were ongoing violations of international law by Israel.

The Dutch government, which collapsed on Jun 3, has so far refrained from outright criticism of Israel. Anti-Muslim populist Geert Wilders, whose far right party led the last government, has repeatedly voiced unwavering support for Israel.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli fire kills 12 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed at least 12 people on Saturday, including eight who had gathered near aid distribution sites in the Palestinian territory suffering severe food shortages.

www.newagebd.net

Israeli fire kills 12 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 22 June, 2025, 00:18

File photo

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed at least 12 people on Saturday, including eight who had gathered near aid distribution sites in the Palestinian territory suffering severe food shortages.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that three people were killed by gunfire from Israeli forces while waiting to collect aid in the southern Gaza Strip.

In a separate incident, Bassal said five people were killed in a central area known as the Netzarim corridor, where thousands of Palestinians have gathered daily in the hope of receiving food rations.

The Israeli army told AFP it was ‘looking into’ both incidents, which according to the civil defence agency occurred near distribution centres run by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Its operations began at the end of May—when Israel eased a total aid blockade that lasted more than two months—but have been marred by chaotic scenes and neutrality concerns.

UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the foundation over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said on Saturday that 450 people had been killed and 3,466 others injured while seeking aid in near-daily incidents since late May.

The Israeli blockade imposed in early March amid an impasse in truce negotiations had produced famine-like conditions across Gaza, according to rights groups.

Israel’s military has pressed its operations across Gaza more than 20 months since an unprecedented Hamas attack triggered the devastating war, and even as attention has shifted to the war with Iran since June 13.

Bassal told AFP that three people were killed on Saturday in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City in the north, and one more in another strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis.

Israeli forces also demolished more than 10 houses in Gaza City ‘by detonating them with explosives’, he added.

Israeli restrictions on media in the Gaza Strip and difficulties in accessing some areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers and authorities.

Earlier this week, the UN’s World Health Organization warned that Gaza’s health system was at a ‘breaking point’, pleading for fuel to be allowed into the territory to keep its remaining hospitals running.

The Hamas attack in October 2023 that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 55,908 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry. The UN considers these figures reliable.​

 

[Saif]

21 killed in Gaza as UN slams US-backed aid system

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed another 21 people waiting for aid in the Palestinian territory on Tuesday, as rights groups and UN agencies slammed the US-backed system for distributing food there...

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21 killed in Gaza as UN slams US-backed aid system
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 25 June, 2025, 00:06

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed another 21 people waiting for aid in the Palestinian territory on Tuesday, as rights groups and UN agencies slammed the US-backed system for distributing food there.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that 21 people were killed and around 150 wounded ‘as a result of the Israeli occupation forces’ targeting of gatherings of citizens waiting for aid in the central Gaza Strip with bullets and tank shells’ in the early hours of Tuesday.

Footage from an AFP journalist showed wounded residents carried to a nearby hospital, with some appearing to be unconscious and pale.

‘How long will this situation go on? How long will people have to endure this? We want a solution for these victims who are dying,’ Rabhi al-Qassas, an eyewitness, said.

The Israeli military later said that a gathering overnight had been identified in an area ‘adjacent’ to its troops in the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza, where the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid group is known to hand out food.

It said reports of individuals injured by military fire in the area were ‘under review’.

Crowds of Palestinians gather near the Netzarim corridor every night in the hope of receiving rations, with the Gaza population of more than two million suffering famine-like conditions after an Israeli blockade, according to rights groups.

GHF is a privately-run US- and Israeli-backed organisation brought into Gaza at the end of May to replace United Nations-run aid operations.

As news of the latest incident broke, the UN condemned the ‘weaponisation of food’ in Gaza as a war crime and urged Israel’s military to ‘stop shooting at people trying to get food’.

‘Israel’s militarised humanitarian assistance mechanism is in contradiction with international standards on aid distribution,’ the UN human rights office said in written notes provided before a briefing.

UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with GHF over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.

The International Committee of the Red Cross announced Tuesday that one of its workers had been killed in the Gaza Strip — the fifth since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

‘Mahmoud Barakeh, who worked supporting logistics at the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah, was killed on Sunday,’ the ICRC said in a statement, adding that he was killed on his way home.

According to figures issued on Saturday by the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, at least 450 people have been killed and nearly 3,500 injured by Israeli fire while seeking aid since late May.

Many of those have been near sites operated by the GHF, according to rescuers, but GHF says some deadly incidents have occurred near UN convoys.

On Monday, more than a dozen human rights organisations called on GHF to cease its operations, warning of possible complicity in war crimes.

‘This new model of privatised, militarised aid distribution constitutes a radical and dangerous shift away from established international humanitarian relief operations,’ the 15 organisations said in an open letter.

Over the weekend, Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN humanitarian office in the Palestinian territories, denounced ‘a chilling pattern of Israeli forces opening fire on crowds gathering to get food’.

Bassal added on Tuesday that five people were killed and several injured in an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in Gaza City at dawn.

Israeli restrictions on media in the Gaza Strip and difficulties in accessing some areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers and authorities in the Palestinian territory.

Israel’s opposition leader called for an end to the war in Gaza on Tuesday, after Israel announced it had agreed to a ceasefire with Iran after 12 days of war.

‘And now Gaza. It’s time to finish it there too. Bring back the hostages, end the war,’ Yair Lapid wrote on X.

The October 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 55,908 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry. The UN considers these figures reliable.​

 

[Saif]

Israel forces kill 40 in Gaza

Israeli forces killed at least 40 Palestinians in Gaza and ordered new evacuations yesterday, local medics and residents said, in further bloodshed shortly after Israel and Iran reached a ceasefire to end a 12-day air war.

www.thedailystar.net

Israel forces kill 40 in Gaza
19 of them killed while seeking food aid at Israeli-backed humanitarian hub

Mourners react during the funeral of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire while attempting to receive aid in central Gaza, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, yesterday. Photo: AFP
​

• Israel orders new evacuations in Gaza, say residents​
• New aid delivery mechanism is 'a death trap': UN​
• Qatar's PM said he is working on resuming truce talks​

Israeli forces killed at least 40 Palestinians in Gaza and ordered new evacuations yesterday, local medics and residents said, in further bloodshed shortly after Israel and Iran reached a ceasefire to end a 12-day air war.

The Israel-Iran deal announced by US President Donald Trump raised hopes among Palestinians of an end to over 20 months of war in Gaza that has widely demolished the territory and displaced most residents, with malnutrition widespread.

A plume of smoke billows in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip during an Israel strike on June 19, 2025. Photo: AFP

"Enough! The whole universe has let us down. (Iran-backed Lebanese group) Hezbollah reached a deal without Gaza, and now Iran has done the same," said Adel Farouk, 62, from Gaza City. "We hope Gaza is next," he told Reuters via a chat app.

Mediator Qatar's said yesterday it was working on resuming Gaza ceasefire talks in days, urging Israel not to exploit a truce with Iran to "unleash everything it wants to unleash" on the blockaded strip.

But deadly violence continued with little respite.

Marwan Abu Naser, of the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in central Gaza, said it had received 19 dead and 146 injured from crowds who tried to reach a nearby aid distribution centre of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Abu Naser told Reuters the casualties resulted from gunfire.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations' Palestinian aid agency UNRWA, told reporters in Berlin yesterday that the new mechanism was an "abomination" and "a death trap".

Israel's military said that a gathering overnight was identified adjacent to forces operating in Gaza's central Netzarim Corridor, and it was reviewing reports of casualties.

Responding to a Reuters request for comment, the GHF said in an e-mail that it had not heard of any violent incident near their aid site, which it said was located several kilometres south of the Netzarim Corridor.

UN aid trucks entering Gaza also use area roads and Palestinians have in the past few days reported killings of people by Israeli fire as they waited at roadsides to grab bags of flour from the trucks.

Israel has been channelling much of the aid it lets into Gaza through the GHF, which operates a handful of distribution sites in areas guarded by Israeli forces.

The United Nations rejects the GHF delivery system as inadequate, dangerous, and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules. Israel says it is needed to prevent the Hamas it is fighting from diverting aid deliveries. The Palestinian group denies doing so.

Separately, 10 other people were killed by an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City, taking yesterday's death toll to at least 29, medics said.

Israel says Hamas use built-up residential areas for operating cover. Hamas denies this.

Palestinians said they wished the Israel-Iran ceasefire announced by Trump had applied to Gaza.

Adding to their frustration, the Israeli military dropped leaflets over several areas in north Gaza ordering residents to leave their homes and head towards the south, in what appeared to herald renewed Israeli military strikes against Hamas.

"Coming back to combat areas represents a risk to your lives," the army statement said.

Sources close to Hamas told Reuters there had been some new efforts to resume ceasefire talks with Israel. They said Hamas was open to discussing any offers that would "end the war and secure Israel's withdrawal from Gaza". But these echoed longstanding Hamas conditions that Israel has always rejected.​

 

[Saif]

Trump sees ‘progress’ on Gaza ceasefire

US president Donald Trump said on Wednesday that ‘great progress’ was being made to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza as a new ceasefire push began more than 20 months since the start of the conflict...

www.newagebd.net

Trump sees ‘progress’ on Gaza ceasefire
7 Israeli soldiers, 20 killed in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem 25 June, 2025, 18:09

Palestinian children queue at a food distribution point in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, on June 23, 2025. | AFP photo

US president Donald Trump said on Wednesday that ‘great progress’ was being made to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza as a new ceasefire push began more than 20 months since the start of the conflict.

‘I think great progress is being made on Gaza,’ Trump told reporters ahead of a NATO summit in the Netherlands, adding that his special envoy Steve Witkoff had told him ‘Gaza is very close.’

He linked his optimism about imminent ‘very good news’ for the Gaza Strip to a ceasefire agreed on Tuesday between Israel and Hamas backer Iran to end their 12-day war.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also suggested that Israel’s blitz of Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities, as well as its security forces linked to overseas militant groups, could help end the Gaza conflict.

Netanyahu faces growing calls from opposition politicians, relatives of hostages being held in Gaza and even members of his ruling coalition to bring an end to the fighting, triggered by Palestinian group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.

In one of the war’s deadliest incidents for the Israeli army, it said seven of its soldiers were killed on Tuesday in southern Gaza.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Wednesday that Israeli fire killed at least another 20 people, including six who were waiting for aid.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that a crowd of aid-seekers was hit by Israeli ‘bullets and tank shells’ in an area of central Gaza where Palestinians have gathered each night in the hope of collecting rations.

Key mediator Qatar announced Tuesday that it would launch a new push for a ceasefire, with Hamas on Wednesday saying talks had ‘intensified’.

‘Our communications with the brother mediators in Egypt and Qatar have not stopped and have intensified in recent hours,’ Hamas official Taher al-Nunu said.

He cautioned, however, that the group had ‘not yet received any new proposals’ to end the war.

The Israeli government declined to comment on any new ceasefire talks beyond saying that efforts to return Israeli hostages in Gaza were on-going ‘on the battlefield and via negotiations’.

Israel sent forces into Gaza to root out Iran-linked Hamas and rescue hostages after the Hamas attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 56,156 people, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.

The latest Israeli military losses led to rare criticism of the war effort by the leader of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, a partner in Netanyahu’s coalition government.

‘I still don’t understand why we are fighting there. Soldiers are getting killed all the time,’ lawmaker Moshe Gafni told a hearing in the Israeli parliament on Wednesday.

The slain soldiers were from the Israeli combat engineering corps and were conducting a reconnaissance mission in the Khan Yunis area in southern Gaza when their vehicle was targeted with an explosive device, according to a military statement.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main group representing relatives of those held in Gaza, endorsed Gafni’s criticism of the war.

‘On this difficult morning, Gafni tells it like it is... The war in Gaza has run its course, it is being conducted with no clear purpose and no concrete plan,’ the group said in a statement.

Of the 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the Hamas attack, 49 are still held in Gaza including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

Rights groups say Gaza and its population of more than two million face famine-like conditions due to Israeli restrictions, with near-daily deaths of people queuing for food aid.

The privately run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was brought into the Palestinian territory at the end of May but its operations have been marred by chaotic scenes, deaths and neutrality concerns.

The GHF has denied responsibility for deaths near its aid points.

The Gaza health ministry says that since late May, nearly 550 people have been killed near aid centres while seeking scarce supplies.

The civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed 46 people waiting for aid on Tuesday.​