June 25, 2024 3:07 PM

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 24 in Gaza City, say Gaza officials

Israeli forces killed at least 24 Palestinians in three separate airstrikes early on Tuesday on Gaza City and the dead included a sister of Ismail Haniyeh, the chief of the militant Islamist Hamas group, Gaza health officials and medics said. Israeli tanks also pressed deeper into western areas of Rafah in the south of the enclave overnight, blowing up homes, residents said. Two of the Israeli airstrikes hit two schools in Gaza City, killing at least 14 people, medics said. Another strike on a...

June 24, 2024 11:42 PM

UNRWA is sued by Israeli victims of Oct. 7 Hamas attack

The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency was sued on Monday by dozens of Israelis who accused it of aiding and abetting the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. In a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the plaintiffs said the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) spent more than a decade helping Hamas build what they called the "terror infrastructure" and personnel needed for the attack. The plaintiffs are seeking unspecifi...

June 21, 2024 4:51 PM

Israeli forces step up bombardment across Gaza, amid fierce fighting

Israeli forces pounded Rafah and other areas across the Gaza Strip and engaged in close-quarter combat with fighters led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, residents and Israel's military said. Residents said the Israelis appeared to by trying to complete their capture of Rafah, the city on the enclave's southern edge that has been the focus of an Israeli assault since early May. Tanks were forcing their way into the western and northern parts of the city, having already captured the east, s...

June 19, 2024 7:19 PM

Israeli tanks push deeper into Rafah, forcing people to flee again

Israeli tanks backed by warplanes and drones advanced deeper into the western part of the Gaza Strip city of Rafah on Wednesday, killing eight people, according to residents and Palestinian medics. Residents said the tanks moved into five neighborhoods after midnight. Heavy shelling and gunfire hit the tents of displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area, further to the west of the coastal enclave, they said. Some eight months into the war, there has been no sign of let up in the fighting as effo...

June 18, 2024 4:08 PM

Israeli forces deepen Rafah invasion, kill 17 in central camps

Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday killed at least 17 Palestinians in two of the Gaza Strip's historic refugee camps and Israeli tanks pushed deeper into the enclave's southern city of Rafah, residents and medics said. Residents reported heavy bombardments from tanks and planes in several areas of Rafah, where more than a million people had taken refuge before May. Most of the population has fled northwards since then as Israeli forces invaded the city. "Rafah is being bombed without any interventi...

June 18, 2024 10:01 AM

Netanyahu disbands war cabinet as pressure grows on Israel’s northern border

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved the six-member war cabinet, an Israeli official said on Monday, in a widely expected move following the departure from government of centrist former general Benny Gantz. Netanyahu is now expected to hold consultations about the Gaza war with a small group of ministers, including Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer who had been in the war cabinet. The move was announced as U.S. special envoy Amos Hochs...

June 12, 2024 11:19 AM

Hamas says its response to Gaza ceasefire plan ‘opens up a wide pathway’

Hamas on Wednesday said its "positive" response to a U.S. ceasefire plan for the eight-month-old war in the Gaza Strip opened a "wide pathway" to reach an agreement, but the outlook was uncertain as neither the Palestinian group nor Israel publicly committed to a deal. Hamas submitted its formal response on Tuesday to a proposal outlined by U.S. President Joe Biden on May 31. Israel said the response was tantamount to a rejection while a Hamas official said the Palestinian group merely reit...

October 6, 2025 2:47 PM

Hamas accepts UN-backed Gaza truce plan, Blinken calls it a ‘hopeful sign’

Hamas accepts a U.N. resolution backing a plan to end the war with Israel in Gaza and is ready to negotiate details, a senior official of the Palestinian militant group said on Tuesday in what the U.S. Secretary of State called "a hopeful sign". Conversations on plans for Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war ends will continue on Tuesday afternoon and in the next couple of days, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Tel Aviv after talks with Israeli leaders. "It's imperative that we have these p...

June 11, 2024 9:46 AM

UN Security Council backs Israel-Hamas ceasefire plan

The United Nations Security Council on Monday backed a proposal outlined by President Joe Biden for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and urged the Palestinian militants to accept the deal aimed at ending the eight-month-long war. Hamas welcomed the adoption of the U.S.-drafted resolution and said in a statement that it is ready to cooperate with mediators over implementing the principles of the plan "that are consistent with the demands of our people and resistance." ...

June 7, 2024 10:14 AM

Russia, China wrangle with US over UN resolution on Gaza ceasefire plan

Russia and China, which hold veto powers in the U.N. Security Council, raised concerns on Thursday with a U.S. draft resolution that would back a proposal - outlined by President Joe Biden - for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas. The council's only Arab member, Algeria, also signaled it was not ready to back the text, diplomats said. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the U.S., France, Britain, China or Russia to pass. Biden laid out a t...