Israel attacks Gaza, Yemen as death toll tops 59,000

The Arab League is set to hold an emergency session on the "grave humanitarian situation" in Gaza on Tuesday.

Israeli tank shelling killed at least 12 Palestinians and wounded dozens others in a tent encampment in western Gaza City north of the enclave, local health authorities said early on Tuesday.

Medics said the tanks stationed north of Shati camp fired two shells at tents, housing displaced families, killing at least 12 people.

Israeli forces have attacked WHO staff residences and a warehouse in central Gaza, the UN agency has said.

Hamas said in a statement on Monday that it is exerting all its efforts to end the worsening suffering in the Gaza Strip. 

"While we are fully aware of the extent of blackmail practiced by the [Israeli] occupation through committing massacres against our people — in a desperate attempt to extract positions it failed to impose at the negotiating table — we affirm that we are proceeding responsibly and rationally, and with the utmost speed, to complete our consultations and communications with the Palestinian forces and factions in order to reach an honourable agreement that leads to ending the aggression, halting the genocide, achieving our people's goals of reconstruction, lifting the siege, and ensuring a dignified life for our people in the Gaza Strip."

A building has collapsed on Israeli soldiers in Gaza, with some remaining under the rubble, according to Israeli media reports.

The Israeli army has announced the death of a soldier participating in its war on Gaza.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is appalled by an accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions in Gaza "where the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing," his spokesperson said on Monday.

"He deplores the growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition," U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

"Israel has the obligation to allow and facilitate by all the means at its disposal the humanitarian relief provided by the United Nations and by other humanitarian organisations."

Israel on Monday rejected the joint statement published by over 20 countries calling for an end to the war in Gaza, "as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas", the foreign ministry said.

Britain and more than 20 other countries called on Monday for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and criticised the Israeli government's aid delivery model after hundreds of Palestinians were killed near sites distributing food

The Palestinian Authority PM Mohammad Mustafa has called on the international community to take urgent and concrete action to end what he described as "654 days of aggression" against Palestinians in Gaza.

Speaking at a news conference in Ramallah, Mustafa was cited as saying by the Wafa news agency that he condemned Israel’s continued withholding of Palestinian clearance revenues and accused it of using "starvation as a weapon of war".

"More than 995 Palestinians have been killed while waiting for aid at what have become death traps," he said, referring to attacks on relief distribution sites.

The Gaza Municipality has warned that the city has entered a phase of "extreme thirst" after its main desalination plant in northern Gaza City shut down completely.

In a statement, it said the worsening fuel crisis has further deepened the water shortage. Large areas are no longer receiving water, with most wells becoming are out of service.

The municipality warned that some 1.2 million displaced people and residents now face the threat of severe thirst as water sources collapse and urgent humanitarian intervention remains absent.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan praised his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa for showing a strong stance and not compromising in Syria's conflict with Israel, and said Sharaa took a "very positive" step by reaching an understanding with the Druze.

Hundreds of Bedouin civilians were evacuated from Syria's predominantly Druze city of Suweida on Monday as part of a US-backed truce meant to end fighting that has killed hundreds of people, state media and witnesses said.

In comments to Turkish media released on Monday, Erdogan said Syria's government had established some control in Suweida and the country's south with around 2,500 soldiers, with all but one Druze faction agreeing to respect the ceasefire during talks in Amman.

Belgian authorities said on Monday that they had briefly held and questioned two israeli citizens who attended an electronic music festival, after pro-Palestinian groups accused them of war crimes.

Prosecutors said they received legal complaints alleging that two Israeli soldiers responsible for "serious violations of international humanitarian law" in Gaza were spotted at the Tomorrowland festival near the northern city of Antwerp last week.

The federal prosecutor's office said it had "asked the police to locate the two people named in the complaint and to interview them".

"Following these interviews, they were released," it said in a statement.

The office said that it took action after concluding that Belgian courts have extraterritorial jurisdiction over alleged war crimes.

"No further information will be given at this stage of the investigation," the office said.

The pair have not been named.

Last week, the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), a Belgian pro-Palestinian organisation, said it had identified two Israeli soldiers "responsible for grave international crimes" in Gaza among the crowds at Tomorrowland.

🔴 BREAKTHROUGH: Two Israeli soldiers accused of war crimes in #Gaza were Arrested and interrogated at #Tomorrowland after a joint complaint by the #HindRajabFoundation & @GLAN_LAW.
This is historical!
More info ⬇️https://t.co/ATOiU9wCdB#JusticeForGaza #NoSafeHaven… pic.twitter.com/JBmkHo3vhl

— The Hind Rajab Foundation (@HindRFoundation) July 21, 2025

Britain and 24 Western allies including Australia, Canada, France and Italy, said in a joint statement Monday the war in Gaza "must end now", arguing civilians' suffering had "reached new depths".

"We urge the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire," the grouping added in the communique.

Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern districts of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday, an area where Israeli sources said the military believes some of the remaining hostages may be held.

The area is packed with Palestinians displaced during more than 21 months of war in Gaza, hundreds of whom fled west or south after Israel issued an evacuation order, saying it sought to destroy Hamas capabilities and infrastructure.

Tank shelling in the area hit houses and mosques, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding several others, local medics said.

The co-founder of a pro-Palestinian campaign group sought on Monday to challenge the British government's decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws, a move her lawyers said had "the hallmarks of an authoritarian and blatant abuse of power".

Huda Ammori, who helped found Palestine Action in 2020, is asking London's High Court to give the go-ahead for a full challenge to the group's proscription, which was made on the grounds it committed or participated in acts of terrorism.

Earlier this month, the High Court refused Ammori's application to pause the ban and, following an unsuccessful last-ditch appeal, Palestine Action's proscription came into effect just after midnight on July 5.

Proscription makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

Ammori's lawyer Raza Husain said Palestine Action is the first direct action group to be banned as a terror group, a move he argued was inconsistent with "the honourable history of civil disobedience on conscientious grounds in our country".

Pope Leo spoke by phone on Monday to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, about the conflict in Gaza and violence in the West Bank, the Vatican said.

It was the first official conversation between the two men since Leo's papacy began.

"The Holy Father repeated his appeal for international humanitarian law to be fully respected, emphasising in particular the obligation to protect civilians and sacred places, the prohibition of the indiscriminate use of force and of the forced transfer of the population," the Vatican wrote.

The pope emphasised "the urgent need to provide assistance to those most vulnerable to the consequences of the conflict and to allow the adequate entry of humanitarian aid", it said.

It followed a call on Friday between the pope and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a day after a strike by Israel on Gaza's only Catholic Church that killed three people.

Gaza's Health Ministry says the Palestinian death toll has surpassed 59,000 after more than 21 months of war.

An Israeli undercover force detained Marwan Al-Hams, a senior Gaza Health Ministry official, outside the field hospital of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, the health ministry said.

Hams, in charge of field hospitals in the enclave, was on his way to visit the ICRC field hospital in northern Rafah when an Israeli force "abducted" him after opening fire, killing one person and wounding another civilian nearby, according to the ministry.

Medics said the person killed was a local journalist who was filming an interview with Hams when the incident happened.

Tehran said it will host China and Russia on Tuesday for talks on its nuclear programme, amid European threats to reimpose sanctions.

"A trilateral consultation" with Russia and China would be held in the Iranian capital to discuss nuclear issues and the potential reimposition of sanctions, foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei told a news conference on Monday.

Visiting US envoy Tom Barrack said Monday that disarming Hezbollah was a domestic issue, as Washington presses the new authorities for action after the group was weakened by war with Israel.

"The Hezbollah disarmament... is something that is so internal," Barrack told a press conference in Beirut after meeting Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, adding that if it didn't happen it would be "disappointing".

US envoy Tom Barrack doubled down on Washington's support for the new government in Syria, saying on Monday there is "no Plan B" to working with the current authorities to unite the country still reeling from a nearly 14-year civil war and now wracked by a new outbreak of sectarian violence.

He took a critical tone toward Israel’s recent intervention in Syria, calling it poorly timed and saying that it complicated efforts to stabilise the region.

Barrack told the AP that "the killing, the revenge, the massacres on both sides" are "intolerable," but that "the current government of Syria, in my opinion, has conducted themselves as best they can as a nascent government with very few resources to address the multiplicity of issues that arise in trying to bring a diverse society together".

Regarding Israel's strikes on Syria, Barrack said: "The United States was not asked, nor did they participate in that decision, nor was it the United States responsibility in matters that Israel feels is for its own self-defence."

However, he said that Israel's intervention "creates another very confusing chapter" and “came at a very bad time".

The Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs has raised concerned over the worsening conditions of Palestinian detainees held at the Ramla Prison Clinic, calling the conditions "deteriorating".

In a statement on Telegram, the advocacy group attributed this to the facility's "absence" of medical follow-ups for those who have severe health conditions.

The organisation said Israeli prison authorities consistently delay transferring detainees to hospitals for essential medical tests and treatments. In some cases, detainees are returned from hospitals before completing treatment, the group added.

Those detained are also subject to restrictions on bringing in clothes, as well as supply shortages and poor quality and quantity of food.

US special envoy Thomas Barrack said on Monday that when it comes to the conflict between Lebanon and Israel, the US cannot compel Israel to do anything.

"The US has no business in trying to compel Israel to do anything... America could only influence," he said in a press conference in Beirut.

"We are not going to have more boots on the ground in an adversarial nature anywhere."

Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel's military on Monday struck "terror targets" belonging to the Houthi rebels at the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.

The Israeli military "has just struck terror targets of the Houthi terror regime at the port of Hodeida and is forcefully enforcing the prevention of any attempt to restore the previously attacked terror infrastructure," Katz said in a statement.

In a separate statement, the army said that "among the military infrastructure struck were engineering vehicles... fuel containers, naval vessels used for military activities and force against the State of Israel and vessels in the maritime zone adjacent to the port, and additional terror infrastructure used by the Houthi terrorist regime."

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said it is receiving "desperate messages of starvation in Gaza," including from their staff, amid alarming rates of starvation and hunger-related deaths in the enclave.

The agency stressed on the increasing food prices in the enclave, leaving Palestinians unable to afford the bare minimum in order to survive.

UNRWA also added that it has three months worth of food for all Palestinians in Gaza waiting to enter, and urged Israel's siege to be lifted.

Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has reportedly drafted a plan to further intensify ground operations across Gaza, according to a report by Israel’s Channel 12.

Sources cited by the outlet described the proposal as the Israel's army's "plan for taking over Gaza," and seen as an "alternative" to the controversial "humanitarian city" proposal in Rafah, which was widely condemned as a concentration camp intended to ethnically cleanse Gaza from its Palestinian population.

Israeli settlers have raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem early on Monday under the protection of Israeli police, Palestinian media is reporting.

Videos shared online showed the settlers conducting provocative tours of its courtyards, and performing Talmudic rituals.

Israeli forces have injured three Palestinian men, including two elderly men, in an attack at dawn on Monday on the Dhanaba suburb, east of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it had treated the men after being beaten by Israeli soldiers.

The injured were transferred to the Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital for medical assistance.