Israel continues deadly Gaza strikes as negotiators return to Doha

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The first session of indirect Hamas-Israel ceasefire talks in Qatar ended inconclusively, two Palestinian sources familiar with the matter told Reuters early on Monday, adding that the Israeli delegation didn't have a sufficient mandate to reach an agreement with Hamas.

Hamas has welcomed the final joint statement of the BRICS summit, calling for an "unconditional" ceasefire in Gaza.

"We call on the BRICS countries, and all countries of the world, to exert pressure on the terrorist occupation government [of Israel] to comply with international law, end its aggression and genocidal war against innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip, and lift the criminal siege imposed on two-and-a-quarter million people," the Hamas said in a statement.

The Israeli military said it attacked "Houthi targets" in the ports of Hodeidah, Ras Isa and Salif, and the Ras Qantib power plant in Yemen on Monday.

Israel said its fighter jets, "in response to the repeated attacks by the Houthi terrorist regime against the State of Israel," had "struck and destroyed terror infrastructure belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime. Among the targets were the ports of Al Hudaydah, Ras Isa, and Salif."

Yemen's Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported early on Monday that Israel launched a series of strikes on Hodeidah, shortly after the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning for people at three Yemeni ports.

The Israeli military's Arabic spokesperson said late on Sunday that Israel will strike those areas due to military activities being conducted there.

Avichay Adraee identified those places as the ports of Hodeidah, Ras Isa, and Salif, as well as the Hodeidah power station.

Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas towards a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip have started in Qatar, a Palestinian official familiar with the talks told AFP late Sunday.

"Negotiations are about implementation mechanisms and hostage exchange, and positions are being exchanged through mediators," the official said. The talks began at around 9:30 pm Jerusalem time and were still ongoing, he added.

A second Palestinian has been confirmed killed on Sunday evening after Israeli forces opened fire in a village east of Nablus.

The Ministry of Health revealed Wissam Ghassan Hasan Ishtiya, 37, was killed after Israeli forces stormed the Salem village and surrounded two houses and opened fire.

Ishtiya was injured and detained before being pronounced dead. A 62-year-old Palestinian citizen was also injured by Israeli fire and transferred to the hospital.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met on Sunday with his Iranian counterpart at the BRICS summit and reiterated Moscow's offer to help resolve disputes surrounding Tehran's nuclear programme, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

A ministry statement said Lavrov, in his talks in Rio de Janeiro with Abbas Araghchi, issued a new denunciation of Israeli and US strikes on Iran last month, "including the bombing of nuclear energy infrastructure under safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency."

Lavrov, the statement said, stressed that all issues surrounding Iran's nuclear programme had to be resolved through diplomacy.

"Moscow expressed its readiness to offer its assistance in finding mutually acceptable solutions, including the corresponding initiatives put forward earlier by the Russian president," it said.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said that two men were shot dead on Sunday by the Israeli army near the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

Qusai Nasser Mahmud Nassar, 23, and Wissam Ghassan Hassan Shtayyeh, 37, "were shot and killed by the (Israeli) occupation forces on Sunday afternoon in the village of Salem, east of Nablus", the ministry said in a statement.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not immediately comment.

The Gaza media office has rejected accusations by the US State Department that the group was involved in a Saturday attack that injured two American aid workers from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation at a food distribution site in the enclave, it said in a statement on Sunday.

(Reuters)

Iran won the support of fellow BRICS nations meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, with the bloc condemning recent Israel and US air strikes that hit military, nuclear and other targets.

"We condemn the military strikes against the Islamic Republic of Iran since 13 June 2025," leaders said in a summit statement, without naming the United States or Israel.

"We further express serious concern over deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure and peaceful nuclear facilities," the bloc said.

The 11-nation grouping said the strikes "constitute a violation of international law."

Israel's military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.

A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday, just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition to craft a compromise.

The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel's armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.

BRICS leaders meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday called for negotiators to reach a quick and unconditional ceasefire to end the 22-month-old war on Gaza.

"We exhort the parties to engage in good faith in further negotiations to achieve an immediate, permanent and unconditional ceasefire, the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip," the bloc said as negotiators were to meet in Doha.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he expected his upcoming meeting with US President Donald Trump could "help advance" a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza.

"We are working to achieve this deal that we have discussed, under the conditions that we have agreed to. I have sent a negotiating team (to Doha) with clear instructions," Netanyahu told reporters on the tarmac of Ben Gurion airport before boarding the presidential plane for Washington. "

I think that this meeting with President Trump can definitely help advance this (deal) that we are all hoping for."

Israeli media reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has delayed his planned departure to Washington, originally scheduled for 4pm (13:00 GMT), to take part in discussions over a revised bill on the conscription of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men into the military.

According to The Times of Israel, Hebrew-language media outlets said his flight has been postponed until later this evening.

The proposed legislation has stirred political tensions, threatening to destabilise Netanyahu’s coalition government, which relies heavily on ultra-Orthodox parties that strongly oppose mandatory military service for their communities.

The Israeli military has announced it will begin issuing draft notices to 54,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men starting this week, following the expiration of the law that had previously exempted them from military service.

According to a military statement, the summonses will be distributed in phases throughout July. The army also said it plans to step up “enforcement actions against draft evaders and deserters from the entire population.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said ahead of a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday that he was determined to ensure the return of hostages held in Gaza and to remove the threat of Hamas to Israel.

Speaking on Sunday before boarding his flight to Washington, Netanyahu also said Israeli negotiators heading to ceasefire talks in Qatar have clear instructions to achieve a ceasefire agreement under conditions Israel has accepted.

"I believe the discussion with President Trump can certainly help advance these results," he said. 

Brazil's president insisted that the world must act to stop what he described as an Israeli "genocide" in Gaza, as leaders from 11 emerging BRICS nations gathered in Rio Sunday.

"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.

His comments came as Gaza truce talks between Israel and Hamas resumed in Doha, and as pressure mounted to end the 22-month war which began with Hamas's October 7, 2023 attacks.

The head of a Palestinian armed group opposed to Hamas and accused of aid looting in the Gaza Strip confirmed Sunday it was coordinating with the Israeli military in an interview with public radio.

Yasser Abu Shabab said his group, known as the Popular Forces, was able to move freely in zones under Israeli military control and communicated their operations beforehand.

"We keep them informed, but we carry out the military actions on our own," he said in an interview with Makan, Israel's Arabic-language public radio broadcaster.

Abu Shabab also said his group had received "logistical and financial support from several parties", without mentioning Israel directly.

"There are things we can't talk about publicly."

Last month, the Israeli authorities admitted to providing support to armed Palestinian groups opposed to Hamas in Gaza, without naming them, though local media reports identified the group in question as Abu Shabab's.

"It is only good, it is saving lives of Israeli soldiers," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time.

Knesset member and ex-defence minister Avigdor Lieberman, however, accused the government of "giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons".

The Israeli military and Shin Bet security agency announced they had assassinated Ramadan Abd Ali Saleh, the commander of Hamas's naval forces in northern Gaza.

According to the statement, Saleh was killed in an airstrike while in Gaza City, along with several other Hamas operatives. The strike, which occurred last Monday, reportedly targeted a cafe in the Gaza City port and killed 33 people in total.

Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa Hospital, told Al Jazeera that dozens more were injured in the strike.

“The situation at the hospital is catastrophic,” he said. “The bodies were brought in burned, the intensive care rooms are full, there are no beds available in the emergency room and we have no anesthetics.”

“In just one hour, the hospital admitted more than 100 wounded people,” he added.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has criticised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of failing to ensure that the military is acting in accordance with government policy in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

While he did not explicitly threaten to leave the governing coalition, Smotrich said he was weighing his "next steps."

"The cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, adding that the aid would ultimately provide “logistical support for the enemy during wartime."

A ship came under attack Sunday in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen by armed men firing guns and launching rocket-propelled grenades, a group overseen by the British military said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes as tensions remain high in the Middle East over the Gaza war and after the Iran-Israel war and airstrikes by the United States targeting Iranian nuclear sites.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said that an armed security team on the ship had returned fire and that the “situation is ongoing.” It described the attack as happening some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Hodeida, Yemen, which is held by the country's Houthi rebels.

“Authorities are investigating,” it said.

Ambrey, a maritime security firm, issued a warning saying that a merchant ship had been “attacked by eight skiffs while transiting northbound in the Red Sea.” It said it believed the attack was ongoing.

UNRWA has said that Israel's accusations against the agency have endangered its staff and damaged its credibility, according to a statement posted on X.

The post quotes Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, who said he sent a letter last month to Israel’s foreign minister requesting evidence to support the claims, but has not received a response.

"In my letter, I also noted that the Government of Israel has not pursued any prosecutions within its criminal justice system, which would also require the presentation of credible evidence," he wrote.

UNRWA’s latest situation report states that Israeli forces have killed 272 of its staff in Gaza and repeatedly attacked its facilities, including schools sheltering displaced civilians.

In October, Israel’s parliament passed legislation to ban UNRWA operations across the country, including in occupied East Jerusalem, after accusing around a dozen of its staff of involvement in the October 7 attacks.

The Government of Israel has continued to make claims against UNRWA's neutrality, putting our staff at risk and harming the Agency’s reputation.

“Last month, I wrote to the Foreign Minister of Israel, requesting once again information and evidence to substantiate these… pic.twitter.com/wPxrourIB4

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 6, 2025

Israeli negotiators were headed to Qatar on Sunday for indirect talks with Hamas seeking a Gaza truce and hostage release deal, Israel's Kan public broadcaster said.

"The negotiating team left for Doha for proximity talks on the remaining points of contention with Hamas," Kan said on its website.

The Palestinian Health Ministry reports that in the past 24 hours, at least 80 bodies and 304 injured individuals have been brought to hospitals across the Gaza Strip.

Overall, since the war on Gaza began in October 2023, Israeli attacks have killed at least 57,418 Palestinians and injured 136,261 others, with thousands more feared trapped under rubble.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met the country's president on Sunday ahead of his visit to Washington, with talks focusing on the Gaza war and efforts to expand ties with Arab states, the presidency said.

Netanyahu is expected at the White House on Monday for talks with US President Donald Trump, who is pushing to end the 21-month war between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas.

Indirect negotiations were set to resume Sunday in Doha, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.

"In his visit to Washington, the prime minister carries with him an important mission -- advancing a deal to bring all our hostages home," President Isaac Herzog said in a statement.

"This is a supreme moral duty. I fully support these efforts, even when they involve difficult, complex and painful decisions. We must all remember that the cost is not simple," he added.

Switzerland said on Sunday it was reopening its embassy in Tehran, which was closed last month amid an air war with Israel, and will resume representing US interests in the country.

As of Sunday, the embassy is "again open having temporarily been closed on June 20 owing to the instability of the situation in the country," the Swiss foreign ministry said in a statement.

Ambassador Nadine Olivieri Lozano and a small team returned to Tehran overland on Saturday via Azerbaijan and the embassy will gradually resume operations, the statement went on.

"Having now returned to Tehran, Switzerland is once again in a position to fulfil its role as a protecting power for US interests in Iran."

In the absence of diplomatic or consular relations between the United States and Iran, Switzerland, acting through its Tehran embassy, has officially represented US interests in Iran since 1980.

Two members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards were killed Sunday while attempting to defuse explosives in an area of the country's west hit by Israeli strikes last month, Iranian media reported.

Tasnim news agency, citing a statement from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said that "two members of the Guards were killed Sunday in Khorramabad while clearing the area of explosives left by the Zionist regime's aggression."

International mediators seeking to secure a ceasefire deal to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza have informed the Palestinian group that negotiations would resume on Sunday, a Palestinian official told AFP.

"Mediators informed Hamas that a new round of indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel will begin in Doha today, Sunday," said the Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations and close to Hamas.

Retired Israeli Major-General Yitzhak Brik has claimed that Hamas has rebuilt its ranks to pre-war levels, contradicting official Israeli military assessments of progress in Gaza.

In an opinion piece for the Israeli outlet Maariv, Brik estimated that Hamas now commands around 40,000 fighters- similar to its strength before the war began—with many operating from within tunnel networks.

"Hamas continues to fight as a guerrilla force, just as it has since the start of the war," he wrote. "It was never a conventional army, and therefore has not lost its military capabilities, contrary to what the army’s Chief of Staff claims." Brik described the situation on the ground as "grim".

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said Sunday his group would not surrender or lay down its weapons in response to Israeli threats, despite pressure to disarm.

"This threat will not make us accept surrender," Qassem said in a televised speech, adding that the group would not abandon their arms and asserting that Israel's "aggression" must first stop.

Al Jazeera English, citing a source at al-Shifa Hospital, reported that Israeli airstrikes on two homes in western Gaza City have killed at least 20 Palestinians, including women and children.

Israeli settlers, under police protection, stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, according to Al Jazeera English citing local sources.

 The Israeli military said it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen towards Israel in the early hours of Sunday, with sirens activated in several parts of the country.

A spokesperson for Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement said in a statement several hours later that the group had fired a ballistic missile at central Israel's Jaffa area.

Israel has threatened the Houthi movement - which has been attacking Israel in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza - with a naval and air blockade if its attacks on Israel persist.

Since the start of Israel's war in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade.

Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes. 

US President Donald Trump hosts Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday to press the Israeli prime minister to end the war with Hamas in Gaza.

Trump has vowed to be tough on Netanyahu as he hopes to use the momentum from the truce between Iran and Israel to secure a ceasefire in the devastated Palestinian territory, too.

Trump says Israel is committed to a 60-day halt in fighting and Hamas says it has responded positively to a US-backed proposal -- but sealing a final deal to end the 21-month-old war will be easier said than done.

Netanyahu, who is making his third visit to the White House since Trump returned to power in January, has vowed to crush Hamas before ending the conflict.

Yet Trump, determined to win the Nobel peace prize and riding a wave of recent foreign and domestic policy victories, is making a renewed push for a result.

"There could be a Gaza deal next week," Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Friday. He said he was "very optimistic" about a deal but added that "it changes from day to day. It's been changing for years."