Israel escalates Gaza assault as death toll reaches 36

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Explosions have been heard around the Global Somoud Flotilla, which is carrying life-saving humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip in hopes of breaking the Israeli siege on the enclave.

"Explosions, unidentified drones and communications jamming. We are witnessing these psychological operations firsthand, right now, but we will not be intimidated," the flotilla's official Instagram page announced.

The statement adds that multiple drones, unidentified objects, have dropped, and their communications have been jammed. No injuries have been reported.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Global Sumud Flotilla (@globalsumudflotilla)

Hamas-led authorities in Gaza have executed three men accused of collaborating with Israel, a Palestinian official said, as the group seeks to crush rising challenges from Palestinian operatives it says are working against it with Israeli support.

In a video circulated on social media showing the executions, a masked man is seen issuing a warning to "all collaborators" before the three men, kneeling and blindfolded, are kicked onto their fronts and shot in front of a crowd.

Reuters stated that the location was identified as Gaza City by the buildings, a gas station, road layout, and signs seen in the video which matched file and satellite imagery of the area.

The Palestinian security official from the Gaza government said the executions were carried out on Sunday by the "Joint Operations Room of the Palestinian resistance".

Read more here.

Macron said on Tuesday that recognising the state of Palestine does not amount to forgetting the October attacks, with the French leader making his comments as he sat next to President Donald Trump in a bilateral meeting.

"I think it honors Hamas and you can't do that because of October 7. You just can't do that," Trump told reporters when asked about the recognition of the state of Palestine.

"Nobody forgets the 7th of October," Macron told reporters while sitting next to Trump.

"But after almost two years of war, what is the result," Macron said, adding: "This is not the right the right way to proceed."

Macron advocated for a political process as Trump affirmed his support for Israel.

The oxygen at Al-Quds Hospital in the Tal Al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City, has stopped working after being shot at by Israeli forces, threatening the lives of the Palestinian patients in need of it, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced on Tuesday.

PRCS said the hospital is now relying on pre-filled oxygen cylinders, which will only last for three days.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called on Tuesday for other countries to recognise a Palestinian state after such moves by Western powers, calling for a ceasefire as soon as possible in Gaza.

"A genocide is continuing in Gaza, even as we meet here innocent people are dying," Erdogan said in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. (Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu. 

Israel's ongoing offensive on Gaza has now killed 36 Palestinians since Monday.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday disagreed with US counterpart Donald Trump over recognition of a Palestinian state and said that a military solution in Gaza alone was not enough.

Macron, meeting Trump at the United Nations, said that Israel's killing of Hamas leaders was a "great achievement" but added: "You have as many Hamas fighters as you had the first day. So it doesn't work to dismantle Hamas. This is not the right way to proceed. So we need a full-fledged process."

Qatar's ruler told world leaders Tuesday his country was continuing with its diplomatic efforts to broker an end to the war in Gaza despite Israel's strikes on targets in the Gulf country.

"Unlike the claim of the prime minister of Israel, this attack is not part of a legitimate right to follow perpetrators of terrorism", and "undermines any diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the genocide against the people in Gaza," he told the General Assembly.

"We will engage in diplomacy when our enemies find it easier to use weapons," he added.

"We will continue our efforts in cooperation, in partnership with Egypt and the United States."

Italy will recognise a Palestinian state only if all Israeli captives are released and Hamas is excluded from any government role, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday.

"I am not against the recognition of Palestine, but we should set ourselves the right priorities," Meloni told reporters, announcing her government would present a motion to parliament on the issue.

Speaking from New York, where she is attending the United Nations General Assembly, Meloni also said international pressure should be placed on Hamas rather than Israel, blaming the group for starting the war and blocking its end by refusing to hand over hostages.

US President Donald Trump could only win the Nobel Peace Prize if he stopped the Gaza war, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday.

Macron told BFMTV in an interview from the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York that Trump "wants the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize is only possible if you stop this conflict."

Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg on Tuesday challenged countries that have recognised a Palestinian state to back up what she called "symbolic gestures" with more pressure on Israel to end its offensive on the Gaza Strip.

"Of course it's good that the Palestinian cause is more on the agenda, but these symbolic gestures will lead nowhere unless they are accompanied with real action," Thunberg told Reuters via video conference while at sea near Greece.

Emir Al Thani called Israel's 9 September "treacherous attack" on Doha, calling it an act of political assassination that "undermines any diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the genocide against the people in Gaza".

“They [Israel] negotiate with delegations and plot to assassinate the members of the negotiation teams. It is difficult to cooperate with such a mentality that does not respect the most minimum standards of cooperation,” he said.

“They consider negotiations a continuation of war in other means and a way to delude the Israeli public opinion,” he said, adding that Israel's goal is to destroy Gaza.

Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has called for the international order to be respected as he begins speaking at the UN General Debate.

"These rules are based on the maintenance of international peace and security and the respect for human dignity and state sovereignty and a non-interference in internal affairs and to cooperate for the benefit of our peoples," Emir Al Thani said.

"This means, if we allow violations to continue, it means allowing the rule of the jungle, where perpetrators and violators enjoy benefits just because they can," he said.

Hamas on Tuesday rejected US President Donald Trump's accusation that the Palestinian group was blocking efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza.

"Hamas has never been an obstacle to reaching a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip... The US administration, the mediators and the entire world know that the war criminal (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu is the sole party obstructing all attempts to reach an agreement," Hamas said in a statement.

Indonesia's leader on Tuesday offered to send at least 20,000 troops as peacekeepers to Gaza to safeguard any future peace deal.

Addressing the UN General Assembly, President Prabowo Subianto said that the world's most populous Muslim-majority country wanted a peace that shows that "might cannot make right."

"We believe in the UN. We will continue to serve where peace needs guardians -- not with just words, but with boots on the ground," he said.

"If and when the UN Security Council and this great Assembly decide, Indonesia is prepared to deploy 20,000 or even more of our sons and daughters to help secure peace in Gaza," he said.

He said that Indonesia was also willing to send peacekeepers elsewhere including in Ukraine, Sudan or Libya.

Security at next month's European Road Cycling Championships in France will be strengthened due to the presence of an Israeli team, organisers said on Tuesday.

The October 1-5 event comes a fortnight after pro-Palestinian demonstrators, fired up by the presence of the Israel Premier Tech team, disrupted the Vuelta a Espana.

Around 100,000 people took part in demonstrations on the final day of one of the sport's three big stage races in Spain, causing chaos with the stage shortened and the winner crowned in a hotel car park.

"What the Vuelta revealed is the scale that this phenomenon can reach when seeking at all costs to block an event," French cycling federation chief Michel Callot told AFP news agency and L'Equipe at the world championships in Rwanda.

"This means we will be strengthening cooperation with state services and to coordinate with them on anything they deem necessary so that the riders can race in complete safety," Callot said.

Israel has submitted a 13-strong team for the European Championships in the Drome-Ardeche region.

Callot added: "The time trials are not affected, only the three road races for men.

"From a security standpoint, this is a crucial point because time trials, where everyone knows when an athlete will arrive, are particularly challenging to secure.

"This is a relief for me as an organiser."

A Palestinian medical charity said Tuesday that Israel destroyed its main center in Gaza City after ordering its evacuation.

The Palestinian Medical Relief Society said an Israeli strike reduced its six-story building in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood to rubble. It said the center was one of the main facilities in the city providing blood donation and testing services, trauma care, cancer medicine and chronic disease treatment.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has repeatedly bombed and raided hospitals in Gaza throughout the war.

A group of United Nations experts on Tuesday urged the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) and Europe's football association UEFA to suspend Israel over accusations it is committing genocide in Gaza.

"Sports must reject the perception that it is business as usual," the eight independent UN experts the in a statement.

"National teams representing States that commit massive human rights violations can and should be suspended."

The experts, who are mandated by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations, said suspending Israel was "a necessary response to address the ongoing genocide".

Their comments came a week after the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which also does not speak on behalf of the world body, said that "genocide is occurring in Gaza" and that Israel was to blame.

Crowds of people rallied in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, waving flags and holding posters of president Mahmoud Abbas to celebrate the wave of recognition by Western powers of a Palestinian state.

Nationalist slogans blared from loudspeakers across the central square in the city of Ramallah, where a crowd of more than 100 clutched Palestinian and European flags alongside signs reading "stop the genocide".

High-ranking officials from Abbas's political movement, Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority -- which exerts limited control in the West Bank -- shook hands and smiled.

"This recognition is a first step in a process that we hope will continue," Jibril Rajoub, secretary-general of Fatah's central committee, told AFP news agency.

"It is the result of more than a century of resistance and determination by our people."

Rajoub said he had felt moved listening to the speeches made at the UN General Assembly in New York the night before.

"We must learn from the past and unite the people," he said.

Maysoon Mahmud, 39, who is also a Fatah member, said: "We came here today to thank the countries that have recognised Palestine, but also to ask them to continue to support us in stopping the war."

"It is time for the world to take responsibility," she added.

US President Donald Trump rejected a global move toward recognition of a Palestinian state, in a combative speech to the UN General Assembly.

In his first UN address since regaining power in January, Trump spoke to dozens of world leaders, many of whom have been alarmed to see the United States turn away from traditional alliances in favor of an isolationist "America First" policy.

Trump rejected statehood for Palestinians, adopting the stance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists, for their atrocities," he said, repeating his call for the return of hostages taken by the Palestinian group.

Trump said the United States wants a ceasefire-for-hostages deal that would see the return all remaining hostages, alive and dead.

"We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately. We have to immediately negotiate peace," he said.

Speaking at the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted the war in Gaza as the central issue shaping this year’s General Debate.

He stressed that the International Court of Justice has issued several rulings on Gaza, instructing Israel to prevent genocide, permit investigations, and expand humanitarian access.

“We know what is needed: Permanent ceasefire now. All the hostages released now. Full humanitarian access now. And we must not relent in the only viable answer to sustainable Middle East peace: a two-state solution,” he said.

Israeli attacks have killed at least 29 Palestinians across Gaza since dawn, including 25 in Gaza City, Al Jazeera English reported, citing medical sources.

The network added that Israeli shelling destroyed Gaza City’s main medical centre, wounding two medical workers.

Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 26 Palestinians since dawn, including 18 in Gaza City, Al Jazeera English reports, citing its medical sources.

Al Jazeera Arabic also reported that the most recent strike targeted residents collecting water in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood.

The Palestinian borders authority said Israel was closing the main crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jordan from Wednesday "until further notice".

"The chairman of the Palestinian General Authority for Crossings and Borders, Mr Nazmi Muhanna, announced that the Israeli side has informed us of the closure of the Al-Karama crossing starting tomorrow, Wednesday... until further notice, in both directions," a statement from the authority said, referring to the Allenby crossing.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Israeli side.

Iranian and European ministers will hold nuclear talks in New York on Tuesday, a French diplomatic source told news agency AFP, after the UN Security Council voted to reimpose sanctions over Tehran's atomic program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has until the end of Saturday to reach a deal with his British, French, German and EU counterparts to avoid the reinstatement of UN sanctions, which had been suspended under a deal signed in 2015.

The meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations' signature high-level week, is scheduled for 10:00 am local time (1400 GMT), a diplomatic source told AFP.

Iran and the Europeans blame each other for the failure of diplomatic efforts to reach a new agreement on Tehran's nuclear program, long a rancorous sticking point between the two sides.

European countries and the United States suspect the Iranian government of seeking to acquire the atomic bomb. Tehran has vigorously denied that, insisting it has a right to civilian nuclear energy.

The European side has set three conditions to extend the sanction relief period to allow more time for negotiations on a comprehensive treaty.

They include the resumption of direct negotiations without preconditions, full access for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to Iranian nuclear sites, and accurate information on the location of enriched materials.

The European side believes that none of the conditions have been met.

Tehran accuses the European powers of exerting political pressure that undermines negotiations and claims to have produced a "balanced" proposal, the details of which have not been disclosed.

A growing number of experts, including those commissioned by a U.N. body, have said Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip amounts to genocide, deepening Israel’s isolation and risking untold damage to the country’s standing even among allies.

Global outrage over Israel’s wartime conduct has mounted in recent months, as images of starving children emerged, adding to the humanitarian catastrophe of a 23-month war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and laid waste to much of Gaza.

A current offensive in the territory's largest city further raised concern, with some of Israel's European allies condemning it.

In a report last week, a team of independent experts commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council concluded the war has become an attempt by Israel to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza and constitutes genocide.

Many of the world’s leading experts on genocide have reached the same conclusion, with at least two dozen using the term publicly in the past year. Among them is Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University.

Early in the war, Bartov, who grew up in Israel and served in its military, argued Israel's actions didn't amount to genocide.

He changed his mind when Israel took over the city of Rafah, driving out most of its population. He now considers Israel's actions “a genocidal operation.”

The armed wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, reportedly targeted an Israeli Merkava tank with two al-Yassin 105 anti-armour missiles near a mosque in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in southern Gaza City.

In a statement on Telegram, the group said the attack took place yesterday afternoon but did not provide details on its outcome.

At least 38 Palestinians, including three people seeking aid, have been killed and 190 wounded in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 65,382 people and injured 166,985, the ministry said in a statement on Telegram.

Israel's military pushed deeper towards the most populated areas of Gaza City on Tuesday, a painful reminder for Gazans that Western powers' recognition of a Palestinian state does not mean an end to the horrors of war as tanks approach.

Israel pressed on with its Gaza offensive a day after dozens of world leaders gathered at the United Nations to embrace a Palestinian state, a landmark diplomatic shift after nearly two years of war that faces resistance from Israel and its close ally the United States.

"We are not steadfast, we are helpless. We don’t have money to leave to the south and we don’t have guarantees if we do the Israelis will not bomb us, so we are staying," Huda, a mother of two from Gaza City, told Reuters news agency via a chat app.

"The children tremble all the time from the sounds of explosions, we do too, they are wiping out a city that is thousands of years old and the world is celebrating a symbolic recognition of a state that won’t stop our killing."

Three children have died from malnutrition in southern Gaza, according to a source at the Nasser Medical Complex cited by Al Jazeera.

The report comes as Al Jazeera added that at least 22 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire across the territory since dawn, including 18 in Gaza City.

A Palestinian man was shot and wounded by Israeli forces in Wadi al-Hummus, near the Sur Baher neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, according to the Wafa news agency.

The agency, citing a security source, said the man was taken to hospital with a foot injury after Israeli forces opened fire on a group of Palestinians.

US President Donald Trump will hit out at "globalist institutions" and criticize the recognition of a Palestinian state by Western allies in a speech to the United Nations, the White House said Monday.

Trump is set to deliver the first speech of his second term to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, as the annual diplomatic gathering is dominated by Israel's war in Gaza.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would tout "the renewal of American strength around the world" in his address.

"The president will also touch upon how globalist institutions have significantly decayed the world order, and he will articulate his straightforward and constructive vision for the world," she added.

Trump has repeatedly criticized the UN and other multilateral institutions as part of his "America First" policy, and either cut funding for or withdrawn from a number of UN bodies.

Trump will meanwhile hold a "multilateral meeting" with the leaders of key Muslim countries at the UN assembly, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, Leavitt told a briefing.

The move comes after several Western governments recognized a Palestinian state, angering Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will speak at the UN on Friday, has vowed to expand Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank after the recognitions.

Trump himself opposed the moves by Britain, Canada and Australia to recognize the state of Palestine, which France is due to follow on Monday.

"The president has been very clear he disagrees with this decision," Leavitt said, noting that he had publicly done so with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during a UK state visit last week.

"Frankly, he believes it's a reward to Hamas. So he believes these decisions are just more talk and not enough action from some of our friends and allies, and I think you'll hear him talk about that tomorrow" at the UN, she added.

Andorra has announced its formal recognition of an independent Palestinian state during a United Nations conference in New York, becoming the sixth country to do so.

The Pyrenean principality joins France, Monaco, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Malta in making the declaration. The move follows similar announcements made on Sunday by the United Kingdom, Canada, Portugal, and Australia.

Hamas has reportedly drafted a letter to US President Donald Trump, asking him to guarantee a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza in return for the release of half of the remaining 48 hostages, US news channel Fox News said Monday, citing a senior Trump administration official and a source familiar with the negotiations.

According to The Times of Israel, the letter was also reported but it remains unclear whether it touched on the issue of Hamas’s disarmament- an Israeli demand that the group continues to reject.

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly has announced that Egypt will host an international conference on rebuilding Gaza once a ceasefire is reached.

Speaking at the two-state solution conference in New York, Madbouly said the gathering would seek to mobilise funding for the Arab reconstruction plan for Gaza, according to UAE-based Sky News Arabia.

He stressed Egypt’s rejection of any attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians, adding that Cairo will continue its efforts to secure a ceasefire.

“The two-state solution is not just a political option but a security imperative,” Madbouly said.

A senior official from Yemen’s Houthi movement has rejected a two-state solution to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, describing the UN-backed plan as a “betrayal of the Palestinian cause".

In a post on X, Houthi Supreme Political Council member Mohammed Ali al-Houthi said the proposal had served “the enemy’s favour” and would not prevent Israel’s “pursuit to expand its occupation” of Arab land.

So far, neither Hamas, Hezbollah nor Iran-backed groups in Iraq have commented on the summit statement endorsing a two-state solution.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions, however, welcomed the recognition of a Palestinian state by the UK, Canada, Australia and France this week.

At least 17 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since dawn, including 15 in Gaza City, according to medical sources cited by Al Jazeera English.

Al Jazeera Arabic also reported that Israeli forces detonated explosive-laden military vehicles in the Tal al-Hawa and Sabra neighbourhoods of Gaza City.

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet leaders and officials from multiple Muslim-majority countries on Tuesday and discuss the situation in Gaza, which has been under a mounting assault from Washington's ally Israel.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday that Trump will hold a multilateral meeting with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan. A person familiar with the matter said Gaza will be discussed.

Axios reported Trump will present the group with a proposal for peace and post-war governance in Gaza.

In addition to freeing hostages and ending the war, Trump is expected to discuss U.S. plans around an Israeli withdrawal and post-war governance in Gaza, without Hamas involvement, according to Axios.

Washington wants Arab and Muslim countries to agree to send military forces to Gaza to enable Israel's withdrawal and to secure funding for transition and rebuilding programs, Axios reported.

Trump will address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, a day after dozens of world leaders gathered at the United Nations to embrace a Palestinian state, a landmark diplomatic shift nearly two years into the Gaza war that faces fierce resistance from Israel and the United States.

Three men accused of collaborating with Israel have been executed in Gaza on Sunday, a Palestinian official told Reuters news agency, as Hamas seeks to crush rising challenges from Palestinian operatives working for the Israelis amid its genocide on the enclave.

In a video circulated on social media reportedly showing the alleged executions, a masked man is seen issuing a warning to "all collaborators" before the three men, kneeling and blindfolded, are shot in front of a crowd.

According to Reuters, the location was confirmed to be Gaza City, where Israeli forces are carrying out a ground offensive.

The alleged videos showed "revolutionary rulings" being implemented against people for collaboration with the Israeli enemy, it said.

The executions aimed to send "a clear message and serve as a deterrent to anyone tempted to collaborate with the occupation".