Israeli forces kill scores in Gaza, including people in a displacement shelter

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Hamas said early on Friday that it is discussing a U.S.-backed Gaza ceasefire proposal with other Palestinian groups, and it will submit its response to mediators once the talks conclude.

 U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Iran wants to speak to the U.S., and that he would meet with representatives of the country "if necessary."

"Iran does want to speak, and I think they'd like to speak to me, and it's time that they do," Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews while on his way to a rally in Iowa.

"We're not looking to hurt them. We're looking to let them be a country again."

US President Donald Trump said Thursday he wanted "safety" for people in Gaza, as he prepares to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week to push for a ceasefire.

"I want the people of Gaza to be safe more importantly," Trump told reporters when asked if he still wanted the US to take over the Palestinian territory as he announced in February.

"I want to see safety for the people of Gaza. They've gone through hell."

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged to consider further action to review domestic and United Nations terrorist designations related to Syria in a call with that country's top diplomat on Thursday, the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

Rubio also discussed with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani previous U.S. moves to remove sanctions on Syria, and pledged to maintain sanctions on "malign actors," including Bashar al-Assad and his associates, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in the statement.

Iran announced Thursday that it has reopened its airspace, including over Tehran, after closing it on June 13 due to the air war with Israel, according to state media.

"Tehran's Mehrabad and Imam Khomeini international airports, as well as those in the north, east, west and south of the country, have been reopened and are ready to operate flights," the official IRNA news agency reported.

Domestic and international flights from all airports across the country - except those in Isfahan and Tabriz - will operate between 5:00 am and 6:00 pm, authorities said.

Flights from those cities will resume as soon as the necessary infrastructure is in place, according to IRNA.

The country had already reopened airspace in eastern Iran and expanded access for international overflights following the June 24 truce.

The president of the University of California this week reiterated that student governments are prohibited from financial boycotts of companies associated with any particular country, including Israel, as the Trump administration continues its probe of alleged antisemitism on college campuses.

Michael Drake did not mention Israel by name, but he did single out student governments in a letter he sent to chancellors of the university system.

Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to bring home all the captives still held in war-stricken Gaza.

"I feel a deep commitment, first and foremost, to ensure the return of all our abductees, all of them," Netanyahu told inhabitants of the Nir Oz kibbutz, the community that saw the most hostages seized in the 2023 Hamas attacks that sparked the war.

"We will bring them all back," he added, in filmed comments released by his office.

UN rights expert Francesca Albanese on Thursday denounced companies she said "profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide", in a report that provoked a furious response from Israel.

Some of the companies named in her report also raised objections.

Albanese presented her report, investigating "the corporate machinery sustaining the Israeli settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians", to the UN Human Rights Council.

Companies should stop all business activities and relationships that caused or contributed to rights violations and international crimes, she argued.

Asked if the US-proposed 60-day truce in Gaza is a "done deal," US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said, "We sure hope it's a done deal, but I think it's all going to be what Hamas is willing to accept."

Hamas has no future in Gaza, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Israel's Channel 12 Thursday evening.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin stressed in a call with US President Donald Trump that the Iran conflicts and others in the Middle East should be solved diplomatically.

"From the Russian side, the importance of settling all disputed issues, disagreements and conflictual situations be solved exclusively by politico-diplomatic means was stressed," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after the call.

A senior Iranian diplomat said Thursday his country remains open to diplomacy provided the United States offers guarantees it will not resort to military action against the Islamic Republic.

"We are for diplomacy," Iran's deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, told NBC News, adding the United States should "convince us that they are not going to use military force while we are negotiating."

"That is an essential element for our leadership to be in a position to decide about the future round of talks," he added.

Hundreds of Palestinians have fled a section of the Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank after receiving Israeli demolition orders, joining tens of thousands of people to be displaced by an open-ended military offensive in the area.

The residents loaded all their earthly possessions, including mattresses, blankets, and washing machines, onto vehicles on Wednesday before taking one last glimpse of their homes and speeding off.

The new demolition order affects some 104 buildings, and at least 400 families now face homelessness, said Faisal Salama, a local official in the camp.

Late Wednesday, Israel's Supreme Court temporarily froze the planned demolitions in response to a request from Adalah, a Palestinian human rights group in Israel.

The order gave the army until 2 September to respond. But as of late Thursday, none of the displaced residents had returned. The Israeli army declined to comment on the order.

The United States plans to hold talks with Iran about its nuclear program in Oslo next week, Axios reported on Thursday, citing two unidentified sources.

Four Palestine Action activists were remanded in custody on Thursday when they appeared at a London court over a break-in at an air force base that provoked a government move to ban the protest group.

Amy Gardiner-Gibson, 29, Daniel Jeronymides-Norie, 35, Jony Cink, 24, and Lewie Chiaramello, 22, appeared at London's Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday.

They were remanded in custody until their next appearance at London's Old Bailey criminal court on 18 July.

A 41-year-old woman who was arrested "on suspicion of assisting an offender" has been released on bail.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported an Israeli strike on a vehicle on Beirut's southern entrance, as the Israeli army said it hit a "terrorist" working for Iran.

According to the NNA, "an enemy drone targeted a car on the Khalde highway" south of Beirut.

The Israeli army said it "eliminated a terrorist responsible for smuggling weapons and advancing terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops, on behalf of the Iranian Quds Force", the foreign operations arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

كاميرا مراقبة توثق لحظة الإستهداف على أوتوستراد خلدة pic.twitter.com/IZKOmu4W2A

— Al Jadeed News (@ALJADEEDNEWS) July 3, 2025

The United States imposed new Iran-related sanctions on Thursday, as well as sanctions targeting the Hezbollah network, according to the Treasury Department's website. 

Gaza's civil defence agency said the number of people killed by Israeli forces on Thursday rose to 69, updating a previous toll of 25.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 69 people were killed by Israeli strikes, artillery or gunfire across the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, including 38 people waiting for humanitarian aid.

The interior ministry in Gaza on Thursday warned residents of the coastal enclave not to assist the US-and Israeli-owned Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, saying deadly incidents near its food distribution sites endangered hungry Gazans. 

"It is strictly forbidden to deal with, work for, or provide any form of assistance or cover to the American organization (GHF) or its local or foreign agents," an interior ministry statement said.

"Legal action will be taken against anyone proven to be involved in cooperation with this organization, including the imposition of the maximum penalties stipulated in the applicable national laws," it added, without giving further details.

Iran remains committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its safeguards agreement, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in a post on X on Thursday.

"Our cooperation with the IAEA (U.N. nuclear watchdog) will be channeled through Iran's Supreme National Security Council for obvious safety and security reasons", Araqchi added.

Israeli authorities have ordered 22 Palestinian families to leave their homes in the Um Tuba neighbourhood of Sur Baher, south of occupied Jerusalem - Wafa reports.

A local resident affected by the order said over 180 Palestinian residents have until 7 July to leave. The families live adjacent to the Har Homa settlements. 

The Israeli strikes that killed at least 19 Palestinians on Thursday also included Muhannad Al-Layyeh, a player for the Khidmat Al-Maghazi football club, who succumbed to wounds after an Israeli airstrike targeted his home in the Maghazi refugee camp.

Three former Palestinian detainees are among those killed on Thursday as Israel continues with its attacks on Gaza.

The Jerusalem Governorate said that Bassam Abu Sneineh, from occupied Jerusalem, was killed by an Israeli airstrike. Former prisoners Ayman Abu Daoud and Mahdi Shawer, both from Hebron, were also killed.

The three were among those released as part of the 2011 prisoner exchange deal, who were then forcibly deported to the Gaza Strip.

Danish police said on Thursday they were present at the Israeli embassy, just north of Copenhagen, and were investigating a shipment received by the embassy.

Amnesty International accused a controversial Israeli-US-backed system of distributing aid in Gaza of using starvation tactics against Palestinians to continue to commit genocide in the Gaza Strip during Israel's war.

The UK-based human rights group released a report Thursday condemning Israel and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which the US and Israel have backed to take over aid distribution in Gaza from a network led by the United Nations.

The Amnesty report said Israel has "turned aid-seeking into a booby trap for desperate starved Palestinians" through GHF's militarized hubs. The conditions have created "a deadly mix of hunger and disease pushing the population past breaking point."

"This devastating daily loss of life as desperate Palestinians try to collect aid is the consequence of their deliberate targeting by Israeli forces and the foreseeable consequence of irresponsible and lethal methods of distribution," said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty's secretary general.

Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed into the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Thursday under the protection of the Israeli police - Wafa reports.

Local sources said the settlers conducted tours and performed rituals.

Four people are set to appear in a London courtroom on Thursday over charges connected with an incident in which pro-Palestinian protesters damaged two Royal Air Force planes with red paint and crowbars.

A UN expert on Thursday called on states to impose an arms embargo and cut off trade and financial ties with Israel, which she alleged is waging a "genocidal campaign" in Gaza.

In a speech to the UN Human Rights Council presenting her latest report, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese accused Israel of being responsible for "one of the cruellest genocides in modern history".

Israel has rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to self-defence following the 7 October attacks.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 25 people on Thursday, including 12 in a strike on a school sheltering Palestinians displaced by the war nearing its 22nd month.

Four Palestine Action activists were due in court Thursday over a break-in at a UK air force base that has provoked Britain's government to move to ban the protest group.

Counter-terror police on Wednesday charged the four suspects with "conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom, and conspiracy to commit criminal damage."

Prosecutors will argue the offences were terror-linked.

Amy Gardiner-Gibson, 29, Daniel Jeronymides-Norie, 35, Jony Cink, 24, and Lewie Chiaramello, 22, were remanded in custody to appear at London's Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday.

Airstrikes and shootings killed 82 Palestinians in Gaza overnight, including 38 while attempting to get much-needed humanitarian aid, hospitals and the Health Ministry said Thursday.

Five people were killed while outside sites associated with the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the US and Israel-backed organisation to feed the Gaza Strip’s population, while 33 others were killed waiting for aid trucks in other locations across the Gaza Strip.

Gaza's civil defence agency said an Israeli air strike Thursday hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing at least 12, mostly women and children.

Civil defence official Mohammad al-Mughayyir told AFP there were "12 martyrs, the majority of them children and women, and a large number of injuries in an Israeli air strike on the Mustafa Hafez School, which shelters displaced persons, in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood in western Gaza City".

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it "will try to look into" the report.