Israeli forces kill scores in latest Gaza aid massacre

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Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said condemnation by the U.S. and Israel of sanctions imposed on two far-right Israeli cabinet ministers was "predictable", and that the two men had impeded a two-state solution.

Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Norway in a coordinated action imposed sanctions on Tuesday on cabinet ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, accusing them of repeatedly inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X that the U.S. condemned the move, and Israel said the action by the five countries was "outrageous" and the Israeli government would hold a special meeting early next week to decide how to respond.

Albanese said the responses from Israel and the U.S. are "predictable".

"The Israeli Government does need to uphold its obligations under international law and some of the expansionist rhetoric that we've seen as well is clearly in contradiction of that from these hard-line right wing members of the Netanyahu government," Albanese said on Wednesday in an interview with ABC Radio Sydney.

Activist Greta Thunberg returned home to Sweden late Tuesday after being deported from Israel, lambasting the country for its "violations of international law and war crimes" in Gaza.

Thunberg was deported after Israeli security forces intercepted a boat carrying her and 11 other activists attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and break the Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory.

The 22-year-old was greeted by around 30 cheering supporters waving Palestinian flags amid a large media presence at Stockholm's Arlanda airport, after landing just after 10:30 pm (2030 GMT), an AFP journalist reported.

Earlier Tuesday during a stopover in Paris, Thunberg accused Israel of "kidnapping" her and the other activists.

Asked in Stockholm if she was scared when the security forces boarded the Madleen sailboat, Thunberg replied: "What I'm afraid of is that people are silent during an ongoing genocide".

"What I feel most is concern for the continued violations of international law and war crimes that Israel is guilty of," Thunberg told reporters.

She accused Israel of carrying out a "systematic genocide" and "systematic starvation of over two million people" in Gaza.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the U.S. condemns sanctions imposed on two sitting members of the Israeli cabinet by the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, New Zealand, and Australia.

The countries imposed sanctions on the far-right ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, accusing them of repeatedly inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

"These sanctions do not advance U.S.-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring all hostages home, and end the war," Rubio said in a post on X.

"The United States urges the reversal of the sanctions and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel."

Israel cancelled a waiver on Tuesday that had allowed Israeli banks to work with Palestinian ones, threatening to paralyse Palestinian financial institutions, Israel's finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement.

"Against the backdrop of the Palestinian Authority's delegitimisation campaign against the State of Israel internationally, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has instructed Accountant General CPA Yali Rothenberg to cancel the indemnity provided to correspondent banks dealing with banks operating in Palestinian Authority territories", Smotrich's office said in a statement.

Smotrich had threatened in May 2024 to cut the vital connection between Israel and Palestinian banks in the occupied West Bank in retaliation for the recognition of the State of Palestine by three European countries.

The Palestinian financial and banking system is dependent on the regular renewal of the Israeli waiver.

It protects Israeli banks from potential legal action relating to transactions with their Palestinian counterparts, for instance in relation to financing terror.

UN experts said in a report on Tuesday that Israel committed the crime against humanity of "extermination" by killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites in Gaza, part of a "concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life."

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was due to present the report to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on June 17.

"We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza," former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who chairs the commission, said in a statement.

"Israel's targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination," she added.

The commission examined attacks on educational facilities and religious and cultural sites to assess whether international law was breached.

The sixth round of Iran-US nuclear talks is planned for Sunday, Tehran said as the two sides appear locked in a standoff over uranium enrichment nearly two months into the high-stakes negotiations.

It came as European powers and the United States submitted a censure motion to the UN's nuclear watchdog in an effort to ramp up pressure on Iran, in spite of Tehran's warnings.

Iran has said it will present a counter-proposal to the latest draft from Washington, which it had criticised for failing to offer sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

"The next round of Iran-US indirect talks is being planned for next Sunday in Muscat," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a statement on Tuesday.

There was no immediate comment from mediator Oman, which has hosted some of the previous rounds, while Washington has said the talks could be held as early as Thursday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Argentine President Javier Milei on his second official state visit on Tuesday, telling the South American leader that he was a "true friend."

"Javier - you are a true friend of Israel!" Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office, highlighting that the Hebrew word for friend sounded similar to Javier.

Milei, who arrived in Israel late on Monday night and immediately visited the Western Wall holy site, said the country had a special place in his heart.

This is Milei's second visit to Israel since being elected in 2023. His previous trip, in February 2024, was his first official state visit outside of Argentina.

This week's trip comes as criticism of Israel from other world leaders grows over its ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.

A statement sent from Netanyahu's office said that Milei commended Netanyahu's "strength in managing the multi-sector war and expressed unqualified support for the State of Israel".

Earlier, Milei told President Isaac Herzog that "as a nation, we want to stand firm alongside you as you go through these dark days."

"We will not yield to criticism resulting from cowardice or complicity with barbarism," he added.

The United States on Tuesday denounced sanctions by Britain and four mutual allies against two Israeli far-right ministers, saying they should focus on the Palestinian armed group Hamas instead.

"We find that extremely unhelpful. It will do nothing to get us closer to a ceasefire in Gaza," State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.

Two people were killed in separate drone strikes Tuesday on a car and a motorcycle in the northwestern bastion of the Islamist former rebels who now head the Syrian government, rescuers said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the twin drone strikes in the Idlib region but a US-led coalition in Syria has carried out past strikes on jihadists in the area.

Earlier this year, the United States said it killed several commanders of Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate Hurras al-Din in the area.

The group had recently announced it was breaking up on the orders of the interim government set up by the rebels after their overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in December.

Israeli forces struck Yemen's rebel-held port of Hodeida on Tuesday, the latest attack targeting the Iran-backed Houthis which Israel's military said was followed by a missile launched at its territory.

An Israeli military statement said that navy ships "struck terror targets belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime" in Hodeida, on Yemen's Red Sea coast, "to stop the use of the port for military purposes".

It said the port was "used to transfer weapons".

Israel has carried out numerous attacks on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, including on ports and the airport in the capital Sanaa, since the rebel group began launching missiles and drones after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

The Iran-backed Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians, paused their attacks during a two-month Gaza ceasefire that ended in March, but renewed them after Israel resumed its military campaign in the Palestinian territory.

Late Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had "identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory", adding that sirens were sounded in several areas.

AFP reporters heard loud booms over Jerusalem, similar to past interceptions.

In Hodeida earlier, the Houthis' Al-Masirah TV channel said "two strikes by the Israeli enemy targeted the docks of the port".

Air raid sirens sounded across central Israel and Jerusalem on Tuesday as the military said it had detected a projectile launched from Yemen.

"The IDF (military) has identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory," the military said in a statement, adding that sirens were sounded in several areas. AFP reporters heard loud booms over Jerusalem, similar to past interceptions.

The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since 7 October 2023 has climbed to at least 54,981, according to the latest figures from the local health ministry.

At least 52 people were killed and 305 others were injured over the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement earlier today.

The US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has said that Washington no longer supports the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, breaking with decades of US Middle East policy.

Huckabee, an evangelical Christian Zionist, told Bloomberg that an independent Palestine probably will not happen "in our lifetime" and suggested that Palestinians establish a state inside the borders of a neighbouring Arab country.

When asked by the news site if a Palestinian state remains a US goal, he replied: “I don’t think so.”

Huckabee's inflammatory comments come a week before a UN conference on the creation of a Palestinian state.

The event, co-led by France and Saudi Arabia, could see more Western countries recognise Palestinian statehood for the first time.

Dozens of Palestinians were reportedly injured in Nablus on Tuesday after Israel launched a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank city. 

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that 82 people were injured in the operation, which started shortly after midnight when dozens of military vehicles entered the city. 

Dozens of others have been arrested by Israeli forces.

Military operations are focused on the old city, a densely populated area bordering a large downtown square where young men and boys gathered to burn tyres and throw stones at armoured vehicles.

(AFP and TNA staff)

The United States imposed sanctions on Tuesday targeting individuals and charities it said were prominent financial supporters of the Palestinian groups Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The individuals and groups targeted were funding Hamas' military wing under the pretense of doing humanitarian work, in Gaza and internationally, the Treasury Department said.

The entities sanctioned included the Gaza-based Al Weam Charitable Society, the Turkey-based Filistin Vakfi, the El Baraka Association for Charitable and Humanitarian Work, which is based in Algeria, the Netherlands-based Israa Charitable Foundation and the Associazione Benefica La Cupola d’Oro, based in Italy, the department said in a statement.

(Reuters and TNA staff)

Israel's far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has threatened to withhold tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority if the UK does not reverse sanctions imposed on him and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The UK and four other countries announced today they would impose asset freezes and travel bans on the two ultranationalist due to their incitement "extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights".

Sources close to Smotrich told Israel Hayom that the minister could halt the transfer of funds to the PA in response to the sanctions, a move that would be financially catastrophic for the authority which is heavily dependent on taxes collected by the Israeli government.

Britain confirmed on Tuesday that it had sanctioned two far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, in response to what it called their incitement of violence against Palestinian communities.

"Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. These actions are not acceptable. This is why we have taken action now - to hold those responsible to account," British foreign minister David Lammy said in a statement. 

(Reuters)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement released by his office that there has been "significant progress" in talks for the release of Israeli captives.

However, senior Israeli officials told Haaretz that it was unclear if a breakthrough is within reach. 

A security cabinet meeting on the issue of the captives is set to occur on Thursday, Haaretz also reported.

France said on Tuesday it had obtained new "unprecedented" commitments from the Palestinian Authority to reform, ahead of a conference next week at which Paris could become the most prominent Western power to back recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

President Emmanuel Macron has received a letter from Mahmoud Abbas in which the Palestinian president condemns the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack against Israel, calls on all captives to be released and pledges further reforms, the Elysee said.

French officials have said Macron is leaning towards recognising a Palestinian state ahead of the UN conference which France and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting from 17-20 June.

Israel has reportedly threatened to annex occupied territory in the West Bank if France, the UK and other Western countries recognise a Palestinian state during the event.

(Reuters and TNA staff)

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg said on Tuesday she was kidnapped in international waters by Israeli forces as she arrived in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport after being deported from Israel.

"We were kidnapped in international waters," she told reporters at her arrival in Paris.

Thunberg, 22, arrived in Paris a day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza.

Israeli forces boarded the charity vessel as it neared Gaza early on Monday, trying to break through a years-old naval blockade of the coastal enclave, and seized the 12-strong crew, including Thunberg.

(Reuters)

Israel's foreign minister Gideon Saar has described the decision by four Western nations to sanction two extremist Israeli ministers as "outrageous".

The Times reported earlier today that the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand will impose asset freezes and travel bans on ultranationalist politicians Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir in response to their genocidal rhetoric relating to Gaza.

The Israeli government will hold a meeting next week to decide how to respond to the "unacceptable decision", Saar told reporters.

The UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries will slap sanctions on extremist Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, The Times reported on Tuesday.

The countries will impose asset freezes and travel bans on the two ultranationalist politicians, who control the finance and national security ministries respectively.

The move comes amid escalating rhetoric from Western capitals about Israel's blockade of Gaza and declared ambition to ethnically cleanse the territory of its 2.2 million residents.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy has described Smotrich's statements about Gaza as "monstrous" and last month suspended free trade talks with Israel and sanctioned illegal settler organisations in the occupied West Bank.

United Nations peacekeepers said rock-throwing individuals confronted them during a patrol on Tuesday in south Lebanon, calling attacks on their troops "unacceptable".

The UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), deployed since 1978 to separate Lebanon and Israel, sits in a five-member committee to supervise the ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

In a statement, UNIFIL said peacekeepers conducting "a planned patrol" coordinated with the Lebanese army were "confronted by a group of individuals in civilian clothing in the vicinity of Hallusiyat al-Tahta, in southern Lebanon".

"The group attempted to obstruct the patrol using aggressive means, including throwing stones at the peacekeepers," the statement read, adding that "one peacekeeper was struck" but no injuries were reported.

The situation was diffused when the Lebanese army intervened, allowing the peacekeeping force to continue its patrol.

"It is unacceptable that UNIFIL peacekeepers continue to be targeted," the statement added.

(AFP and TNA staff)

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Tuesday that Israel's overhaul of the Gaza humanitarian effort "does not intend to address hunger" amid reports that Israeli troops once again gunned down Palestinians seeking aid.

"Another day of aid distribution another day of death traps," Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X, as medics said 52 people had been killed by Israeli forces at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation site in central Gaza.

Hundreds of people have been killed and wounded by Israeli fire since the Israel-backed organisation began operating at the end of May.

"Day after day, casualties & scores of injured are reported at distribution points manned by Israel & private security companies," the UNRWA chief wrote, urging Israeli authorities to fully lift the Gaza blockade and allow the UN and other relief agencies to distribute aid across the territory.

#Gaza, another day of aid distribution another day of death traps.

Day after day, casualties & scores of injured are reported at distribution points manned by Israel & private security companies.

This humiliating system continues to force thousands of hungry & desperate people…

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) June 10, 2025

Hamas is showing signs that it may back down on its opposition to a US, Israeli-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, Axios reported Monday, citing US and Israeli officials.

The Palestinian armed group has so far refused to agree to a temporary truce that does not include a mechanism to permanently end the war and remove Israeli forces from Gaza.

"We don't expect a breakthrough this week, but there has certainly been progress and we are closer to an agreement than we thought," the US official was quoted as saying.

At least eight people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on Tuesday, a source at Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital has told Al Jazeera Arabic.

The foreign ministers of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Oman will meet in Norway this week at an annual peace forum, the Norwegian government announced on Tuesday.

The ministers, including Iran's foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator Abbas Araghchi, will take part on Wednesday and Thursday in the Oslo Forum, an annual gathering dedicated to peace issues.

The meeting will be held behind closed doors in Lorenskog some 15 kilometres (nine miles) outside the Norwegian capital.

(AFP)

The Israeli military on Tuesday ordered residents to flee several neighbourhoods in northern Gaza, after it said it had intercepted a projectile fired from the Palestinian territory.

Israeli forces are "operating with great force in the areas where you are located to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organisations," the military's Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X.

The army "will respond firmly to every terrorist act or rocket attack. For your own safety, evacuate immediately south to known shelters in Gaza City," he added.

Israel has issued dozens of displacement orders since intensifying its offensive in Gaza last month, leaving more than 80% of the territory off limits to Palestinians.

(AFP and TNA staff)

Medical sources say that the number of people shot dead by Israeli forces near a food distribution point in central Gaza has risen to 52.

Reports of a new massacre at an aid site operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation first surfaced earlier this morning.

An Israeli strike killed a Lebanese father and son Tuesday in a southern village, the Lebanese health ministry and state media said, the latest deaths despite a November ceasefire.

A second son was also wounded in the strike in Shebaa, the state-run National News Agency reported. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

"An Israeli enemy drone carried out a strike in the village of Shebaa, killing two people and wounding one," a health ministry statement said.

Israel has bombed Lebanon hundreds of times in the seven months since agreeing to a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Yemen's rebel-controlled media reported Israeli strikes on the port of Hodeida on Tuesday, with the Israeli army saying its navy had hit the area following calls on civilians to evacuate three Houthi-held ports.

"Israeli Navy Missile Ships struck terror targets belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime in the port of" Hodeida, the Israeli army said in a statement.

"The strikes were carried out to stop the use of the port for military purposes," it said, adding that the port was being "used to transfer weapons".

Al-Masirah TV channel said "two strikes by the Israeli enemy targeted the docks of the port of Hodeida".

In a post on X, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said "we warned the Houthi terror organisation that if they continued firing toward Israel, they would face a powerful response and be subjected to a naval and aerial blockade."

(AFP and TNA staff)

Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel on Tuesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza.

Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there.

Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement.

They will be held in a detention centre ahead of a court hearing. It was not immediately clear when that would happen.

(Reuters and TNA staff)

The number of Palestinians shot dead by Israeli troops at the GHF aid site this morning has risen to 20, medics tell Al Jazeera Arabic.

This has pushed up the total death toll in Gaza on Tuesday to at least 36.

Five French activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla boat intercepted by Israeli forces have refused to leave the country voluntarily and will be forcibly deported, the French foreign minister said on Tuesday.

"Our consul was able to see the six French nationals arrested by the Israeli authorities last night," Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot wrote on X. "One of them has agreed to leave voluntarily and should return today. The other five will be subject to forced deportation proceedings."

Israeli forces intercepted the British-flagged Madleen on Sunday as it approached Gaza, and towed the vessel to Ashdod. The crew - which include climate activist Greta Thunberg and European politician Rima Hassan - were attempting the break the Israeli blockade on Gaza and deliver aid to the besieged population.

The 12 crew members were detained and will now be deported from Israel.

(AFP and TNA staff)

UN experts said in a report on Tuesday that Israel committed the crime against humanity of "extermination" by killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites in Gaza, part of a "concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life."

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was due to present the report to Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on 17 June.

"We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza," former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who chairs the commission, said in a statement.

"Israel's targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination," she added.

Israel has destroyed more than 90% of school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza, the report said.

(Reuters)

At least 17 Palestinians have been killed and dozens more wounded after Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd of displaced Palestinians waiting for food near a distribution site operated by the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in central Gaza, local health authorities said.

Doctors said casualties were sent to the Al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza and and Al-Quds Hospital in the north.

Massacres of Palestinians near GHF sites have become almost a daily occurrence since the organisation started operating at the end of May, with hundreds of people being killed and wounded by Israeli troops.

GHF has consistently denied reports of violence at its facilities, though the Israeli military has admitted firing on civilians on several occasions.

(Reuters and TNA staff)