logo
Israeli airstrikes kill 33 Palestinians in Gaza

Israeli airstrikes kill 33 Palestinians in Gaza

The Hindua day ago
Israeli airstrikes killed at least 33 Palestinians in Gaza, hospital officials said on Sunday (July 6, 2025), as Israel's military said it has struck over 100 targets in the embattled enclave in the past day.
The strikes came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing to fly to Washington for talks at the White House aimed at pushing forward ceasefire efforts.
Separately, an Israeli official said the Israeli security Cabinet on Saturday (July 5, 2025) night approved sending aid into the northern part of Gaza, where civilians are suffering from acute food shortages.
The official declined to offer more details. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision with the media.
In Yemen, a spokesperson for the Houthi rebel group announced in a prerecorded message that the group had launched ballistic missiles targeting Ben Gurion airport overnight. The Israeli military said these had been intercepted.
President Donald Trump has floated a plan for an initial 60-day ceasefire that would include a partial release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for an increase in humanitarian supplies allowed into Gaza. The proposed truce calls for talks on ending the 21-month war altogether.
20 people were killed and 25 wounded after Israeli strikes hit two houses in Gaza City, according to Mohammed Abu Selmia, the director of Shifa Hospital that services the area.
In southern Gaza, 13 Palestinians were killed by strikes in Muwasi, an area on Gaza's Mediterranean where many displaced people live in tents, officials at Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis told The Associated Press. Five of the dead belonged to the same family according to the hospital.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the individual strikes, but said it struck 130 targets across the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours.
It said the strikes targeted Hamas command and control structures, storage facilities, weapons and launchers, and that they killed a number of militants in northern Gaza.
The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.
Israel responded with an offensive that has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
The Ministry, which is under Gaza's Hamas government, does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. The UN and other international organisations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.
The strikes occur as efforts to reach a ceasefire deal appeared to gain momentum. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said his government will send a negotiating team to talks in Qatar on Sunday (July 6, 2025) to conduct indirect talks, adding that Hamas was seeking 'unacceptable' changes to the proposal.
The planned talks in Qatar come ahead of Mr. Netanyahu's planned visit on Monday (July 7, 2025) to Washington to meet U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the deal. It is unclear if a deal will be reached ahead of Mr. Netanyahu's White House meeting.
Hamas has sought guarantees that the initial truce would lead to a total end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Previous negotiations have stalled over Hamas' demands for guarantees that further negotiations would lead to the war's end, while Mr. Netanyahu has insisted Israel would resume fighting to ensure the militant group's destruction.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Houthis launch missiles in response to Israel's attack on three ports, power plant in Yemen
Houthis launch missiles in response to Israel's attack on three ports, power plant in Yemen

Mint

time29 minutes ago

  • Mint

Houthis launch missiles in response to Israel's attack on three ports, power plant in Yemen

The Israeli military on Monday said that it had struck Houthi targets at three Yemeni ports and a power plant, in its first attack on Yemen in a month. According to a Reuters report, the strikes hit the ports of Hodeidah, Ras Isa and Salif, as well as the Ras Qantib power plant on the coast, in response to repeated Houthi attacks on Israel, the military said. Hours later, two missiles were launched from Yemen, Israel said. While attempts were made to intercept the missiles, the results were still under review. The Iran-aligned Houthi forces said they had fired missiles and drones at multiple targets in Israel in retaliation for the strikes on Yemen. Israel's military told residents to evacuate the three ports before it launched its attacks. Residents of Hodeidah told Reuters that the strikes on the power station had knocked out electricity. There was no immediate information on casualties. Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis have fired at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade, in what the group says are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians. Most of the dozens of missiles and drones fired toward Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes, the Reuters report said. Israel said its attacks on Monday also targeted a ship, the Galaxy Leader, which was seized by the Houthis in late 2023 and held in Ras Isa port. "The Houthi terrorist regime's forces installed a radar system on the ship, and are using it to track vessels in international maritime space in order to promote the Houthi terrorist regime's activities," the military said. The Houthi military spokesperson said the group's air defences had responded to the Israeli attack with "a large number of domestically produced surface-to-air missiles". The Israeli assault comes hours after a ship was attacked off of Hodeidah and the ship's crew abandoned it as it took on water. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but security firm Ambrey said the vessel fit the typical profile of a Houthi target, the report added. The Houthis, who control northern Yemen including the capital Sanaa, are one of the last pro-Iran armed groups still standing in the Middle East after Israel severely hurt other allies of Tehran: Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran itself in a 12-day air war last month. Under the direction of leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the group has grown into an army of tens of thousands of fighters and acquired armed drones and ballistic missiles. Saudi Arabia and the West say the arms come from Iran, though Tehran denies this.

Trump's tariff deadline nears: What is the status of '90 trade deals in 90 days'
Trump's tariff deadline nears: What is the status of '90 trade deals in 90 days'

Indian Express

time30 minutes ago

  • Indian Express

Trump's tariff deadline nears: What is the status of '90 trade deals in 90 days'

US President Donald Trump is set to rekindle economic pressure on America's trading partners this week, as a deadline for making trade deals elapses and the administration begins notifying countries of the tariffs they'll face on exports to the United States. For 90 days, the administration has been trying to reach trade pacts with dozens of countries in an attempt to lower economic barriers to US exports. In April, Trump imposed stiff global tariffs on nearly every trading partner but paused most of those levies until this Wednesday to try and win concessions. So far, the United States has reached only two preliminary trade deals, with the United Kingdom and with Vietnam, which are scant on details and leave much to be worked out. More such limited trade deals could be announced in the coming days, including an initial trade framework with India. Countries that have so far agreed to trade deals, even preliminary handshake agreements, have qualified for lower tariff rates than what Trump threatened in April. Other countries that have not reached agreements are expected to face sharply higher tariffs, although the US president and his advisers have recently implied that the tariffs may not go into effect until Aug. 1, rather than Wednesday. Still, with tariffs threatening to strain diplomatic relations and bring some global commerce to a halt, a delay of a few weeks may not to do much to soothe many foreign governments. It could also further unsettle financial markets, which revolted when Trump initially announced his global tariffs, a meltdown that prompted Trump to institute the 90-day delay. Trump said last week that his administration would begin sending out letters Monday to a dozen trading partners dictating the tariff rates their products would now face, some of which could reach 70%. The president said the tariffs would go into effect Aug. 1. Whether Trump's pugilistic approach forces countries to agree to quick trade deals or incites retaliation and trade wars will be a critical test for the president's extraordinarily aggressive and unpredictable approach to international trade. Since taking office, Trump has raised tariffs to levels not seen in a century, before abruptly pausing many of them. Trump's supporters argue that his tariff threats have created leverage to forge new agreements and secure better terms for American businesses and the economy. Critics say his tactics have disrupted global trade flows and financial markets and stripped businesses of the certainty they need to plan, resulting in higher prices, less investment and slower economic growth for the country. The US president's announcement of steep global tariffs in April threw stock and bond markets into turmoil — in part because the levies were incredibly punishing for many of the nation's biggest trading partners. Trump was persuaded to pause his tariffs for a period of 90 days, which calmed markets, and convinced some investors and analysts that, although the president sees tariff threats as a valuable source of leverage, he would stop short of imposing tariffs at a level that would disrupt markets or cause severe harm to the economy. But in recent months, Trump has repeatedly called that idea into question. In May, he threatened to impose a 50% flat tariff on the European Union, saying the bloc was not offering enough concessions. He then paused those levies until this Wednesday. Trump continues to profess a belief in the value of tariffs as a way to balance out international trade relationships and finally make the world more fair for U.S. businesses, which he says have long been ripped off by foreigners. While Trump's advisers praise him as a consummate dealmaker, the president has often seemed more interested in maintaining high tariffs on foreign goods than in striking trade deals that would lower economic barriers for American companies and encourage more international business flows. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, the president said he had quickly decided what tariff rate to apply to foreign countries. 'I've been looking at it for many years,' he said. 'Frankly, I think it's ridiculous that countries were able to get away with so much.' 'People are extremely stretched' The government's trade negotiators have also been overwhelmed as they try to simultaneously hammer out trade deals with multiple partners. Dozens of countries, ranging from South Korea and Malaysia to Lesotho and Switzerland, have reached out to the United States in recent months to try to reach an agreement that would prevent the Trump administration from applying hefty tariffs to their exports. 'People are just extremely stretched,' said Wendy Cutler, a vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former U.S. trade negotiator. Some of those negotiations have proceeded swiftly, propelled by common interests and good relations. Vietnam and the United Kingdom, for example, have agreed to open their markets to US agriculture, buy more Boeing airplanes and cut down on certain ties to China, among other changes. Last week, Trump's threats against Canada also appeared to produce rapid results. After Trump said in late June that he would suspend trade talks with Canada over its digital services tax on American tech companies, the Canadian government abruptly scrapped the measure. 'Deals with Vietnam and other countries may very well show that there's method to the tariff madness,' said Michael Wessel, a longtime trade adviser. 'The devil, of course, is in the details, but it's well past time to rebalance the playing field,' he added. Even for those countries that have struck deals with the Trump administration, tariffs remain extraordinarily high, creating a tax on both American consumers and importing businesses that economists expect to drag on economic activity. Exports from the United Kingdom remain subject to a 10% universal tariff, which the Trump administration shows no signs of dropping, even for America's closest allies. The preliminary trade deal with Vietnam lowers tariffs on some Vietnamese products to 20% rather than the 46% Trump threatened in April. But many business groups that rely on imports from Vietnam, such as the footwear industry, say that 20% rate will raise costs for American consumers. It is also not clear what the deal with Vietnam actually entails. The president announced the agreement with Vietnam on social media last week, but no text or other fact sheets have yet been released by the governments. Other major trading partners, like the European Union and Japan, have proven more challenging to negotiate with. Like other governments, the European Union and Japan remain wary of additional tariffs the president has imposed or is still threatening on their critical sectors, like automobiles, pharmaceuticals and steel. They have also been reluctant to open their markets to American agricultural exports that could undercut their own farmers. If the Trump administration does not strike deals with major trading partners, it could end up stoking trade wars instead. Foreign governments including the European Union have prepared retaliatory packages of tariffs on U.S. exports that they are threatening to impose if hit by further American levies.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store