Latest news with #BenjaminNetanyahu
India Today
an hour ago
- Politics
- India Today
I think it's close: Trump expresses hope for Gaza ceasefire within a week
US President Donald Trump on Friday expressed hope that a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hamas militants could be reached soon, possibly within the coming week. Speaking from the Oval Office during an event celebrating a Congo-Rwanda accord, Trump said he had been in contact with individuals involved in efforts to end the ongoing conflict."I think it's close. I just spoke to some of the people involved," Trump told reporters. "We think within the next week we're going to get a ceasefire."advertisementHe did not specify who he had spoken with, but during the recent Israel-Iran hostilities, Trump said he maintained near-daily contact with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The renewed push for a Gaza ceasefire comes after months of stalled diplomacy, following the collapse of a previous truce brokered at the end of former President Joe Biden's term, with backing from Trump's incoming the aftermath, Israel ramped up its military campaign and enforced a blockade that choked off aid to Gaza for more than two months, triggering fears of the recent US-mediated ceasefire that ended 12 days of fighting between Israel and Iran, marked by American airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites, has injected fresh urgency into peace according to a source quoted by Newsweek, is pushing not just for a temporary halt in hostilities, but for a permanent agreement between Israel and Hamas. Such a deal, he hopes, could pave the way for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer is expected to visit Washington next week for high-level talks on Gaza, Iran, and a potential White House visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, speaking Thursday, suggested the outcome of Israel's confrontation with Iran could create new diplomatic opportunities.'This victory presents an opportunity for a dramatic widening of peace agreements. We are working on this with enthusiasm,' he conflict in Gaza was reignited after Hamas-led militants launched a deadly assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli response, Israel launched a massive military operation in Gaza, which the local health ministry says has killed over 56,000 Palestinians. The offensive has displaced nearly the entire population, caused widespread hunger, and led to accusations of war crimes and genocide—charges Israel strongly Hamas has indicated a willingness to release remaining hostages as part of a deal to end the war, Israel insists the conflict can only conclude with the disarmament and dismantling of Hamas—terms Hamas has so far to end the violence have gained momentum following a short but intense 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, which concluded with a U.S.- and Israeli-backed ceasefire earlier this week. That confrontation also included the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, heightening international urgency around peace talks.- EndsWith inputs from ReutersTune InMust Watch
CTV News
3 hours ago
- Health
- CTV News
Netanyahu denounces report that Israeli soldiers have orders to shoot at Palestinians seeking aid
Palestinians carry humanitarian aid packages near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution center operated by the U.S.-backed organization in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, June 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana) JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz emphatically rejected a report in the left-leaning Israeli daily Haaretz on Friday, which claimed Israeli soldiers were ordered to shoot at Palestinians approaching aid sites inside Gaza. They called the report's findings 'malicious falsehoods designed to defame' the military. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded while seeking food since the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began distributing aid in the territory about a month ago, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Palestinian witnesses say Israeli troops have opened fire at crowds on the roads heading toward the sites. Reacting to the Haaretz piece, Israel's military confirmed that it was investigating incidents in which civilians had been harmed while approaching the sites. It rejected the article's allegations 'of deliberate fire toward civilians.' The foundation, which is backed by an American private contractor, has been distributing food boxes at four locations, mainly in the far south of Gaza, for the past month. 'GHF is not aware of any of these incidents but these allegations are too grave to ignore and we therefore call on Israel to investigate them and transparently publish the results in a timely manner,' the group said in a social media post. Palestinians trying to find food have frequently encountered chaos and violence on their way to and on arrival at the aid sites. Tens of thousands are desperate for food after Israel imposed a 2 1/2 month siege on Gaza, blocking all food, water and medicine from entering the territory pending the setup of the GHF sites. The bodies of eight people who died Friday had come to Shifa Hospital from a GHF site in Netzarim, although it was not immediately clear how they died, Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmyiha, the hospital's director, told The Associated Press. A GHF spokesperson challenged the report, saying they did not know of any incidents at or near their sites Friday. Twenty other bodies his hospital received Friday came from airstrikes across north Gaza, he said. Thousands of Palestinians walk for hours to reach the hubs, moving through Israeli military zones where witnesses say Israeli troops regularly open fire with heavy barrages to control the crowds. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots. Mohammad Fawzi, a displaced man from Rafah, told the AP that he was only able to get empty boxes, not food, from the aid site in the Shakoush area in Rafah when he trekked there early Thursday morning. 'We've been shot at since 6 a.m. up until 10 a.m. just to get aid and only some people were able to receive it. There are martyrs and injured people. The situation is difficult,' he said. The group Doctors Without Borders on Friday condemned the distribution system as 'a slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid' and called for it to be immediately shut down. More than 6,000 people have been killed and more than 20,000 injured in Gaza since the ceasefire collapsed on March 18. Since the war began, more than 56,000 people have been killed and 132,000 injured, according to the health ministry. The Gaza Health Ministry doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants, but has said that women and children make up more than half the 56,000 dead. Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of hiding among civilians, because they operate in populated areas. The Israel-Hamas war started following the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage. About 50 of them still remain in captivity in Gaza. The latest deaths include six people killed and 10 wounded in Israeli strikes on a group of citizens near the Martyrs Roundabout in the Bureij Camp in central Gaza Strip, officials at Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said Friday. The United Nations chief meanwhile urged leaders to show 'political courage' and agree to a ceasefire like the one forged between Israel and Iran. Secretary-General António Guterres also urged a return to the U.N.'s long-tested distribution system for aid in Gaza, where he said Israeli military operations have created 'a humanitarian crisis of horrific proportions..' 'The search for food must never be a death sentence,' Guterres stressed to U.N. reporters Friday. By Julia Frankel, Fatma Khaled And Wafaa Shurafa. Shurafa reported from Gaza and Khaled from Cairo. Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed from the United Nations.
Saba Yemen
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Saba Yemen
American poll shows decline in public support for "Israel" & rise in backing for Hamas
Occupied Quds - Saba: A recent poll conducted by the American "Harris-Harvard" institute and published by the Zionist newspaper Maariv revealed a notable decline in positive American views toward "Israel," dropping from 53% to 41% since the start of the war on Gaza. Meanwhile, opposition to "Israel" rose from 21% to 30%. The poll also indicated that nearly half of young Americans expressed support for the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas—a finding the newspaper described as "extremely concerning." The survey was commissioned at the request of a subcommittee in the Zionist Knesset, and its results were presented during a special parliamentary session. Earlier in June, the American Pew Research Center released a large-scale global survey showing a significant increase in negative sentiments toward "Israel" and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Gaza. The results indicated that public opinion toward "Israel" was unfavorable in 20 out of the 24 countries surveyed. Since October 2023, the enemy army has been committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, with over 56,000 martyred, more than 132,000 injured, and nearly the entire population displaced amid unprecedented destruction not seen since World War II. Whatsapp Telegram Email Print
Middle East Eye
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
'Vindicated': Unscathed by war, Gulf states look to capitalise on Israel and Iran's losses
The Gulf states see two losers in the conflict between Israel and Iran, analysts and Arab officials tell Middle East Eye. Having squeaked through the hostilities with little damage themselves, leaders in the energy-rich Gulf are now in a position to tap their relative advantages in Israel and the Islamic Republic. Watching the smoke rise from Tehran was a change for leaders in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who just a few years ago were fending off drones and missiles launched at them from Iran's allies, the Houthis in Yemen. Israeli warplanes made hay of Iran's weak air defences. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps generals were assassinated, and ballistic missile launchers and arms factories were destroyed. The war culminated in the US bombing Iran's Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities. And that is the aspect that US and Israeli officials are hammering home about the conflict in their interactions, three Arab officials told MEE. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters But for the first time in a generation, Arab rulers got to see how Israel would fare against a conventional army. Israeli encroachment stopped 'The Israelis showed strong spirit in supporting their military…They were brave. However, the home front in Israel couldn't take more than two weeks of missile strikes,' one Arab official told MEE, sharing an assessment of the war review in a leading Arab capital. MEE spoke with officials representing three Arab capitals for this article. All said that in their country's corridors of power, the assessment is that Israel was the first to signal it was ready for a ceasefire after having exhausted its list of military targets and seeing that the Islamic Republic was not facing collapse. 'Benjamin Netanyahu was on a rise until now,' Bader al-Saif, a professor at Kuwait University, told MEE. 'Of course, Israel demonstrated military superiority over Iran's skies. But Iran stopped the Israeli encroachment and hit back. The image of an invincible Israel with flawless air defence is broken.' 'The image of an invincible Israel with flawless air defence is broken' - Bader al-Saif, Kuwait University The perception of Israeli vulnerability is important to understand how the US's Arab allies will approach Israel in the future, experts say. It could give them more leverage with Israel, including states that normalised ties with it in 2020 under the Abraham Accords. The same goes for Tehran, the Arab officials told MEE. They expect Gulf leaders to offer investments to Tehran and are not ruling out high-level visits in the coming months. In April, Saudi Arabia's defence minister and brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Tehran. Despite saying Iran's nuclear programme has been 'blown up to kingdom come', US President Donald Trump says his administration will restart talks with Iran. Iran says its nuclear programme is "badly damaged". Either way, the Gulf states backed the nuclear talks, and their sway in Tehran could increase even more now, Arab officials told MEE. 'The Gulf gets a hearing in Washington. At the end of the day, that remains the tremendous leverage it has with Iran - calling up Trump in the middle of the night and him answering the phone,' one Arab diplomat told MEE. The UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia sealed deals for hundreds of billions of dollars with the US when Trump visited the region in May. At the time, they appeared to get concessions. Under pressure from Saudi Arabia, Trump stopped US attacks on the Houthis in Yemen, MEE revealed. He also lifted sanctions on Syria. 'The Israelis were brave...[but] the home front couldn't take more than two weeks of missile strikes' - Arab official The Gulf states were unable to stop Israel's attack on Iran. For a moment, it looked dicey. Although the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have differing priorities, experts say none of them wanted to see the US directly join Israel's offensive. In the end, all the Arab officials who spoke with MEE characterised the US strike on Iran's nuclear facilities as 'limited" or "minimal". Iran's retaliatory strike on al-Udeid military base in Qatar was coordinated well in advance with Gulf states, MEE reported. 'This crisis has really elevated the Gulf states' leadership,' Ayham Kamel, Middle East president at Edelman Public and Government Affairs, told MEE. 'They were able to play a behind-the-scenes diplomatic role and avoid any significant attack on their territory. They triangulated their cooperation to be inclusive of key states in the broader region, particularly Iran, Turkey and Israel,' he added. Sympathy with Iran? For years, the US tried to recruit Gulf states into an alliance with Israel to counter Iran. When Hezbollah dominated Lebanon, Bashar al-Assad ruled Syria, and the Houthis were lobbing missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia - that pitch was attractive. It reached its peak before the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, when US Central Command tried to create a 'Middle East Nato' linking Israel to Gulf states and Egypt's air defence. But when Israel and Iran came to blows, instead of joining in Israel's offensive, the US's Arab allies lobbied Trump to stop the war. 'Right now, even among the ruling classes, there is more sympathy with Iran than there has been in a long time' - Patrick Theros, former US ambassador Israel and Iran exchanged direct fire twice in 2024. The US did receive some Saudi and Qatari support defending Israel last year. But Iran choreographed its missile barrages then. This round was the first bare-knuckled battle between them, with Israeli jets pounding Tehran and Iran hammering major cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa. Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia all condemned Israel's attack on Iran. Qatar has historically maintained closer ties to the Islamic Republic, in part because they share the world's largest natural gas field. But this conflict saw the UAE and Saudi Arabia publicly and privately press for a ceasefire, two Arab officials told MEE. 'US and Israeli officials may not have anticipated how serious the Gulf is about de-escalation. They know now. Saudi Arabia is on the top of that list,' Patrick Theros, a former US diplomat who served as ambassador to Qatar and a high-ranking official in the UAE, told MEE. 'Right now, even among the ruling classes, including Saudi Arabia, there is more sympathy with Iran than there has been in a long time,' Theros said. Israel and US modified F-35s to enable Iran attack without refuelling, sources say Read More » Not so long ago, Israel may have been able to convince Saudi Arabia to join in its attack. In 2018, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman compared Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Hitler and said he was trying to 'conquer the world'. Then, Saudi Arabia became bogged down fighting Iran's allies in Yemen. In 2019, two major Saudi oil facilities were attacked. At the time, President Trump shrugged off the assault, which emanated from Iran. In the following years, Saudi Arabia moved to patch up ties with the Islamic Republic. In 2023, China brokered a rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran. It worked for everyone during the war. The Strait of Hormuz, which China relies on for its oil shipments, remained open. Iranian oil exports soared despite Israeli attacks, and Saudi Arabia's oil installations were safe again. 'The Gulf isn't where it was at in 2019,' Saif, at Kuwait University, told MEE. "We [the Gulf] feel vindicated that we did not join the war.' Gaza ceasefire and normalisation The Gulf states' main focus is reducing their economies' dependence on oil revenue. Saudi Arabia has pushed through liberalising social reforms and is pursuing an ambitious Vision 2030 agenda that includes luxury Red Sea tourism. Both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi want to build AI data centres. One overlooked element of the change, Theros told MEE, is that the sectarian tensions that feed into the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran in spheres of influence like Yemen and Syria have ebbed, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pursues modernising social reforms. 'Now that Mohammed Bin Salman has de-Wahhabised Saudi Arabia, the rhetoric out of the clerics about the Shia has been curbed,' Theros said. 'That makes it harder for Israel to bring Saudi Arabia along.' If anything, public opinion in the Gulf has turned more negative towards Israel over its war on Gaza, where over 56,000 Palestinians have been killed. A poll released by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy in the first months of the Gaza war revealed 96 percent of people in Saudi Arabia oppose normalisation with Israel. Trump signalled on Wednesday that he wants to build out his fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran to Gaza, where he said 'great progress is being made' to end the war. Ending that conflict is a prerequisite to any talk of normalising ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Under Saudi pressure, Trump refrained from lobbying the kingdom to cut a deal with Israel during his visit to Riyadh in May, but told Saudi Arabia, 'you'll be greatly honouring me' by doing so. Saudi Arabia says it needs to see Israel take irreversible steps towards a Palestinian state to normalise relations. Diplomats say that after the Israel-Iran war, the price Saudi Arabia will demand is going up. 'Saudi Arabia has a very good sense of where the Arab street is going,' one Arab official told MEE. 'It will insist on something serious.'
Los Angeles Times
4 hours ago
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
Netanyahu denounces report that Israeli soldiers have orders to shoot at Palestinians seeking aid
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz emphatically rejected a report in the left-leaning Israeli daily Haaretz on Friday, which claimed Israeli soldiers were ordered to shoot at Palestinians approaching aid sites inside Gaza. They called the report's findings 'malicious falsehoods designed to defame' the military. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded while seeking food since the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began distributing aid in the territory about a month ago, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Palestinian witnesses say Israeli troops have opened fire at crowds on the roads heading toward the sites. Reacting to the Haaretz piece, Israel's military confirmed that it was investigating incidents in which civilians had been harmed while approaching the sites. It rejected the article's allegations 'of deliberate fire toward civilians.' The foundation, which is backed by an American private contractor, has been distributing food boxes at four locations, mainly in the far south of Gaza, for the past month. 'GHF is not aware of any of these incidents but these allegations are too grave to ignore and we therefore call on Israel to investigate them and transparently publish the results in a timely manner,' the group said in a social media post. Palestinians trying to find food have frequently encountered chaos and violence on their way to and on arrival at the aid sites. Tens of thousands are desperate for food after Israel imposed a 2 1/2 month siege on Gaza, blocking all food, water and medicine from entering the territory pending the setup of the GHF sites. The bodies of eight people who died Friday had come to Shifa Hospital from a GHF site in Netzarim, although it was not immediately clear how they died, Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmyiha, the hospital's director, told the Associated Press. A GHF spokesperson challenged the report, saying they did not know of any incidents at or near their sites Friday. Twenty other bodies his hospital received Friday came from airstrikes across north Gaza, he said. Thousands of Palestinians walk for hours to reach the hubs, moving through Israeli military zones where witnesses say Israeli troops regularly open fire with heavy barrages to control the crowds. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots. Mohammad Fawzi, a displaced man from Rafah, told the AP that he was only able to get empty boxes, not food, from the aid site in the Shakoush area in Rafah when he trekked there early Thursday morning. 'We've been shot at since 6 a.m. up until 10 a.m. just to get aid and only some people were able to receive it. There are martyrs and injured people. The situation is difficult,' he said. The group Doctors Without Borders on Friday condemned the distribution system as 'a slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid' and called for it to be immediately shut down. More than 6,000 people have been killed and more than 20,000 injured in Gaza since the ceasefire collapsed on March 18. Since the war began, more than 56,000 people have been killed and 132,000 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The Gaza Health Ministry doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants, but has said that women and children make up more than half the 56,000 dead. Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of hiding among civilians, because they operate in populated areas. The Israel-Hamas war started following the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage. About 50 of them still remain in captivity in Gaza. The latest deaths include six people killed and 10 wounded in Israeli strikes on a group of citizens near the Martyrs Roundabout in the Bureij Camp in central Gaza Strip, officials at Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said Friday. The United Nations chief meanwhile urged leaders to show 'political courage' and agree to a ceasefire like the one forged between Israel and Iran. Secretary-General António Guterres also urged a return to the U.N.'s long-tested distribution system for aid in Gaza, where he said Israeli military operations have created 'a humanitarian crisis of horrific proportions.' 'The search for food must never be a death sentence,' Guterres stressed to U.N. reporters Friday. Frankel, Khaled and Shurafa write for the Associated Press. Shurafa reported from Gaza and Khaled from Cairo. AP writer Edith M. Lederer contributed from the United Nations.
