Gaza | Pakistan

GAZA CITY: Israeli forces killed 32 more people across Gaza on Saturday, hours after Hamas said it was ready to start talks “immediately” on a US-sponsored proposal for a Gaza ceasefire. Asked about Hamas’s positive response to the latest ceasefire proposal, an Israeli official said “no decision has been made yet”. It came ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s departure for talks on Monday in Washington, where US President Donald Trump has intensified calls for an end to the war. Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said Saturday’s dead included eight people killed in two strikes on schools in Gaza City. He also reported that eight people were killed by Israeli fire near an aid distribution centre in southern Gaza. On the other hand, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he asked US President Donald Trump to intervene to stop shootings at Gaza aid centres, which the UN says have killed more than 500 people. Erdogan said when he met Trump at the Nato summit in June, he asked him to s...

US President Donald Trump urged Hamas on Tuesday to accept a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, saying that Israel had agreed to finalise such a deal, as its forces also stepped up operations in the Palestinian territory. Nearly 21 months of relentless Israeli bombardment have created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations. The civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 14 people today. Trump, in a post on social media, said his representatives had met with Israeli officials about the raging conflict, ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington next week. “Israel has agreed to the necessary conditions to finalise the 60-day ceasefire, during which time we will work with all parties to end the war,” Trump wrote. He said representatives of Qatar and Egypt, mediators in the conflict, would deliver “this final proposal”. “I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this...

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan yesterday urged the UN Security Council not to remain “a bystander” amid the deepening humanitarian crisis in war-shattered Gaza, with Israeli military operations and attacks on civilians seeking aid continuing to exact a devastating toll on lives and infrastructure.

Palestinians in northern Gaza reported one of the worst nights of Israeli bombardment in weeks after the military issued mass evacuation orders on Monday, while Israeli officials were due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by the Trump administration. A day after US President Donald Trump urged an end to the 20-month-old conflict, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected at the White House for talks on a Gaza ceasefire, Iran, and possible wider regional diplomatic deals. But on the ground in the Palestinian enclave, there was no sign of fighting letting up. “Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like earthquakes,” said Salah, 60, a father of five children, from Gaza City. “In the news, we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground, we see death, and we hear explosions.” Israeli tanks pushed into the eastern areas of the Zeitoun suburb in Gaza City and shelled several areas in the north, while aircraft bombed at least four schools after ordering hundreds of fami...

Gaza rescuers say Israeli forces kill 23, including children

Pakistan has called the ongoing crisis in Gaza a "stain on the collective conscience of humanity," citing the death toll of over 55,000 Palestinians including 18,000 children and 28,000 women and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure.

• Hamas accuses Tel Aviv of turning aid centres into traps of mass deaths • Egypt blocks activists’ bid to march to Gaza border CAIRO: Israeli firing and air strikes killed at least 45 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, many of them near an aid distribution site operated by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on Saturday, local health authorities said. Medics at Al-Awda and Al-Aqsa Hospitals in central Gaza areas, where most of the casualties were moved to, said at least 15 people were killed as they tried to approach the GHF aid distribution site near the Netzarim corridor. The Israeli army said in a statement that an aircraft had opened fire on a person “to neutralise the threat” after he advanced towards troops and ignored warning shots fired near a group. Last week, the army warned Palestinians not to approach routes leading to sites of the GHF between 6pm and 6am local time, describing these roads as closed military zones. The GHF said none of its distribution centres was opened on Saturday. The ...

• Urges nations to take ‘all measures necessary’ to exert pressure on Israel • World body says Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has failed in its mission UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and urging nations to take “all measures necessary” to place pressure on Israel. Following the United States’ veto of a similar push in the Security Council last week, the General Assembly on Thursday adopted the non-binding resolution by a vote of 149-12, with 19 abstentions. The text demands “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza, as well as the immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners. However, it goes further than the US-vetoed text, taking direct aim at Israel over its impeding aid deliveries into the Gaza Strip. It “demands that Israel, the occupying Power, immediately end the blockade… and ensure that aid reaches the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip,” which after more than 20 months of war is...

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed 22 people across the Palestinian territory on Thursday, including 16 who were waiting to collect aid. The distribution of food and basic supplies in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip has become increasingly fraught and perilous, exacerbating the territory’s deep hunger crisis. Civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP that the Al-Awda Hospital received 10 dead and around 200 wounded, including women and children, “after Israeli drones dropped multiple bombs on gatherings of civilians near an aid distribution point around the Netzarim checkpoint in central Gaza”. He said that Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital received six dead following Israeli attacks on aid queues near Netzarim and in the Al-Sudaniya area in northwestern Gaza. GHF accuses Hamas of attacking aid workers; Palestinian group calls the foundation a ‘filthy tool’ of Israeli forces The Israeli army said it was looking into the reports when asked for comment by AFP. Restrictions impose...

Egyptian authorities have detained more than 200 pro-Palestinian activists in Cairo ahead of an international march with the stated aim of breaking Israel’s blockade on Gaza, organisers said Thursday. As part of the Global March to Gaza, thousands of activists planned to travel to Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with the Palestinian territory on Friday to demand the entry of humanitarian aid. On Thursday, the march’s spokesperson Saif Abukeshek told AFP: “Over 200 participants were detained at Cairo airport or questioned at hotels across Cairo.” He added that those detained included nationals from the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Morocco, and Algeria. Abukeshek said that plainclothes police entered hotels in Cairo on Wednesday with lists of names, questioned activists and in some cases confiscated mobile phones and searched personal belongings. “After interrogations, some were arrested and others were released,” he added. At Cairo airport, some detainees were held for long hours wit...

Aid vessel Madleen, carrying 12 members — 11 activists and one journalist — on their way to break the Gaza siege, was intercepted by Israeli forces early on Monday morning and towed to Israel. The Israeli foreign ministry, in a statement on X, said that the vessel “is safely making its way to the shores of Israel. The passengers are expected to return to their home countries”. The British-flagged yacht Madleen, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, had departed from Sicily on June 1 and had hoped to reach Gaza later in the day, when the interception occurred, the group said on its Telegram account. On board the Madleen — named after Palestine’s only fisherwoman — are 12 activists from around the world, who had set out in response to Israel’s total aid blockade in the besieged enclave, according to a report by Al Jazeera. Greta Thunberg Activist Greta Thunberg sits aboard the aid ship Madleen, which left the Italian port of Catania on June 1 to travel to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid, in this picture ...

Israeli forces have boarded a charity vessel attempting to reach the Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) said early on Monday. The British-flagged yacht Madleen, operated by the pro-Palestinian FFC, had departed from Sicily on June 6 and had hoped to reach Gaza later in the day, when the interception occurred, the group said on its Telegram account. Among those on board the boat are Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament. The Israeli military had no immediate comment. Shortly before the FFC statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry posted a video on X showing the Israeli Navy communicating with the Madleen over a loudspeaker, urging it to change course. “The maritime zone off the coast of Gaza is closed to naval traffic as part of a legal naval blockade,” a soldier said. “If you wish to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, you are able to do so through the (Israeli) port of Ashdod.” The orga...

GAZA: Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Saturday, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution centre. The Israeli military told AFP that troops had fired “warning shots” at individuals that it said were “advancing in a way that endangered the troops”. The shooting deaths […]

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that Israel is supporting an armed group in Gaza that opposes Hamas, following comments by a former minister that Israel had transferred weapons to it. Israeli and Palestinian media have reported that the group Israel has been working with is part of a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab. The European Council on Foreign Relations (EFCR) think tank describes Abu Shabab as the leader of a “criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks”. Knesset member and former defence minister Avigdor Liberman had told the Kan public broadcaster that the government, at Netanyahu’s direction, was “giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons”. Popular Forces outfit denies being ‘a tool of the occupation’ “What did Liberman leak? That security sources activated a clan in Gaza that opposes Hamas? What is bad about that?” Netanyahu said in a video posted to social media on Thursday. Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestin...

After a slow and chaotic start to the new US-backed aid system in Gaza, thousands of Palestinians have been arriving at distribution points, seeking desperately needed food despite scenes of disorder and fears of violence. The two hubs run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private group sponsored by the United States and endorsed by Israel, have been running since Tuesday, but the launch was marred by tumultuous scenes when thousands rushed the fences and forced private contractors providing security to retreat. An Israeli military official told Reuters that the GHF was now operating four aid distribution sites, three in the Rafah area in the south and one in the Netzarim area in central Gaza. GHF did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on whether it was now distributing aid in Netzarim. Displaced Palestinians carrying relief supplies return from an aid distribution centre in the central Gaza Strip on May 29. — AFP The new system has been heavily criticised by the United Nation...

Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar, has called on the international community to take urgent action in response to the dire humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, declaring it a war zone where civilian life has become unsustainable.

New York: Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Asim Iftikhar, has said that Gaza has effectively become a military zone where civilians can no longer survive, ARY News reported. While addressing the United Nations Security Council, Asim Iftikhar spoke strongly about the “heart-wrenching brutality” being carried out by Israeli forces in Gaza, saying that […]

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has reiterated the call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Saturday that an Israeli strike in the southern city of Khan Yunis at least nine children from the same family, with the Israeli army saying it was reviewing the reports. Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said civil defence crews retrieved “the bodies of nine child martyrs, some of them charred, from the home of Dr Hamdi al-Najjar and his wife, Dr Alaa al-Najjar, all of whom were their children”. He added that Hamdi al-Najjar and another son, Adam, were also seriously wounded in the strike on Friday. A medical source at Nasser Hospital, where Alaa al-Najjar works, gave Adam’s age as 10 years old. Footage of the aftermath released by the civil defence agency showed rescuers recovering badly burned remains from the damaged home. Asked about the incident, the Israeli military said it had “struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure” near its troops. “The Khan Yunis area is a dangerous warzone,” it added. “The claim regarding harm to uninv...

CANNES: An astonishing appearance of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange at the Cannes Film Festival has drawn worldwide attention after he put on a shirt having the list of names of 4,986 Palestinian children who were killed in Gaza. His appearance caught the eyes at the significant event, where he was promoting ‘The Six Billion Dollar […]