Closing summary
At least 798 people have been killed while trying to receive food aid in Gaza since the end of May, the UN human rights office said on Friday. Of the total number of people killed while receiving food assistance since 27 May, 615 were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, a spokesperson for the Office of the high commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) told reporters.
The number of people killed by strikes in Gaza on Friday has risen to seven, according to the region’s civil defence agency, including five at a school-turned-shelter. “Five martyrs and others injured in an Israeli strike on Halima al-Saadia school, which was sheltering displaced persons in Jabalia al-Nazla, northern Gaza,” the agency said in a brief statement.
In a separate strike on Gaza City, to the south, the agency said at least one person was killed and several others wounded. In central Gaza on Friday, the Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat said it received several casualties after Israeli forces had opened fire at civilians near an aid distribution point.
An Iranian attack on an airbase in Qatar key to the US military likely hit a geodesic dome housing equipment used by the Americans for secure communications, satellite images analysed by the Associated Press (AP) show. The US military and Qatar did not immediately respond to requests for comment over the damage, which so far has not been publicly acknowledged.
Lebanese president Joseph Aoun ruled out normalisation between his country and Israel on Friday, while expressing hope for peaceful relations with Beirut’s southern neighbour, which still occupies parts of southern Lebanon, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. Aoun’s statement is the first official reaction to Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar’s statement last week in which he expressed his country’s interest in normalising ties with Lebanon and Syria.
Iran’s foreign minister has confirmed that his country is detaining a teenage French-German cyclist who disappeared last month, French newspaper Le Monde reported on Friday. The cyclist, Lennart Monterlos, “was detained for having committed an infraction,” the newspaper quoted Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi as saying, AP reports.
Al Jazeera reports that Hamas has criticised the decision by the US to impose sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza. The group described the move as a “blatant expression of the US administration’s blatant bias toward Zionist war crimes” and called for the country’s administration to reverse its actions.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has condemned an attack which it claims wounded one of its staff members and a Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) volunteer during a rescue mission in Gaza. The committee said the individuals were injured by gunshots and immediately evacuated to receive treatment. Both are reportedly in a stable condition.
Commercial ships still sailing through the Red Sea are broadcasting messages about their nationality and even religion on their public tracking systems to avoid being targeted by Yemen’s Houthis after deadly attacks this week by the militia. The Red Sea is a critical waterway for oil and commodities but traffic has dropped sharply since Houthi attacks off Yemen’s coast began in November 2023 in what the Iran-aligned group said was in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war, Reuters reported.
The EU’s diplomatic service has drawn up a list of options to sanction Israel, after finding “indications” that the Middle Eastern country had breached its human rights obligations over its conduct in Gaza and the West Bank. A document for EU foreign ministers to discuss next week outlines 10 options, such as suspending the EU-Israel association agreement or visa-free-travel for Israelis, freezing preferential trade terms, or terminating Israel’s participation in Europe’s research and student exchange programmes.
A UN team got about 75,000 litres of fuel into Gaza on Wednesday, the first such delivery in 130 days, said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric on Thursday. “The amount entered yesterday isn’t sufficient to cover even one day of energy requirements. Fuel is still running out and services will shut down if far greater volumes do not enter immediately,” Dujarric told reporters. It comes as doctors at Gaza’s largest hospital say crippling fuel shortages have led them to put several premature babies in single incubators as they struggle to keep the newborns alive while Israel presses on with its military campaign.
The EU has reached an agreement with Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, including increasing trucks for aid and opening crossing points and certain aid routes, the EU’s top diplomat said on Thursday. “These measures are or will be implemented in the coming days, with the common understanding that aid at scale must be delivered directly to the population and that measures will continue to be taken to ensure that there is no aid diversion to Hamas,” Kaja Kallas said in a statement.
Militant fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) began handing over their weapons near the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah on Friday, marking a symbolic but significant step in the decades-long conflict between Turkey and the outlawed group. The disarmament ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the PKK from armed insurgency to democratic politics, as part of a broader effort to draw a line under one of the region’s longest-running conflicts.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, has responded to news that she will be sanctioned by the Trump administration with a post on X saying “the powerful punishing those who speak for the powerless, it is not a sign of strength, but of guilt”. On Wednesday, as part of its effort to punish critics of Israel’s 21-month war in Gaza, the state department sanctioned Albanese, an independent official tasked with investigating human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories.
At least 798 people have been killed while seeking food at distribution points operated by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and other humanitarian convoys since the end of May, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Friday.
The GHF, proposed by Israel as an alternative to the UN aid system in Gaza, has been almost universally condemned by rights groups for its violation of principles of humanitarian impartiality and what they have said could be complicity in war crimes.
“Up until the seventh of July, we’ve recorded now 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys,” the OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
Israel backed the GHF after claiming that Hamas diverted aid from the UN-led aid system, a claim for which the UN said there was no evidence. The private company employs American mercenaries to oversee four food distribution zones, as opposed to the previous 400 non-militarised zones run under the UN system.
The GHF said the UN figures were “false and misleading” and denied that deadly incidents occurred at its sites. “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys,” a GHF spokesperson said.
In Gaza, the GHF has become infamous for the near-daily shootings of people seeking food who have queued to receive meals since the group started operating in early May. Palestinians seeking food have to navigate a complicated set of instructions and stick to specific routes, as well as walk long distances to access the food sites. Even then there is no guarantee they will be safe.
Updated
Commercial ships still sailing through the Red Sea are broadcasting messages about their nationality and even religion on their public tracking systems to avoid being targeted by Yemen’s Houthis after deadly attacks this week by the militia.
The Red Sea is a critical waterway for oil and commodities but traffic has dropped sharply since Houthi attacks off Yemen’s coast began in November 2023 in what the Iran-aligned group said was in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war, Reuters reported.
The group sank two ships this week after months of calm and its leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi reiterated there would be no passage for any company transporting goods connected to Israel.
In recent days more ships sailing through the southern Red Sea and the narrow Bab al-Mandab strait have added messages to their AIS public tracking profiles that can be seen when clicking on a vessel.
Messages have included referring to an all-Chinese crew and management, and flagging the presence of armed guards on board.
“All Crew Muslim,” read one message, while others made clear the ships had no connection to Israel, according to MarineTraffic and LSEG ship-tracking AIS data.
Maritime security sources said this was a sign of growing desperation to avoid attack by Houthi commandos or deadly drones - but they also thought it was unlikely to make any difference.
Houthi intelligence preparation was “much deeper and forward-leaning”, one source said.
Two ICRC staff members injured in Gaza rescue mission, organisation says
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has condemned an attack which it claims wounded one of its staff members and a Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) volunteer during a rescue mission in Gaza.
The committee said the individuals were injured by gunshots and immediately evacuated to receive treatment. Both are reportedly in a stable condition.
The ICRC said the mission was launched to evacuate a wounded ICRC staff member and his family who had been unreachable since 4 July due to ongoing hostilities. It added that the colleague and his family members remain unreachable.
All staff involved in the mission were said to be travelling in illuminated and clearly marked vehicles bearing the Red Cross and Red Crescent emblems. The committee said that it was in constant dialogue with authorities throughout the mission, which was notified and coordinated beforehand.
The ICRC said in a statement:
The ICRC condemns this attack. This is the second incident in which an ICRC staff member has been injured by bullets in less than a week. Both the PRCS and the ICRC have already faced numerous security incidents over the past few months. The ICRC is outraged by these incidents which are a stark reminder of the grave danger civilians in Gaza face every day.
Medical and humanitarian assistance is critical for the civilian population that continues to bear the brunt of intensifying hostilities. Under international humanitarian law, medical and humanitarian relief personnel must never be attacked. The parties must do their utmost to ensure their safety including providing clear and strict instructions on respect for red cross and red crescent emblems. All possible steps must be taken to search for, collect, and evacuate the wounded and provide them with the medical care they require.
Israeli army says 'lessons learned' following probe on 'harm to civilians'
Israel’s military on Friday said it learned lessons after a probe into reports of “harm to civilians”. The statement came after the UN said nearly 800 people had died trying to access handouts in Gaza since late May, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
The army said the incidents were under review and added:
Following incidents in which harm to civilians who arrived at distribution facilities was reported, thorough examinations were conducted... and instructions were issued to forces in the field following lessons learned.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) told Reuters that the UN figures which claimed 798 people have been killed while trying to receive food aid in Gaza since the end of May were “false and misleading”.
The aid distribution service began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May after Israel lifted an 11-week-old aid blockade.
It has repeatedly denied that deadly incidents have occurred at its sites.
“The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to U.N. convoys,” a GHF spokesperson said.
The Israeli army said it had sought to minimise friction between Palestinians and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) by installing fences and signs and opening additional routes.
The UN rights office (OHCHR) said it based its figures on a range of sources such as information from hospitals in Gaza, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs and its partners on the ground.
Most of the injuries to Palestinians in the vicinity of aid distribution hubs recorded by the OHCHR since 27 May were gunshot wounds, OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said.
She added:
We’ve raised concerns about atrocity crimes having been committed and the risk of further atrocity crimes being committed where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food.
Regarding the GHF assertion that the OHCHR figures are false and misleading, Shamdasani said:
It is not helpful to issue blanket dismissals of our concerns - what is needed is investigations into why people are being killed while trying to access aid.
Israel has repeatedly said its forces operate near the relief aid sites to prevent supplies falling into the hands of militants it has been fighting in the Gaza war triggered by the Hamas-led cross-border attack on 7 October 2023.
Al Jazeera reports that Hamas has criticised the decision by the US to impose sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza.
The group described the move as a “blatant expression of the US administration’s blatant bias toward Zionist war crimes” and called for the country’s administration to reverse its actions.
The outlet reported that the group said in a statement on Telegram:
The punitive measures taken by the United States against institutions and individuals performing their professional and moral role in the war of extermination in the Gaza Strip, most recently Albanese, undermine the foundations of international and humanitarian law and encourage the occupation’s war criminal leaders to continue their brutal crimes.
Albanese responded to the news that she would be sanctioned with a post on X saying “the powerful punishing those who speak for the powerless, it is not a sign of strength, but of guilt”.
She added:
All eyes must remain on Gaza, where children are dying of starvation in their mothers’ arms, while their fathers and siblings are bombed into pieces while searching for food.
Below is a video showing senior PKK figure Bese Hozat reading a statement in Turkish outside the mouth of a cave near Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq’s north on Friday as militant fighters began handing over their weapons.
The ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the PKK from armed insurgency to democratic politics in the four-decade conflict between Turkey and the outlawed group.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has described Gaza as a “graveyard of children and starving people”.
Lazzarini was speaking in response to the 15 people who were killed in a strike outside a medical centre where families were queueing to receive medical treatment and baby formula in Deir al Balah in the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
He said in a post on X:
Inaction & silence are complicities.
Under our watch, #Gaza has become the graveyard of children & starving people.
No way out. Their choice is between 2 deaths: starvation or being shoot [sic] at.
The most cruel & machiavellian scheme to kill, in total impunity.
Our norms & values are being buried.
Inaction will bring more chaos.
Time to act is overdue.
Lebanese president Joseph Aoun ruled out normalisation between his country and Israel on Friday, while expressing hope for peaceful relations with Beirut’s southern neighbour, which still occupies parts of southern Lebanon, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Aoun’s statement is the first official reaction to Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar’s statement last week in which he expressed his country’s interest in normalising ties with Lebanon and Syria.
Aoun “distinguished between peace and normalisation”, according to a statement shared by the presidency.
The president said in front of a delegation from an Arab thinktank.
Peace is the lack of a state of war, and this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment. As for the issue of normalisation, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy.
Lebanon and Syria have technically been in a state of war with Israel since 1948, with Damascus saying that talks of normalisation were “premature”.
The president called on Israel to withdraw from the five points near the border it still occupies. Israel was required to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon under a November ceasefire seeking to end its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Aoun said that Israeli troops in Lebanon “obstruct the complete deployment of the army up to the internationally recognised borders”.
According to the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah must pull its fighters north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border with Israel, leaving the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the area.
An Iranian attack on an airbase in Qatar key to the US military likely hit a geodesic dome housing equipment used by the Americans for secure communications, satellite images analysed by the Associated Press (AP) show.
The US military and Qatar did not immediately respond to requests for comment over the damage, which so far has not been publicly acknowledged.
The Iranian attack on Al Udeid airbase outside Doha, Qatar’s capital, on 23 June came as a response to the American bombing of three nuclear sites in Tehran – and provided the Islamic Republic a way to retaliate that quickly led to a ceasefire brokered by president Donald Trump ending the 12-day Iran-Israel war.
The Iranian attack otherwise did little damage — likely due to the fact that the US evacuated its aircraft from the base home to the forward headquarters of the US military’s Central Command ahead of the attack.
Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC show the geodesic dome visible at the Al Udeid airbase on the morning of 23 June, just hours before the attack.
The US air force’s 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, which operates out of the base, in 2016 announced the installation of the $15m piece of equipment, known as a modernised enterprise terminal. Photos show a satellite dish inside of the dome, known as a radome.
Images taken on 25 June and every day subsequently show the dome is gone, with some damage visible on a nearby building. The rest of the base appears largely untouched in the images.
It’s possible a fragment or something else struck the dome, but given the destruction of the dome, it was likely an Iranian attack, possibly with a bomb-carrying drone given the limited visible damage to surrounding structures.
The London-based satellite news channel Iran International first reported on the damage, citing satellite photos taken by a different provider.
Potentially signalling he knew the dome had been hit, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei separately claimed the base’s communications had been disconnected by the attack.
Ahmad Alamolhoda, a hard-line cleric, said:
All equipment of the base was completely destroyed and now the U.S. command stream and connection from Al Udeid base to its other military bases have been completely cut.
Iran’s foreign minister has confirmed that his country is detaining a teenage French-German cyclist who disappeared last month, French newspaper Le Monde reported on Friday.
The cyclist, Lennart Monterlos, “was detained for having committed an infraction,” the newspaper quoted Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi as saying, AP reports.
He didn’t elaborate on the nature of the alleged offence.
Araghchi said France’s embassy in Tehran has been notified, the newspaper added. Monterlos was cycling across Iran and hasn’t been heard from since mid-June, it said.
France’s foreign ministry didn’t confirm the detention, but said that it’s in contact with Iranian authorities about “the situation of our national” and also with the family.
Citing concerns for his security, it said it had no other comment. It reiterated previous warnings that French nationals shouldn’t travel to Iran.
The cyclist is the third French national known to be detained in Iran, which is accused by France of practising hostage diplomacy.
Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, have been held in Iran for more than three years in prison conditions that France likens to torture and on charges that Paris says are without foundation.
We have more on the 30 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who burned their weapons in northern Iraq on Friday.
Reuters reports that the fighters, in beige military fatigues, were flanked by four commanders, including senior PKK figure Bese Hozat, who read a statement in Turkish declaring the group’s decision to disarm.
“We voluntarily destroy our weapons, in your presence, as a step of goodwill and determination,” she said, before another commander read the same statement in Kurdish.
Helicopters hovered overhead, with dozens of Iraqi Kurdish security forces surrounding the mountainous area, a witness said.
The EU on Friday said it “deeply regrets” the US decision to impose sanctions on United Nations expert Francesca Albanese after she criticised Washington’s policy on Gaza, AFP reports.
EU spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said:
The European Union strongly supports the United Nations human rights system and we deeply regret the decision to impose sanctions on Francesca Albanese.
Summary of the day so far
At least 798 people have been killed while trying to receive food aid in Gaza since the end of May, the UN human rights office said on Friday.
Of the total number of people killed while receiving food assistance since 27 May, 615 were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, a spokesperson for the Office of the high commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) told reporters.
The number of people killed by strikes in Gaza on Friday has risen to seven, according to the region’s civil defence agency, including five at a school-turned-shelter.
“Five martyrs and others injured in an Israeli strike on Halima al-Saadia school, which was sheltering displaced persons in Jabalia al-Nazla, northern Gaza,” the agency said in a brief statement.
In a separate strike on Gaza City, to the south, the agency said at least one person was killed and several others wounded.
In central Gaza on Friday, the Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat said it received several casualties after Israeli forces had opened fire at civilians near an aid distribution point.
In other developments:
The EU’s diplomatic service has drawn up a list of options to sanction Israel, after finding “indications” that the Middle Eastern country had breached its human rights obligations over its conduct in Gaza and the West Bank. A document for EU foreign ministers to discuss next week outlines 10 options, such as suspending the EU-Israel association agreement or visa-free-travel for Israelis, freezing preferential trade terms, or terminating Israel’s participation in Europe’s research and student exchange programmes.
A UN team got about 75,000 litres of fuel into Gaza on Wednesday, the first such delivery in 130 days, said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric on Thursday. “The amount entered yesterday isn’t sufficient to cover even one day of energy requirements. Fuel is still running out and services will shut down if far greater volumes do not enter immediately,” Dujarric told reporters. It comes as doctors at Gaza’s largest hospital say crippling fuel shortages have led them to put several premature babies in single incubators as they struggle to keep the newborns alive while Israel presses on with its military campaign.
The EU has reached an agreement with Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, including increasing trucks for aid and opening crossing points and certain aid routes, the EU’s top diplomat said on Thursday. “These measures are or will be implemented in the coming days, with the common understanding that aid at scale must be delivered directly to the population and that measures will continue to be taken to ensure that there is no aid diversion to Hamas,” Kaja Kallas said in a statement.
Militant fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) began handing over their weapons near the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah on Friday, marking a symbolic but significant step in the decades-long conflict between Turkey and the outlawed group. The disarmament ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the PKK from armed insurgency to democratic politics, as part of a broader effort to draw a line under one of the region’s longest-running conflicts.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, has responded to news that she will be sanctioned by the Trump administration with a post on X saying “the powerful punishing those who speak for the powerless, it is not a sign of strength, but of guilt”. On Wednesday, as part of its effort to punish critics of Israel’s 21-month war in Gaza, the state department sanctioned Albanese, an independent official tasked with investigating human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he hoped to reach a deal in a few days for the release of more Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. Netanyahu said 50 hostages were still being held captive by Hamas. Of that figure, he said, only 20 are believed to be alive. He said Israel’s “fundamental conditions” were that “Hamas lays down its weapons” and no longer has “governing or military capabilities”. “If this can be achieved through negotiations, great. If it cannot be achieved through negotiations within 60 days, we will achieve it through other means, by using force, the force of our heroic army,” he added.
Hamas said on Wednesday it had agreed to release 10 living hostages but on Thursday it said it opposed a deal that includes a large Israeli military presence in Gaza. It said there were several sticking points in the ongoing ceasefire talks including the flow of aid, withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, and “genuine guarantees for a permanent ceasefire.
Updated
Seven people killed by strikes in Gaza
The number of people killed by strikes in Gaza on Friday has risen to seven, according to the region’s civil defence agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Nearly all of Gaza’s population has been displaced at least once during the more than 21-month war, which has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than 2 million people living there.
Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have repeatedly come under Israeli attacks that the military often says target Hamas militants hiding among civilians.
Five people were killed, alongside others injured, after an Israeli strike hit Halima al-Saadia school in Jabalia al-Nazla, northern Gaza, on Friday.
The civil defence agency also reported two people killed in separate strikes in Gaza City and the southern city of Khan Younis.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has recently expanded its military operations across Gaza.
Israel’s military said in a statement that its soldiers were operating in the area, dismantling “terrorist infrastructure sites, both above and below ground” and seizing “weapons and military equipment”.
It also said that troops had killed earlier this week two members of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian armed group which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza.
The military statement said the two dead include an Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza City whom it accused of being part Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war.
Updated
Turkey on Friday hailed a ceremony where Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) militants destroyed a first batch of weapons as a “milestone” and an “irreversible turning point” on the road to peace, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
A senior Turkish official said:
The laying down of arms by PKK militants in Sulaimaniyah - a milestone of the third stage of the ongoing disarmament and decommissioning process - marks a concrete and welcome step.
We view this development as an irreversible turning point.
Updated
At least 15 people were killed in a strike outside a medical centre where families were queueing to receive medical treatment and baby formula in Deir al Balah in the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
“Her dream was for the war to end and that they announce it today, to go back to school,” said Samah al-Nouri, whose daughter was killed in the strike. The attack came as negotiators were discussing a ceasefire deal.
Warning: graphic content in the video below:
My colleagues William Christou and Malak A Tantesh have written a piece on the Israeli strikes in Gaza on Thursday, which you can read here: Israeli strike kills at least 10 children queueing for medical treatment in Gaza
Updated
Here are some of the latest photos of Gaza coming to us through the wires:
Updated
At least 798 killed while trying to receive food aid in Gaza
At least 798 people have been killed while trying to receive food aid in Gaza since the end of May, the UN human rights office said on Friday, Reuters reports.
Of the total number of people killed while receiving food assistance since 27 May, 615 were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, a spokesperson for the Office of the high commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) told reporters.
It added that 183 of the total figure were on the routes of aid convoys.
Aid groups say Israeli military restrictions and recurring violence have made it difficult to deliver assistance in Gaza even after Israel eased its 11-week total blockade in May.
Experts have warned the strip is at risk of famine, 21 months into the Israel-Hamas war, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
Updated
Kurdistan Workers' party fighters hand over weapons
Militant fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) began handing over their weapons near the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah on Friday, marking a symbolic but significant step in the decades-long conflict between Turkey and the outlawed group.
The disarmament ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the PKK from armed insurgency to democratic politics, as part of a broader effort to draw a line under one of the region’s longest-running conflicts.
An Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent said 30 Kurdish PKK fighters, four of whom were commanders, destroyed their weapons at a ceremony in a cave in the mountainous Iraqi Kurdistan on Friday.
Tensions rose ahead of the ceremony as two drones were shot down overnight near Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga bases, one in Sulaymaniyah, and the other in Kirkuk to the west, according to officials who did not say was behind the attacks. No casualties were reported.
Founded in the late 1970s by Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK took up arms in 1984, beginning a string of bloody attacks on Turkish soil that sparked a conflict that cost more than 40,000 lives.
But more than four decades on, the PKK in May announced its dissolution, saying it would pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in line with a historic call by Ocalan, who has been serving a life sentence in Turkey since 1999.
Updated
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, has responded to news that she will be sanctioned by the Trump administration with a post on X saying “the powerful punishing those who speak for the powerless, it is not a sign of strength, but of guilt”.
On Wednesday, as part of its effort to punish critics of Israel’s 21-month war in Gaza, the state department sanctioned Albanese, an independent official tasked with investigating human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories.
In two posts on Thursday, she wrote “Let’s stand tall, together” and urged international observers to focus on the crisis inside Gaza.
She added:
All eyes must remain on Gaza, where children are dying of starvation in their mothers’ arms, while their fathers and siblings are bombed into pieces while searching for food.
Albanese, a human rights lawyer, has been vocal in calling for an end to what she describes as the “genocide” that Israel is waging against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel and the US, which provides military support, have both strongly denied that accusation.
EU's diplomats put forward 10 options to sanction Israel over Gaza
in Brussels
Elsewhere, the EU’s diplomatic service has drawn up a list of options to sanction Israel, after finding “indications” that the Middle Eastern country had breached its human rights obligations over its conduct in Gaza and the West Bank.
A document for EU foreign ministers to discuss next week outlines ten options, such as suspending the EU-Israel association agreement or visa-free-travel for Israelis, freezing preferential trade terms, or terminating Israel’s participation in Europe’s research and student exchange programmes.
The five-page text seen by the Guardian, first reported by Reuters, makes no recommendations.
It remains unclear if any of the proposals will gain traction. So far only one member state, Spain, has pushed for the suspension of the EU-Israel association agreement, which requires unanimity. Even governments that are Palestine’s strongest supporters in the EU are reluctant to back any move to reduce people-to-people contacts.
The paper emerged after EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas announced a potentially-significant deal with Israel to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza.
In a statement on Thursday Kallas said Israel had agreed to “the substantial increase of daily trucks for food and non-food items to enter Gaza”, as well as the reopening of the Jordanian and Syrian aid routes, distribution of food from bakers and public kitchens and resumption of water supply to the water desalination facility.
A spokesperson for Kallas said the agreement was the outcome of a dialogue Kallas launched with Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar. Her pledge to raise the humanitarian crisis with Israel was made after the completion of the review of the EU-Israel agreement.
One open question is whether Kallas and EU member states now feel enough has been done to pressure Israel to change course, or whether more is needed. The EU response will certainly reflect how Israel implements the aid deal.
“We count on Israel to implement every measure agreed,” Kallas said.
Israeli strikes kill at least six people
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes on Friday killed at least six people in the Palestinian territory’s north, including five at a school-turned-shelter, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The agency said in a brief statement:
Five martyrs and others injured in an Israeli strike on Halima al-Saadia school, which was sheltering displaced persons in Jabalia al-Nazla, northern Gaza.
In a separate strike on Gaza City, to the south, the agency said at least one person was killed and several others wounded.
In central Gaza on Friday, the Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat said it received several casualties after Israeli forces had opened fire at civilians near an aid distribution point.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has recently intensified its operations in the Gaza Strip as the war against Hamas militants entered its 22nd month.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and other parties.
A Palestinian speaking to AFP from southern Gaza on condition of anonymity said there were ongoing attacks and widespread devastation, with Israeli tanks seen near the city of Khan Younis.
“The situation remains extremely difficult in the area - intense gunfire, intermittent airstrikes, artillery shelling and ongoing bulldozing and destruction of displacement camps and agricultural land to the south, west and north of Al-Maslakh,” an area to Khan Younis’s south, said the witness.
Updated
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes on Friday killed at least six people in the Palestinian territory’s north, including five at a school-turned-shelter.
“Five martyrs and others injured in an Israeli strike on Halima al-Saadia school, which was sheltering displaced persons in Jabalia al-Nazla, northern Gaza,” the agency said in a brief statement.
In a separate strike on Gaza City, to the south, the agency said at least one person was killed and several others wounded.
In central Gaza on Friday, the Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat said it received several casualties after Israeli forces had opened fire at civilians near an aid distribution point.
The civil defence agency said eight children – killed as they queued for nutritional supplements outside a health clinic – were among 66 people who died in Israeli strikes across the territory on Thursday.
The agency said the children were among 17 victims in a strike on Deir el-Balah.
According to the UN children’s agency, the dead included a one-year-old boy whose mother said he had spoken his first words just hours earlier. The mother was critically injured, UNICEF added.
US-based charity Project Hope, which runs the facility, said the victims were waiting for the clinic to open to receive treatment for malnutrition, infections and illness. The charity gave a toll of 15 dead, including 10 children and two women.
In other developments:
A UN team got about 75,000 litres of fuel into Gaza on Wednesday, the first such delivery in 130 days, said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric on Thursday. “The amount entered yesterday isn’t sufficient to cover even one day of energy requirements. Fuel is still running out and services will shut down if far greater volumes do not enter immediately,” Dujarric told reporters. It comes as doctors at Gaza’s largest hospital say crippling fuel shortages have led them to put several premature babies in single incubators as they struggle to keep the newborns alive while Israel presses on with its military campaign.
The EU has reached an agreement with Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, including increasing trucks for aid and opening crossing points and certain aid routes, the EU’s top diplomat said on Thursday. “These measures are or will be implemented in the coming days, with the common understanding that aid at scale must be delivered directly to the population and that measures will continue to be taken to ensure that there is no aid diversion to Hamas,” Kaja Kallas said in a statement.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he hoped to reach a deal in a few days for the release of more Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. Netanyahu said 50 hostages were still being held captive by Hamas. Of that figure, he said, only 20 are believed to be alive. He said Israel’s “fundamental conditions” were that “Hamas lays down its weapons” and no longer has “governing or military capabilities”. “If this can be achieved through negotiations, great. If it cannot be achieved through negotiations within 60 days, we will achieve it through other means, by using force, the force of our heroic army,” he added.
Hamas said on Wednesday it had agreed to release 10 living hostages but on Thursday it said it opposed a deal that includes a large Israeli military presence in Gaza. It said there were several sticking points in the ongoing ceasefire talks including the flow of aid, withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, and “genuine guarantees for a permanent ceasefire.”
The UN warned on Thursday that Washington was setting a “dangerous precedent” by imposing sanctions on a UN expert for criticising US policy on Gaza and called for the cancellation of the action. It comes after the US said on Wednesday it was imposing sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, who has been very critical of US ally Israel’s war in Gaza.
French president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday urged joint UK-France recognition of a Palestinian state, calling such moves “the only hope for peace” in the conflict-ridden region. Flanking UK leader Keir Starmer at a news conference as he wrapped up a three-day state visit to Britain, Macron said he wanted to “initiate this political dynamic” of recognising Palestinian statehood.
An explosive drone was shot down near Kurdish peshmerga forces in Iraq’s oil-rich province of Kirkuk early on Friday, the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement.
Yemeni Houthi militia leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on Thursday that no company could be permitted to transport goods related to Israel through designated areas at sea. He reiterated that a Houthi ban on navigation the group sees as associated with Israel through the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea would remain in place. The Iran-aligned Houthis sank two ships in the Red Sea earlier this week after months of calm.
Rescuers pulled three more crew members and a security guard alive from the Red Sea on Thursday, maritime security sources said, a day after Houthi militants sank the Greek ship Eternity C and said they were holding some of the crew still missing. This brings the total number of those rescued so far to 10, including eight Filipino crew members, one Indian and one Greek security guard. The people found on Thursday had spent more than 48 hours in the water. Another 11 people are still missing.
Israel will strike Iran again if it is threatened by Tehran, defence minister Israel Katz said on Thursday. “Israel’s long arm will reach you in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, and anywhere you try to threaten or harm Israel. There is no place to hide”, Katz said at an air force graduation ceremony, according to a statement from his office. He added: “If we must return, we will do so with greater force.”
A gas leak leading to an explosion in Iran’s capital Tehran has wounded at least four people, Iran’s state media reported on Thursday.
Updated
