Closing summary
Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern areas of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday, an area where Israeli sources said the military believes some of the remaining hostages may be being held by Hamas. Gaza medics said at least three Palestinians were killed and several were wounded in tank shelling that hit eight houses and three mosques in the area, and which came a day after the military ordered residents to leave, saying it planned to fight Hamas militants.
Pope Leo has warned against the “indiscriminate use of force” and the “forced mass displacement” of people in the Gaza strip in a phone conversation with the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, the Vatican said in a statement. It was the first official conversation between the two men since Leo’s papacy began.
Gaza’s health ministry has said the Palestinian death toll has surpassed 59,000 after more than 21 months of war. In an update from the Associated Press, the ministry says 59,029 people have been killed since the war started on 7 October 2023, while another 142,135 have been wounded.
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said on Sunday that evacuations orders from Israel have directly endangered “vital humanitarian and primary healthcare sites”. The charity said in a statement that the move was “accelerating the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s already-decimated healthcare system”.
Israel on Monday rejected the joint statement published by over 20 countries calling for an end to the war in Gaza, “as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas”, the foreign ministry said. Britain and more than 20 other countries called on Monday for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and criticised the Israeli government’s aid delivery model after hundreds of Palestinians were killed near sites distributing food.
An Israeli undercover force detained Marwan Al-Hams, a senior Gaza Health Ministry official, outside the field hospital of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, the health ministry said according to a report from the Reuters news agency. Hams, in charge of field hospitals in the enclave, was on his way to visit the ICRC field hospital in northern Rafah when an Israeli force “abducted” him after opening fire, killing one person and wounding another civilian nearby, according to the ministry.
Gaza health officials said on Monday at least 13 people, including two women and five children, were killed in Israeli strikes since the previous night. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes. It blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the group operates from populated areas.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 93 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food on Sunday, while Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for areas packed with displaced people. The territory’s health ministry said scores were killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks entering through the northern Zikim crossing with Israel. It was one of the highest reported death tolls among repeated recent cases in which aid seekers have been killed by Israeli fire.
Russian defence minister Andrei Belousov and his Iranian counterpart Aziz Nasirzadeh discussed strengthening military cooperation at a meeting in Moscow, Russian state news agency RIA reported on Monday, citing the Iranian ambassador. The meeting followed talks on Sunday between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the situation in the Middle East and issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme.
Washington cannot “compel” Israel to do anything, US special envoy Thomas Barrack said in Beirut on Monday, in response to a reporter’s question about Lebanese demands that the US guarantees a halt to Israeli strikes on Lebanese territory. The US last month proposed a roadmap to Lebanon’s top officials to fully disarm Hezbollah within four months, in exchange for a halt to Israeli strikes and a withdrawal of Israeli troops still occupying positions in southern Lebanon.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said on Monday that the ceasefire in the southern province of Sweida was holding, despite isolated gunfire in areas north of Sweida city with no reports of casualties. The agreement announced on Saturday put an end to the sectarian violence that has left more than 1,100 dead, most of them Druze fighters and civilians, according to the monitor.
The Syrian government on Monday started evacuating Bedouin families trapped inside the city of Sweida, where Druze militiamen and Bedouin fighters have clashed for over a week. The UN International Organization for Migration said about 128,571 people were displaced in the hostilities that started with a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks a week ago.
A US envoy doubled down on Washington’s support for the new government in Syria, saying on Monday there is “no Plan B” to working with the current authorities to unite the country still reeling from a nearly 14-year civil war and now wrecked by a new outbreak of sectarian violence. Tom Barrack, who is ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria and also has a short-term mandate in Lebanon, took a critical tone toward Israel’s recent intervention in Syria, calling it poorly timed and saying that it complicated efforts to stabilise the region.
Belgian authorities said on Monday that they had briefly held and questioned two Israeli citizens who attended an electronic music festival, after pro-Palestinian groups accused them of war crimes, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. Prosecutors said they received legal complaints alleging that two Israeli soldiers responsible for “serious violations of international humanitarian law” in Gaza were spotted at the Tomorrowland festival near the northern city of Antwerp last week.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Monday that it was “receiving desperate messages of starvation” from its Gaza staff, as the Palestinian territory experiences surging levels of hunger, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people are facing severe shortages of food and other essentials, with doctors, the civil defence agency and medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reporting a spike in malnutrition cases in recent days.
A trilateral meeting between Iran, Russia and China will take place on Tuesday regarding Tehran’s nuclear programme and the UN snapback mechanism, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday. The UN snapback mechanism refers to efforts to reimpose international sanctions on Iran.
Tehran on Monday accused the UK, France and Germany of failing to respect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, after they threatened to reimpose sanctions over its atomic programme. The 2015 deal, reached between Iran and the UN security council’s permanent members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – plus Germany imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
The charity Action For Humanity has confirmed that, following the latest evacuation orders in Deir al-Balah, three of its displacement camps have been directly affected by the intensifying military operations and worsening security situation.
In a statement, a spokesperson said:
Camp 5 has now been fully evacuated, with only the landowner remaining to safeguard essential humanitarian assets. Camp 4, which remained partially occupied as of yesterday, has now also been fully vacated under extreme duress. This morning, tanks advanced to the entrance of Al-Baraka Street, the main access point to Camp 4. The few families that had remained were able to flee from the western side with great difficulty.
Camp 3 initially remained home to 56 families, as their tents were fixed and difficult to move. Earlier today, we were informed that the women and children have since been relocated to safer areas within Deir al-Balah.
All of Action For Humanity’s humanitarian activities in the evacuation zones have been suspended due to the imminent threat to life and the approaching military forces. Our teams and partners continue to face major barriers to communication, particularly with those still near Camp 3.
Together with our local partners, we have arranged for guards to protect all three camps from theft and looting.
Israel on Monday rejected the joint statement published by over 20 countries calling for an end to the war in Gaza, “as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas”, the foreign ministry said.
Britain and more than 20 other countries called on Monday for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and criticised the Israeli government’s aid delivery model after hundreds of Palestinians were killed near sites distributing food.
Russian defence minister Andrei Belousov and his Iranian counterpart Aziz Nasirzadeh discussed strengthening military cooperation at a meeting in Moscow, Russian state news agency RIA reported on Monday, citing the Iranian ambassador.
The meeting followed talks on Sunday between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the situation in the Middle East and issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme.
Russia has a strategic partnership treaty with Iran, and condemned the Israeli and US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites in June.
Washington cannot “compel” Israel to do anything, US special envoy Thomas Barrack said in Beirut on Monday, in response to a reporter’s question about Lebanese demands that the US guarantees a halt to Israeli strikes on Lebanese territory.
The US last month proposed a roadmap to Lebanon’s top officials to fully disarm Hezbollah within four months, in exchange for a halt to Israeli strikes and a withdrawal of Israeli troops still occupying positions in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon has asked Washington to act as a security guarantor to ensure that Israel will pull out its troops in full and halt targeting operations against members of Hezbollah, if the armed group begins handing in weapons.
Asked about those guarantees, Barrack told reporters after a meeting with Lebanese prime minister Nawaf Salam that the US “has no business in trying to compel Israel to do anything.”
He also told reporters that the US was not forcing Lebanon to strip Hezbollah of its arms, or considering sanctions against Lebanese officials if Hezbollah is not disarmed.
“There’s no consequence, there’s no threat, there’s no whip,” Barrack said.
Belgian authorities said on Monday that they had briefly held and questioned two Israeli citizens who attended an electronic music festival, after pro-Palestinian groups accused them of war crimes, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Prosecutors said they received legal complaints alleging that two Israeli soldiers responsible for “serious violations of international humanitarian law” in Gaza were spotted at the Tomorrowland festival near the northern city of Antwerp last week.
The federal prosecutor’s office said it had “asked the police to locate the two people named in the complaint and to interview them”.
“Following these interviews, they were released,” it said in a statement.
The office said that it took action after concluding that Belgian courts have extraterritorial jurisdiction over alleged war crimes.
“No further information will be given at this stage of the investigation,” the office said.
The pair have not been named.
Last week, the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), a Belgian pro-Palestinian organisation, said it had identified two Israeli soldiers “responsible for grave international crimes” in Gaza among the crowds at Tomorrowland.
It claimed that a group of young Israeli men was seen at the festival waving a flag of the Givati Brigade, an Israeli military unit involved in the fighting in the Palestinian territory.
HRF said it then filed a complaint with prosecutors in association with the Global Legal Action Network, a lawyers group specialising in human rights violations.
UN says food prices in Gaza have increased by 40 times
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Monday that it was “receiving desperate messages of starvation” from its Gaza staff, as the Palestinian territory experiences surging levels of hunger, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people are facing severe shortages of food and other essentials, with doctors, the civil defence agency and medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reporting a spike in malnutrition cases in recent days.
In a post on X, Unrwa said that shortages in the Palestinian territory had caused food prices to increase by 40 times, while the aid stockpiled in its warehouses outside Gaza could feed “the entire population for over three months.”
“The suffering in Gaza is manmade and must be stopped,” it wrote. “Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale.”
After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on 2 March, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted at a trickle in late May.
The civil defence agency on Sunday reported at least three infant deaths from “severe hunger and malnutrition” in the past week.
The ministry said 18 reportedly died of starvation within 24 hours between Saturday and Sunday.
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital:
Infants under one year of age suffer from a lack of milk, which leads to a significant decrease in their weight and a decrease in their immunity that makes them vulnerable to diseases.
Israel on Monday said there was “no ban or restriction on the entry of baby formula or baby food into Gaza.”
Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said that “over 2,000 tons of baby food and infant formula were delivered into Gaza”, without specifying the time frame.
The body wrote on X:
We urge international organisations to continue coordinating with us to ensure the entry of baby food and formula without delay. Our commitment remains firm: to support humanitarian aid for civilians - not for Hamas.
Belgium’s King Philippe described abuses in Gaza as a “disgrace to humanity” in a speech on the eve of Monday’s national day, Reuters reports.
He said speaking at his palace in Brussels:
I add my voice to all those who denounce the serious humanitarian abuses in Gaza, where innocent people are dying of hunger and being killed by bombs while trapped in their enclaves.
The current situation has gone on for far too long. It is a disgrace to all of humanity. We support the call by the United Nations Secretary-General to immediately end this unbearable crisis.
The king’s role in Belgium is limited to giving advice, support, and warnings to the government without making any political decisions.
UK and 24 other countries call on 'immediate' end to war in Gaza
The UK and more than 20 other countries called on Monday for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and said the Israeli government’s aid delivery model was “dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity”.
The joint statement said:
We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now.
The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity. We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.
The countries called on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and “urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their life saving work safely and effectively”.
They added:
We are prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region.
The statement was signed by the EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management, as well as the foreign ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
Johana Bhuiyan is a senior tech reporter and editor for Guardian US, based in San Francisco.
Meta is hosting ads on Facebook, Instagram and Threads from pro-Israel entities that are raising money for military equipment including drones and tactical gear for Israeli Defense Force battalions, seemingly a violation of the company’s stated advertising policies, new research shows.
“We are the sniper team of Unit Shaked, stationed in Gaza, and we urgently need shooting tripods to complete our mission in Jabalia,” one ad on Facebook read, first published on 11 June and still active on 17 July.
These paid ads were first discovered and flagged to Meta by global consumer watchdog, Ekō, which identified at least 117 ads published since March 2025 that explicitly sought donations for military equipment for the IDF. It is the second time the organization has reported ads by the same publishers to Meta. In a previous investigation from December 2024, Ekō flagged 98 ads to Meta, prompting the tech giant to take many of them down. However, the company has largely allowed the publishers to start new campaigns with identical ads since then. The IDF itself is not running the fundraising calls.
“This shows that Meta will literally take money from anybody,” said Ekō campaigner Maen Hammad. “So little of the checks and balances the platform ought to be doing actually takes place and if it does, they’ll do it after the fact.”
Meta said it reviewed and removed the ads for violating company policy after the Guardian and Ekō reached out for comment, according to Ryan Daniels, a spokesperson for the social media firm. Any ads about social issues, elections or politics are required to go through an authorization process and include a disclaimer that discloses who is paying for the ad, the company said. These ads did not.
You can read more of Johana Bhuiyan’s piece here: Meta allows ads crowdfunding for IDF drones, consumer watchdog finds
At least 130 Palestinians killed in past 24 hours, health ministry says
In its daily update, Gaza’s health ministry said at least 130 Palestinians had been killed and more than 1,000 wounded by Israeli gunfire and military strikes across the territory in the past 24 hours, one of the highest such totals in recent weeks, Reuters reports.
The figures come as Israel launched substantial air raids and a ground operation in Gaza on Monday, targeting Deir al-Balah, the key hub for humanitarian efforts in the devastated Palestinian territory amid mounting warnings of widening starvation in the coastal strip.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan praised his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa for showing a strong stance and not compromising in Syria’s conflict with Israel, and said Sharaa took a “very positive” step by reaching an understanding with the Druze, Reuters reports.
Hundreds of Bedouin civilians were evacuated from Syria’s predominantly Druze city of Sweida on Monday as part of a US-backed truce meant to end fighting that has killed hundreds of people, state media and witnesses said.
In comments to Turkish media released on Monday, Erdoğan said Syria’s government had established some control in Sweida and the country’s south with about 2,500 soldiers, with all but one Druze faction agreeing to respect the ceasefire during talks in Amman.
He also told reporters on his flight returning from northern Cyprus that the US now understood it needed to “own” the issue more, warning that the main issue was Israel using the fighting as an excuse to invade Syrian lands.
Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif has accused the Israeli army of threatening journalists in “an attempt to silence” them.
The reporter said in a post on X on Sunday:
The Israeli army is once again threatening journalists for exposing the truth from Gaza.
After I reported live on civilians collapsing from hunger, I was directly targeted with public incitement by the army’s spokesperson.
This is an attempt to silence us—and to cover up a genocide unfolding in real time.
I call on international officials, human rights defenders, and global media to speak out and share this message.
Your voice can help stop the targeting of journalists and protect the truth.
The post came after IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee labelled al-Sharif and researcher Saeed Ziad as supporters of Hamas, saying in a post on X that they were weeping “crocodile tears”.
Adraee said:
Suddenly, all Hamas tools and mouthpieces began crying on live television, in a repeated Brotherhood behavior after all propaganda tools to cover up Hamas’s setback failed.
The co-founder of a pro-Palestinian campaign group sought on Monday to challenge the British government’s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws, a move her lawyers said had “the hallmarks of an authoritarian and blatant abuse of power”, Reuters reports.
Huda Ammori, who helped found Palestine Action in 2020, is asking London’s high court to give the go-ahead for a full challenge to the group’s proscription, which was made on the grounds it committed or participated in acts of terrorism.
Earlier this month, the high court refused Ammori’s application to pause the ban and, after an unsuccessful last-ditch appeal, Palestine Action’s proscription came into effect just after midnight on 5 July.
Proscription makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
Ammori’s lawyer Raza Husain said Palestine Action is the first direct action group to be banned as a terror group, a move he argued was inconsistent with “the honourable history of civil disobedience on conscientious grounds in our country”.
Dozens have been arrested for holding placards purportedly supporting the group since the ban and Ammori’s lawyers say protesters expressing support for the Palestinian cause have also been subject to increased scrutiny from police officers.
Britain’s interior minister Yvette Cooper, however, has said violence and criminal damage have no place in legitimate protest and that Palestine Action’s activities – including breaking into a military base and damaging two planes – justify proscription.
The group accuses the British government of complicity in what it says are Israeli war crimes in its ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
Israel has repeatedly denied committing abuses in its war in Gaza, which began after Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023.
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said on Sunday that evacuations orders from Israel have directly endangered “vital humanitarian and primary healthcare sites”.
The charity said in a statement that the move was “accelerating the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s already-decimated healthcare system”.
MAP went on to say that several humanitarian organisations’ offices and guesthouses had been ordered to evacuate immediately. It added that nine clinics, five shelters, and a community kitchen have been forced to shut down.
Included in the facilities forced to shut were a major water desalination plant and MAP’s Solidarity Polyclinic, which it said provides critical care, including physiotherapy and mental health services, to about 320 patients a day.
Steve Cutts, MAP’s interim CEO, said:
This latest forced displacement order is yet another attack on humanitarian operations and a deliberate attempt to sever the last remaining threads of Gaza’s health and aid system.
MAP now has to suspend critical services we have been providing to the Palestinian population, including a primary health clinic that serves hundreds of civilians every day. With Israel’s systematic targeting of health and aid workers, no one is safe. Not only are we prevented from carrying out our lifesaving work to support Palestinians, we are also unable to protect our own teams.
Newborn children are starving to death as mothers are unable to produce breast milk due to their own malnutrition and Israel cruelly restricts life-saving baby formula from entering Gaza. Israeli forces have stooped to new depths of depravity, having now killed more than 900 Palestinians attempting to reach food to feed their starving families.
Palestinian death toll passes 59,000 since 7 October, health ministry says
Gaza’s health ministry has said the Palestinian death toll has surpassed 59,000 after more than 21 months of war.
In an update from the Associated Press, the ministry says 59,029 people have been killed since the war started on 7 October 2023, while another 142,135 have been wounded.
The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but says more than a half of the dead are women and children.
Updated
An Israeli undercover force detained Marwan Al-Hams, a senior Gaza Health Ministry official, outside the field hospital of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, the health ministry said according to a report from the Reuters news agency.
Hams, in charge of field hospitals in the enclave, was on his way to visit the ICRC field hospital in northern Rafah when an Israeli force “abducted” him after opening fire, killing one person and wounding another civilian nearby, according to the ministry.
Medics said the person killed was a local journalist who was filming an interview with Hams when the incident happened.
The Israeli military and the Red Cross did not immediately respond following separate requests by Reuters for comment.
Israel has raided and attacked hospitals across the Gaza Strip during the 21-month war in Gaza, accusing Hamas of using them for military purposes, an accusation the group denies. But sending undercover forces to carry out arrests has been rare.
Pope Leo has warned against the “indiscriminate use of force” and the “forced mass displacement” of people in the Gaza strip in a phone conversation with the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, the Vatican said in a statement.
It was the first official conversation between the two men since Leo’s papacy began.
“The Holy Father repeated his appeal for international humanitarian law to be fully respected, emphasising in particular the obligation to protect civilians and sacred places, the prohibition of the indiscriminate use of force and of the forced transfer of the population,” the Vatican wrote in a statement.
The pope emphasised “the urgent need to provide assistance to those most vulnerable to the consequences of the conflict and to allow the adequate entry of humanitarian aid”, it said.
Updated
Israel launches air and ground offensive on Deir al-Balah in central Gaza
Peter Beaumont is a senior international reporter who has reported extensively from conflict zones including Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and Ukraine
Israel has launched substantial air raids and a ground operation in Gaza, targeting Deir al-Balah, the key hub for humanitarian efforts in the devastated Palestinian territory amid mounting warnings of widening starvation in the coastal strip.
The latest assault comes a day after the highest death toll in 21 months inflicted by the Israeli military on desperate Palestinians seeking food aid, with at least 85 killed on Sunday in what has become a grim and almost daily slaughter.
The UN food agency, the World Food Programme, said the majority of those killed on Sunday had gathered near the border fence with Israel in the hope of getting flour from a UN aid convoy when they were fired on by Israeli tanks and snipers.
Witnesses described massive airstrikes overnight in Deir al-Balah – the last remaining area of Gaza that has not suffered significant war damage. Israeli sources have said the reason the army has so far stayed out is that they suspect Hamas might be holding hostages there. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in captivity in Gaza are believed to be still alive.
Israel launched its renewed assault despite reports in the Hebrew media that Israeli officials believed Hamas was close to agreeing to a ceasefire.
The latest Israeli assault followed forced evacuation orders for between 50–80,000 people in Deir al-Balah, in the centre of the Gaza Strip, leaving almost 87% of the territory under such orders.
“With this latest order, the area of Gaza under displacement orders or within Israeli-militarised zones has risen to 87.8%, leaving 2.1 million civilians squeezed into a fragmented 12% of the strip, where essential services have collapsed,” the UN said in a statement released by its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affair.
Summary of the day so far
Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern areas of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday, an area where Israeli sources said the military believes some of the remaining hostages may be being held by Hamas. Gaza medics said at least three Palestinians were killed and several were wounded in tank shelling that hit eight houses and three mosques in the area, and which came a day after the military ordered residents to leave, saying it planned to fight Hamas militants.
Gaza health officials said on Monday at least 13 people, including two women and five children, were killed in Israeli strikes since the previous night. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes. It blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the group operates from populated areas.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 93 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food on Sunday, while Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for areas packed with displaced people. The territory’s health ministry said scores were killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks entering through the northern Zikim crossing with Israel. It was one of the highest reported death tolls among repeated recent cases in which aid seekers have been killed by Israeli fire.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said on Monday that the ceasefire in the southern province of Sweida was holding, despite isolated gunfire in areas north of Sweida city with no reports of casualties. The agreement announced on Saturday put an end to the sectarian violence that has left more than 1,100 dead, most of them Druze fighters and civilians, according to the monitor.
The Syrian government on Monday started evacuating Bedouin families trapped inside the city of Sweida, where Druze militiamen and Bedouin fighters have clashed for over a week. The UN International Organization for Migration said about 128,571 people were displaced in the hostilities that started with a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks a week ago.
A US envoy doubled down on Washington’s support for the new government in Syria, saying on Monday there is “no Plan B” to working with the current authorities to unite the country still reeling from a nearly 14-year civil war and now wrecked by a new outbreak of sectarian violence. Tom Barrack, who is ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria and also has a short-term mandate in Lebanon, took a critical tone toward Israel’s recent intervention in Syria, calling it poorly timed and saying that it complicated efforts to stabilise the region.
A trilateral meeting between Iran, Russia and China will take place on Tuesday regarding Tehran’s nuclear programme and the UN snapback mechanism, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday. The UN snapback mechanism refers to efforts to reimpose international sanctions on Iran.
Tehran on Monday accused the UK, France and Germany of failing to respect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, after they threatened to reimpose sanctions over its atomic programme. The 2015 deal, reached between Iran and the UN security council’s permanent members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – plus Germany imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
Updated
Between 50,000 and 80,000 people were in the area of Deir al-Balah when the Israeli military on Sunday ordered people to leave immediately as it was expanding operations, according to initial estimates from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, Agence France-Presse reports.
On Monday, Deir el-Balah resident Abdullah Abu Saleem, 48, told AFP that “during the night, we heard huge and powerful explosions shaking the area as if it were an earthquake”.
He said this was “due to artillery shelling in the south-central part of Deir el-Balah and the southeastern area”.
He added:
We are extremely worried and fearful that the army is planning a ground operation in Deir el-Balah and the central camps where hundreds of thousands of displaced people are sheltering,” he added.
The spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, told AFP that “we received calls from several families trapped in the Al-Baraka area of Deir el-Balah due to shelling by Israeli tanks”.
“There are a number of wounded, but no one can reach the area to evacuate them,” he added.
The Israeli military did not provide immediate comment when contacted by AFP.
Updated
Syria ceasefire remains in place, monitor says
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said on Monday that the ceasefire in the southern province of Sweida was holding, despite isolated gunfire in areas north of Sweida city with no reports of casualties, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
The agreement announced on Saturday put an end to the sectarian violence that has left more than 1,100 dead, most of them Druze fighters and civilians, according to the monitor.
The Associated Press (AP) previously reported that the monitor and activist groups heard what was claimed to be Israeli airstrikes and helicopters over villages late on Sunday where some skirmishes took place between the Bedouins and Druze militias.
The Israeli military said it was “not aware” of any overnight strikes in Syria.
An AFP correspondent outside the devastated provincial capital saw a convoy of buses and other vehicles enter Sweida and then exit again carrying civilians, including women and children.
They were headed for reception centres in neighbouring Daraa province and to the capital Damascus, in coordination with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
State news agency SANA said 1,500 people from Bedouin tribes were to be evacuated.
Updated
A photo from Reuters shows the moment before a missile lands on a residential building in Gaza:
Geneva Abdul is a reporter and feature writer for the Guardian who focuses on foreign policy and diplomatic affairs.
A senior Labour MP has said it is time for the UK to recognise a Palestinian state as some western countries are due to press ahead with their own recognition plans at an international conference this month.
Emily Thornberry, who heads the influential House of Commons foreign affairs select committee, said that without a ceasefire and a long-term political solution Israel’s war on Gaza – which has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians since 7 October 2023 – will continue.
“The only way through this is for there to be an Israeli state that is safe and secure, alongside a Palestinian state that is recognised,” Thornberry told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday.
The UK Foreign Office is under pressure to recognise a Palestinian state from Thornberry as well as nearly 60 other Labour MPs.
The calls from Labour backbenchers come after the French president, Emmanuel Macron, told British parliamentarians in a visit this month that a two-state solution was “the only way” to build peace and stability in the region.
Later this month, France and Saudi Arabia are co-chairing an international conference at the UN in New York where it plans to announce that it recognises Palestine. Recognition alone would not solve the conflict, Thornberry said, but it could give the issue political momentum.
You can read more of Geneva Abdul’s piece here: Senior Labour MP urges UK to recognise Palestinian state ahead of UN conference
At least 13 reported dead in Gaza since last night
Gaza health officials said on Monday at least 13 people, including two women and five children, were killed in Israeli strikes since the previous night, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
At least two people were killed on Monday morning when crowds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks were shot at in the area of Netzarim corridor in central Gaza, according to Dr Mohamed Abu Selmiyah, director of Shifa hospital in Gaza City where the dead were taken. He said Israeli forces had opened fire.
An Israeli strike overnight hit a tent in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis, killing at least five people, according to the area’s health ministry. The dead include two parents, two of their children and a relative, it said.
Strikes also hit a residential building in Gaza City, according to health officials.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes. It blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the group operates from populated areas.
Barrack added that when it comes to the conflict between Lebanon and Israel, the US cannot compel Israel to do anything, Reuters reports.
He said in a press conference in Beirut:
The U.S. has no business in trying to compel Israel to do anything... America could only influence,” he said in a press conference in Beirut.
We are not going to have more boots on the ground in an adversarial nature anywhere.
A US envoy doubled down on Washington’s support for the new government in Syria, saying on Monday there is “no Plan B” to working with the current authorities to unite the country still reeling from a nearly 14-year civil war and now wrecked by a new outbreak of sectarian violence, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
Tom Barrack, who is ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria and also has a short-term mandate in Lebanon, took a critical tone toward Israel’s recent intervention in Syria, calling it poorly timed and saying that it complicated efforts to stabilise the region.
Over the weekend, Barrack announced a ceasefire between Syria and Israel, without giving details.
Syrian government forces have redeployed in Sweida to halt renewed clashes between the Druze and Bedouins, as evacuations of civilians began on Monday.
At least eight reported dead as Israeli tanks enter Deir al-Balah
Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern areas of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday, an area where Israeli sources said the military believes some of the remaining hostages may be being held by Hamas, Reuters reports.
Gaza medics said at least three Palestinians were killed and several were wounded in tank shelling that hit eight houses and three mosques in the area, and which came a day after the military ordered residents to leave, saying it planned to fight Hamas militants.
The raid and bombardment pushed dozens of families who had remained to flee and head west towards the coastal area of Deir al-Balah and nearby Khan Younis.
In Khan Younis, earlier on Monday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least five people, including a man, his wife, and their two children, in a tent, medics said.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis incidents.
Israel’s military said it had not entered the districts of Deir al-Balah subject to the evacuation order during the current conflict and that it was continuing “to operate with great force to destroy the enemy’s capabilities and terrorist infrastructure in the area.”
Israeli sources have said the reason the army has so far stayed out is that they suspect Hamas might be holding hostages there.
At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in captivity in Gaza are believed to be still alive.
Families of the hostages expressed their concern for their relatives and demanded an explanation from the army of how it would protect them.
Updated
Tehran on Monday accused the UK, France and Germany of failing to respect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, after they threatened to reimpose sanctions over its atomic programme, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
The 2015 deal, reached between Iran and the UN security council’s permanent members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – plus Germany imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
But it unravelled when the US in 2018, during Donald Trump’s first term as president, unilaterally withdrew from the accord and reimposed sweeping sanctions.
The Europeans had pledged continued support for the deal, but the mechanism intended to offset US sanctions never materialised effectively and many western firms were forced to exit Iran, which has since faced a deepening economic crisis.
“The European parties have been at fault and negligent in implementing” the nuclear agreement, said Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baqaei.
The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran is the only non-nuclear-armed country currently enriching uranium to 60% – far beyond the 3.67% cap set by the 2015 accord.
That is a short step from the 90% required for a nuclear weapon.
A trilateral meeting between Iran, Russia and China will take place on Tuesday regarding Tehran’s nuclear programme and the United Nations snapback mechanism, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday, Reuters reports.
The UN snapback mechanism refers to efforts to reimpose international sanctions on Iran.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that defence minister Israel Katz said in a statement that the Israeli military “has just struck terror targets of the Huthi terror regime at the port of Hodeida and is forcefully enforcing the prevention of any attempt to restore the previously attacked terror infrastructure.”
In a separate statement, the army said that “among the military infrastructure struck were engineering vehicles... fuel containers, naval vessels used for military activities and force against the State of Israel and vessels in the maritime zone adjacent to the port, and additional terror infrastructure used by the Houthi terrorist regime.”
The Israeli military is attacking Houthi targets in Yemen’s Hodeidah port, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said in a statement on Monday, Reuters reports.
Katz said the army is “forcefully countering any attempt to restore the terror infrastructure previously attacked”.
Since Israel’s war in Gaza against the Palestinian militant group Hamas began in October 2023, the Iran-aligned Houthis have been attacking vessels in the Red Sea in what they say are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Israel has responded by launching attacks on Houthis, who control the most populous part of Yemen, including the vital Hodeidah port.
Katz said:
As I have made clear - Yemen’s fate is the same as Tehran’s. The Houthis will pay a heavy price for launching missiles toward the State of Israel.
Clashes reportedly continue in Syria as families evacuated
After talks for a hostage swap fell through late on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor and activist groups in Sweida reported hearing what they said were Israeli airstrikes and helicopters over villages where some skirmishes took place between the Bedouins and Druze militias.
The Israeli military said it was “not aware” of any overnight strikes in Syria.
It comes at the Syrian government on Monday started evacuating Bedouin families trapped inside the city of Sweida, where Druze militiamen and Bedouin fighters have clashed for over a week.
The UN International Organization for Migration said about 128,571 people were displaced in the hostilities that started with a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks a week ago.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that Syrian state media said early on Sunday that the government had coordinated with some officials in Sweida to bring in buses to evacuate about 1,500 Bedouins in the city.
Syrian interior minister Ahmad al-Dalati told SANA that the initiative will also allow displaced civilians from Sweida to return, as the fighting has largely stopped and efforts for a complete ceasefire are ongoing.
The minister told the Syrian state-run news agency:
We have imposed a security cordon in the vicinity of Sweida to keep it secure and to stop the fighting there.
This will preserve the path that will lead to reconciliation and stability in the province.
Buses filled with Bedouin families were accompanied by Syrian Arab Red Crescent vehicles and ambulances. Some families left on trucks with their belongings.
Syrian authorities did not give further details about the evacuation and how it ties into the broader agreement.
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At least 17 people have been killed in Gaza from Israeli attacks, medical sources have reportedly told Al Jazeera.
The outlet said that the figure included three who had died from Israeli shelling in Deir al-Balah and the Bureij camp in Gaza.
Al-Shifa hospital told Al Jazeera that several people had been wounded by a strike on an apartment in the al-Nasr neighbourhood.
The BBC is reporting a new ground and air assault from Israeli forces on the city of Deir al-Balah.
The outlet said the operation began early on Monday, after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for the city the day before.
Local journalists said Israeli tanks and military vehicles had entered the city from the Kisufim checkpoint under heavy artillery and air cover.
“Dozens of shells” were also reported to have struck the Abu al-’Ajin and Hikr al-Jami’ neighbourhoods.
The Israeli military was approached by the BBC for comment.
The head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), Tom Fletcher, said on Sunday that UN staff would “stay to help” civilians in Deir al-Balah despite Israeli airstrikes “intensifying”.
Fletcher said in a post on X that he had just spoken to Jonathan Whittall, head of the Ocha in Palestine.
He said:
[Whittall is] in Deir el Balah, Gaza, with Israeli airstrikes intensifying. Surrounded by our team, and civilians we stay to help.
More than 650,000 students have had no access to education since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, according to the UN children’s agency, Unicef, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
The figure includes nearly 40,000 students who were unable to take university entry exams that largely determine their career prospects. The outlet reported the current situation as being the first time in decades that the exams were not administered in Gaza.
Israel’s bombardment and ground operations have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced 90% of Gaza’s population. School-age children in crowded shelters and tent camps are often forced to help their families find food, water and firewood.
Local education officials, working with Unicef and other aid groups, set up hundreds of learning spaces to try and provide education during the war.
Mohamed al-Asouli, head of the education department in the southern city of Khan Younis, said:
We’re trying to salvage what we can of the educational process, so that the next generation doesn’t slip through our fingers.
Updated
Iran could withhold security commitments if European states invoke a UN mechanism to reimpose international sanctions on the Islamic Republic, a member of Iran’s parliamentary national security commission said on Monday, according to Borna news, Reuters reports.
Abbas Moqtadaei said in reference to Tehran’s potential countermeasures to the reimposition of international sanctions:
We have many tools in our disposition. We can withhold our commitment to security in the region, Persian Gulf and Hormuz Strait as well as other maritime areas.
He was speaking ahead of a meeting on Friday between Iranian deputy foreign ministers and British, French and German diplomats in Istanbul. The three European states, known as E3, have said they would restore international sanctions on Iran by the end of August if the country did not enter productive talks on its nuclear programme with western powers, notably the US.
E3 countries and Iran have in recent months held inconclusive talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme, in parallel to indirect nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington. Israel’s attack on Iran in June led to the suspension of such talks.
Moqtadaei said in an interview with Iran’s semi-official Borna news agency:
Europe is not in a position to endanger itself in the... Hormuz Strait when it is itself in political, economic and cultural conflicts with Russia, China and even the United States.
At 93 reported dead while seeking aid in Gaza
Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 93 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food on Sunday, while Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for areas packed with displaced people.
The territory’s health ministry said scores were killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks entering through the northern Zikim crossing with Israel. It was one of the highest reported death tolls among repeated recent cases in which aid seekers have been killed by Israeli fire.
Elsewhere nine others were reportedly shot dead near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, where dozens of people lost their lives just 24 hours earlier, while four were killed near another aid site in Khan Younis, spokesperson for the civil defence agency, Mahmud Basal, said.
Israel’s military said soldiers had shot at a gathering of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza who it claimed posed a threat, and it was aware of some casualties. But it said the numbers reported by officials in Gaza were far higher than its initial investigation found. It did not immediately comment on the incidents in the south.
Before the reports of the latest Israeli shootings emerged, Pope Leo XIV called for “an immediate end to the barbarity of the war and for a peaceful resolution to the conflict” at the end of the Angelus prayer at Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence near Rome.
Updated
Opening summary
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s coverage of the Middle East.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 93 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food on Sunday, while Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for areas packed with displaced people.
The territory’s health ministry said scores were killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks entering through the northern Zikim crossing with Israel. It was one of the highest reported death tolls among repeated recent cases in which aid seekers have been killed by Israeli fire.
Elsewhere nine others were reportedly shot dead near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, where dozens of people lost their lives just 24 hours earlier, while four were killed near another aid site in Khan Younis, spokesperson for the civil defence agency, Mahmud Basal, said.
The UN World Food Programme said its 25-truck convoy carrying food aid “encountered massive crowds of hungry civilians which came under gunfire” near Gaza City, soon after it crossed from Israel and cleared checkpoints.
Israel’s military disputed the death toll and said soldiers had fired warning shots “to remove an immediate threat posed to them” as thousands gathered near Gaza City.
On Sunday morning, the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for the city of Deir al-Balah – a crowded part of central Gaza full of displaced Palestinian people with nowhere safe to flee relentless bombardments. Whole families were reportedly seen lugging their few belongings and heading south.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement that the order had dealt “yet another devastating blow to the already fragile lifelines keeping people alive across the Gaza Strip.”
In other developments:
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar on Sunday said he had ordered the withdrawal of a senior UN humanitarian official’s residency permit, accusing him of spreading lies about the war in Gaza. Whittall, a South African who lives in Jerusalem and frequently visits the Gaza Strip, has repeatedly condemned the humanitarian conditions for the more than 2 million people living in the Palestinian territory.
Gaza’s civil defence agency told Agence France-Presse (AFP) it has noted a rising number of infant deaths caused by “severe hunger and malnutrition”, reporting at least three such deaths in the past week. “These heartbreaking cases were not caused by direct bombing but by starvation, the lack of baby formula and the absence of basic healthcare,” civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
Tens of thousands of Moroccans demonstrated on Sunday in the capital Rabat against the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, calling for the reversal of the kingdom’s normalisation deal with Israel. Protesters gathered in the city centre, brandishing Palestinian flags and placards calling for the free flow of aid to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
Residents reported calm in Syria’s Sweida on Sunday after the Islamist-led government announced that Bedouin fighters had withdrawn from the predominantly Druze city and a US envoy signalled that a deal to end days of fighting was being implemented. The ceasefire announced on Saturday appeared to be holding after earlier agreements failed to end fighting between longtime rivals the Druze and the Bedouin that spiralled to draw in the Islamist-led government, the Israeli military and armed tribes from other parts of Syria.
The death toll from violence in Sweida province, the heartland of Syria’s Druze minority, has risen to 1,120 since last weekend, a war monitor said on Sunday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead included 427 Druze fighters and 298 Druze civilians, 194 of whom were “summarily executed by defence and interior ministry personnel”.
The first humanitarian aid convoy entered the southern Syrian city of Sweida on Sunday, a Red Crescent official said, a week after deadly sectarian violence erupted in the Druze heartland. The official said the convoy of 32 vehicles was carrying basics including food, medical and fuel supplies as well as body bags.
Iran confirmed on Monday fresh talks with European powers to be held on Friday in Istanbul, the country’s state media reported, the first since the US attacked Iranian nuclear facilities a month ago. Iranian diplomats will meet counterparts from Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3, after the trio warned that sanctions could be reimposed on Tehran if it does return to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme.
Iranian authorities have urged residents to limit water consumption as the country grapples with severe shortages amid an ongoing heatwave, local media said on Sunday. Water scarcity is a major issue in Iran, particularly in arid provinces in the country’s south, with shortages blamed on mismanagement and overexploitation of underground resources, as well as the growing impact of climate change.
