Here is a summary of today's events
The UN human rights office said it has recorded 613 killings in Gaza near humanitarian convoys, as Palestinians are attempting to receive aid from GHF distribution points.
The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said 509 of 613 people killed at aid points were near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a US and Israeli-backed group running food distribution centres - distribution points. The GHF dismissed these numbers as coming “directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry” and were being used to “falsely smear” its effort.
The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders Friday in northeast Khan Younis and urged Palestinians to move west ahead of planned military operations against Hamas in the area. The new evacuation zones pushed Palestinians into increasingly smaller spaces by the coast.
The UN reliefs and works agency, UNRWA, has said it has has 6,000 trucks with soon-to-expire food and medical supplies stuck in Jordan and Egypt awaiting Israeli permission for transit into Gaza.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud said on Friday when asked about the possibility of normalising ties with Israel that the kingdom’s current priority is reaching a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
The United Nations atomic agency is pulling its inspectors out of Iran over safety concerns, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on Friday said the army had a plan to prevent Iran from threatening Israel again after the arch-foes fought a 12-day war last month.
FlyDubai became the first international carrier to land at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport on Friday at the end of a 20-day suspension of flights that was imposed due to Israeli attacks on Iran, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a US and Israeli-backed group running food distribution centres - told Reuters on Friday that “the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to U.N. convoys,” and said the U.N. and humanitarian groups should work “collaboratively” with the GHF to “maximise the amount of aid being securely delivered into Gaza”. The U.N. in Geneva was immediately available for comment.
It comes after an influx of patients wounded at non-United Nations food distribution sites run by the GHF. The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said 509 of 613 people killed at aid points were near GHF distribution points.
The GHF dismissed these numbers as coming “directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry” and were being used to “falsely smear” its effort.
The GHF has previously said it has delivered more than 60 million meals to hungry Palestinians in five weeks “safely and without interference”, while other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted.”
The children of Dr Marwan al-Sultan, director of Gaza’s Indonesian hospital and one of the territory’s most senior doctors, said they believed their father was deliberately targeted in the Israeli airstrike that killed him on Wednesday.
Sultan died when an Israeli missile was fired into the apartment block in Gaza City where he and his extended family were staying after their displacement from northern Gaza. His wife, daughter, sister and son-in-law were also killed in the attack.
His surviving daughter Lobna said the airstrike specifically targeted the room her father was in. “All the rooms were fine except for his, the missile hit it precisely,” she said.
Read our full report here:
The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders Friday in northeast Khan Younis and urged Palestinians to move west ahead of planned military operations against Hamas in the area. The new evacuation zones pushed Palestinians into increasingly smaller spaces by the coast.
Hamas said Friday that it was holding discussions with leaders of other Palestinian factions to discuss a ceasefire proposal presented to it by Egyptian and Qatari mediators. Hamas said it will give its final response to mediators after the discussions have concluded.
“We’ll see what happens. We’re going to know over the next 24 hours,” US President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One late Thursday when asked if Hamas had agreed to the latest framework for a ceasefire.
The relatives of some of those 15 Palestinians who were killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza – according to local health officials - have spoken to reporters.
“The ceasefire will come, and I have lost my brother? There should have been a ceasefire long ago before I lost my brother,” said 13-year-old Mayar Al Farr as she wept. Her brother, Mahmoud, was among those killed.
Adlar Mouamar said her nephew, Ashraf, was also killed. “Our hearts are broken. We ask the world, we dont want food...We want them to end the bloodshed. We want them to stop this war.”
The UN reliefs and works agency, UNRWA, has said it has has 6,000 trucks with soon-to-expire food and medical supplies stuck in Jordan and Egypt awaiting Israeli permission for transit into Gaza.
As talks over a potential ceasefire continue, UNRWA’s director of communications Juliette Touma said: “I only have hope that rationale will prevail, that pragmatism will prevail” and the supplies can be transferred to the Gaza strip where they are desperately needed.
She repeated the call, made by UNWRA and 130 NGOs this week, to close the Gaza aid foundation backed by the US and Israeli governments which was brought into replace the UN’s operation.
“Everything that has happened in the last few months has just led to more starvation and killing of innocent starving civilians. What has been put in place by these two government is a disgrace,” she said.
Before the war 500 trucks a day were going into Gaza. Just 1/5th of that was humanitarian aid, the rest were supplies for normal business including supermarkets, hardware ships and pharmacies.
She said Gaza now needs 500 trucks a day of humanitarian aid, amid a total collapse in supplies of food, diapers, fuel for hospitals and basics.
The UN says it has recorded 613 killings in Gaza near humanitarian convoys and aid distribution points run by an Israeli-backed American organization since it first began operations in late May.
The US charity has denied the deaths are related to its operations.
Touma said: Humanitarian aid must never be delivered by people with arms. That’s the difference with how we work. We don’t do it with guns and we don’t work with the Israeli army.”
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency has released a statement, in which it does not refer to the Wall Street Journal’s reporting over safety concerns, but states that its team of inspectors has safely departed from Iran to return to the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s headquarters in Vienna after staying in Tehran during the conflict between Israel and Iran.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi “reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” it said in a post on X.
An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict. pic.twitter.com/65YQcDL7Ik
— IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency ⚛️ (@iaeaorg) July 4, 2025
UN atomic agency pulls inspectors out of Iran citing safety concerns
The United Nations atomic agency is pulling its inspectors out of Iran over safety concerns, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Syrian foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani said that Damascus was willing to cooperate with Washington to reimplement the 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel. Syria has technically been in a state of war with Israel since 1948.
In a statement after a phone call with his American counterpart Marco Rubio, Shaibani said he expressed Syria’s “aspiration to cooperate with the United States to return to the 1974 disengagement agreement”, Associated Press reports.
UN reports 613 killings at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid points or nearby
The UN human rights office said it has recorded 613 killings in Gaza near humanitarian convoys, as Palestinians are attempting to receive aid from GHF distribution points.
GHF, which is an Israeli-backed American organisation, first began operations in Gaza in May.
“We have recorded 613 killings, both at GHF points and near humanitarian convoys – this is a figure as of 27 June. Since then … there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the high commissioner for Human Rights said.
As The Washington Post reports, Shamdasani said the office was not able to attribute responsibility for the killings, however it is “clear that the Israeli military has shelled and shot at Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points.”
In Gaza, Israel has automated its target selection, with horrifying results.
As security sources explained to +972 magazine in April 2024, Israel’s Lavender AI program had marked about 37,000 Palestinians as suspected “Hamas militants”, selecting them as potential targets for assassination. A further program, with the sinister name of Where’s Daddy?, was tracking them to their homes so that they could be bombed at night, often killing not only their families but many other people in the same block. “Once you go automatic,” one of the sources told the journal, “target generation goes crazy.” Almost everyone in Gaza had been given a Lavender rating of between 1 and 100. As soon as the number in the AI system was high enough, the name would be added to the kill list. That would be treated as a military order, even though the operators knew that at least 10% of the targets were misidentified.
Our columnist George Monbiot has written today about how draconian use of technology is now the real threat to democracy:
There is a need to return to diplomatic negotiations when it comes to Iran’s nuclear programme and Tehran also needs to fully cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan told a press conference in Moscow on Friday.
Saudi priority is Gaza ceasefire, not normalising ties with Israel, Minister says
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud said on Friday when asked about the possibility of normalising ties with Israel that the kingdom’s current priority is reaching a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
He was speaking during a visit to Moscow.
In 2024, the Saudi foreign minister said that there can be no normalisation of ties with Israel without resolving the Palestinian issue.
“What we are seeing is the Israelis are crushing Gaza, the civilian population of Gaza,” he said. “This is completely unnecessary, completely unacceptable and has to stop.”
Updated
The United Nations human rights office said on Friday that it had recorded at least 613 killings both at aid points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near humanitarian convoys.
“We have recorded 613 killings, both at GHF points and near humanitarian convoys - this is a figure as of June 27. Since then ... there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.
Israeli airstrikes killed 15 Palestinians in Gaza early on Friday, while another 20 people died in shootings while waiting for aid, the hospital morgue that received their bodies told The Associated Press.
At least 15 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes, including eight women and one child. Another 20 were shot while waiting for aid, according to Nasser Hospital, including two who were killed near distribution sites in Rafah and 18 who were waiting for trucks to deliver supplies elsewhere in southern Gaza.
The recent killings took place as efforts to halt the 21-month war appeared to be moving forward.
Hamas said Friday that it was holding discussions with leaders of other Palestinian factions to discuss a ceasefire proposal presented to it by Egyptian and Qatari mediators. The Health Ministry in Gaza said the number of Palestinians killed in the territory has passed 57,000. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says more than half of the dead are women and children.
In the third and final episode of Along the Green Line, reporter Matthew Cassel heads to the south of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Amid the deadliest chapter in the history of this conflict, we visit the kibbutz of Kfar Aza to witness the evolving legacy of the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas militants, and get as close to Gaza as is possible for foreign journalists.
In this three-part series, we’re traveling along the 1949 armistice line or ‘green line’ – once seen as the best hope for a resolution – and meeting Palestinians and Israelis living just miles apart
Nasser hospital in Gaza is operating as “one massive trauma ward” due to an influx of patients injured at non-United Nations food distribution sites, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
“They’ve seen already for weeks, daily injuries ... and (the) majority coming from the so-called safe non-UN food distribution sites. The hospital is now operating as one massive trauma ward,” Rik Peeperkorn told reporters in Geneva.
FlyDubai became the first international carrier to land at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport on Friday at the end of a 20-day suspension of flights that was imposed due to Israeli attacks on Iran, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The arrival of Flight FZ1930 at Iran’s biggest airport from the airline’s base in the United Arab Emirates marked the start of a gradual return to normal operations in Iranian airspace, IRNA said.
FlyDubai is a low-cost carrier and a sister airline to Emirates.
Local authorities described the landing as a sign of restored stability and effective crisis management in the country’s aviation sector. Passenger services were carried out under full safety and security protocols, IRNA reported.
International and domestic air traffic had been halted following Israeli airstrikes and heightened security concerns across Iranian skies.
Gaza civil defence official Mohammad al-Mughayyir told AFP that seven people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli air strike overnight on displaced people’s tents near the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.
Mughayyir said eight more people were killed in two other strikes on tent encampments on the coast of Khan Yunis, including one that killed two children early Friday.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it could not comment on specific attacks without precise coordinates, but noted it was “operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities”.
Followers of the Baha’i faith - a small but global religion with an interfaith credo - are facing repression in several Middle East nations, particularly Iran, that is drawing criticism from human rights groups.
The abuse is most evident in Iran, which bans the faith and has been widely accused of persecuting its adherents, human rights advocates say. They also report systemic discrimination in Yemen, Qatar and Egypt.
Iran has been a driving force in the spread of anti-Baha’i repression in countries where it holds influence, advocates say - a plan first made public in a leaked 1991 government document. These include Yemen, where Iran backs Houthi rebels who control much of the country, and Qatar, where links include co-ownership of the world’s largest natural gas field.
“The sheer arsenal the Iranian government has expended to crush the Baha’is in every avenue of life has been astronomical,” said Nazila Ghanea, an Oxford University law professor and U.N. Special Rapporteur on religious freedom. “It has also extended its reach, time and again, beyond the border of Iran,” she said.
Israeli military to 'ensure that Iran cannot threaten Israel again', minister says
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on Friday said the army had a plan to prevent Iran from threatening Israel again after the arch-foes fought a 12-day war last month.
The Israeli military will prepare an “enforcement plan to ensure that Iran cannot threaten Israel again”, Katz said in a statement, adding that “the army must prepare on the intelligence and operational level to ensure that the Air Force maintains air superiority over Tehran”.
Updated
Hezbollah has begun a major strategic review in the wake of its devastating war with Israel, including considering scaling back its role as an armed movement without disarming completely, three sources familiar with the deliberations say.
The internal discussions, which Reuters reports aren’t yet finalised and haven’t previously been reported, reflect the formidable pressures the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group has faced since a truce was reached in late November.
Israeli forces continue to strike areas where the group holds sway, accusing Hezbollah of ceasefire violations, which it denies. It is also grappling with acute financial strains, US demands for its disarmament and diminished political clout since a new cabinet took office in February with U.S. support.
Hamas leaders are close to accepting a proposed deal for a ceasefire in Gaza but want stronger guarantees that any pause in hostilities would lead to a permanent end to the 20-month war, sources close to the militant Islamist organisation have said.
Hamas officials met on Thursday in Istanbul to discuss the ceasefire proposals and later issued a statement confirming they were talking to other “Palestinian factions” before formally announcing a response.
The militant Islamist group has come under immense pressure in recent months, with its military leadership decimated and the Israeli military forcing its fighters out of former strongholds in the southern and central parts of Gaza.
Read our report from Jerusalem on the Gaza ceasefire talks:
Hamas discusses ceasefire proposal
Hamas has said it was discussing a ceasefire proposal put forward by the US with other Palestinian factions. In a statement early on Friday morning it said would submit its response to mediators once those talks conclude. Hamas is seeking clear guarantees that the ceasefire will eventually lead to the war’s end, a source close to the group told Reuters.
Meanwhile a senior Israeli official close to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the news wire that preparations were in place to approve a ceasefire deal. A separate source familiar with the matter said that Israel was expecting Hamas’ response by Friday and that if it was positive, an Israeli delegation would join indirect talks to cement the deal.
Donald Trump also said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether the Palestinian militant group had agreed to accept what he has called a “final proposal” for a ceasefire in Gaza. The US president also said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, the deal on normalization of ties that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.
Trump was asked on Friday if Hamas had agreed to the latest ceasefire deal framework, and said: “We’ll see what happens, we are going to know over the next 24 hours.”
In other developments:
When asked by a reporter on Thursday whether he still wanted the US to take over Gaza, Trump said: “I want the people of Gaza to be safe more importantly.” He added: “They’ve gone through hell.” Trump first floated his plan for a “Riviera of the Middle East”, which included ethnically cleansing Gaza, in February.
At least 73 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Thursday including 15 killed in an attack on a school, Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said. Those killed included 38 people waiting for humanitarian aid at three separate locations in central and southern Gaza, and a child killed by a drone in Jabalia in the north.
Israel has escalated its offensive in Gaza before the imminent ceasefire talks, with warships and artillery launching one of the deadliest and most intense bombardments in the devastated Palestinian territory for many months this week. In all, about 300 people may have been killed this week and thousands more injured, according to officials.
Among those targeted by Israel was one of Gaza’s most senior doctors, Dr Marwan al-Sultan. Tributes were paid on Thursday to the renowned cardiologist and director of the Indonesian hospital in the Gaza Strip, who was killed alongside several members of his family. He was the 70th healthcare worker to be killed by Israeli attacks in the last 50 days, according to Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW), a Palestinian medical organisation.
The UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories has called for sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel and for global corporations to be held accountable for “profiting from genocide” in Gaza. A report by Francesca Albanese to the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday pointed to the deep involvement of companies from around the world in supporting Israel during its 21-month onslaught in Gaza.
Iran on Thursday affirmed its commitment to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, as it accused Germany of “malice” over its criticism of Tehran’s decision to suspend cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog. “Iran remains committed to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and its Safeguards Agreement,” foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X. “The explicit German support for the bombing of Iran has obliterated the notion that the German regime harbors anything but malice towards Iranians,” he added in response to a German foreign office post criticising the move.
The producer of a film about medics in Gaza that was dropped by the BBC has accused the corporation of trying to gag him and others over its decision not to show the documentary. Gaza: Doctors under Attack, which was finally broadcast on Channel 4 on Wednesday night, recounts how hospitals in the territory have been overwhelmed, bombed and raided. Ben de Pear, the programme’s executive producer and a former Channel 4 News editor, accused the BBC of attempting to stop him talking about its “painful journey” to the screen with the use of legal gagging clauses.
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