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Here’s where things stand on Tuesday 8 July 2025:
- US President Donald Trump will hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House again with the war on Gaza “exclusively” the focus.
- At least 78 Palestinians have been killed since the morning – including in missile attacks on war-displaced people sheltering in tents – as Israel’s relentless strikes throughout the Strip continue.
- The Houthis in Yemen have damaged a second ship in as many days in the Red Sea, targeting a vessel with rocket-propelled grenades.
- Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 57,575 people and wounded 136,879, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023 attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.
UK MP accuses parliament of censorship over Palestine Action speech
British lawmaker Zarah Sultana has accused the UK Parliament of censorship after a section of her recent speech expressing solidarity with the activist group Palestine Action was removed from the official parliamentary record.
“Parliament and Hansard have removed ‘We are all Palestine Action’ from my speech on Wednesday 2 July 2025 – despite me saying it,” Sultana wrote on X.
Hansard is the official transcript of debates and speeches in the UK Parliament, which keeps a historical record of what is said by MPs.
“This is a blatant attempt to censor me and rewrite the record. This is not how a democracy behaves. We will not be silenced,” she said.
Her remarks come days after the UK government designated Palestine Action a proscribed “terrorist organisation”, criminalising support for the group.
Palestine Action has been known for its direct action targeting weapons manufacturers linked to Israel, including Elbit Systems.
Gaza death toll hits 95 as Khan Younis attack casualties rise
At least 95 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israeli attacks since dawn, hospital sources in Gaza tell Al Jazeera.
According to Nasser Hospital in the southern part of the enclave, the death toll of the Israeli attack on the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis that we reported on earlier has increased to seven people.
Israeli army strikes another vehicle in southern Lebanon
The Israeli military launched another attack on a vehicle in Lebanon, this time in the town of Babliyah in the southern part of the country.
The National News Agency reported two missiles were fired at the vehicle and drones continue to hover at low altitudes. Drone activity was also reported over Hermel in the south.
As we reported earlier, the Israeli army killed three people and wounded others in a strike on a car in northern Lebanon’s Tripoli that targeted a Hamas commander.
Israel blocking humanitarian missions in Gaza: UN
Israeli authorities continue to block attempts by the United Nations to carry out humanitarian missions, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says.
“We’re doing whatever we can, trying to get medical supplies, trying to get food, but it’s not even a drop in the bucket,” Dujarric told reporters at a press briefing.
He said movement within Gaza remains “heavily restricted” with aid missions frequently delayed, denied, or disrupted by Israeli forces.
“Only four were fully facilitated and just one of those involved the delivery of supplies,” he said. “Another four attempts were denied outright, blocking efforts to evacuate patients, recover broken trucks or remove debris.”
Since March 2, Israel has kept Gaza’s main crossings largely closed, preventing the daily entry of hundreds of aid and supply trucks.
Report: Israel envisions international help managing Gaza’s ethnic cleansing
Details continue to emerge on the plan presented by Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz on the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
The Haaretz newspaper, quoting an unnamed Israeli source, reported the plan is “to move all Gazan civilians to the south, to a large tent city in Rafah, where they will have hospitals and abundant food”.
It also proposes a “humanitarian zone” be established under “the remote security control of the Israeli army, to be managed by international or local entities under Israeli auspices”.
The source said Prime Minister Netanyahu sees a possibility that countries such as the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia could intervene later to manage the “humanitarian city”.
Netanyahu: ‘Gaza will no longer be a threat to Israel’
Netanyahu has just spoken before his second meeting with Trump, stating any plan for Gaza’s future cannot include Hamas.
Speaking on Capitol Hill, Netanyahu stressed Israel is “determined to complete all the goals of the war in Gaza: to free all our hostages, to bring about the destruction of Hamas’s military and governance capacities, and to ensure that Gaza will no longer be a threat to Israel”.
He added: “That means no Hamas. This must be understood.”
The strategy will involve “some moves that are very painful [to Israel] and some that are very painful to Hamas”, Netanyahu said, but the outcome would be “the freeing of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas”.
Despite mounting international calls for restraint, Netanyahu dismissed the need for transparency around Israel’s military strategy, saying: “We are fighting a very cruel, cynical enemy, and we don’t need to tell it our plans.”
Lebanon strike that killed 3 targeted ‘senior’ Hamas commander: Israel
Israel’s military has confirmed reports that Hamas commander Mahran Mustafa Baajour was the target of two missiles fired by a drone that hit a vehicle near Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli.
It released aerial footage of the air strike on the vehicle, showing that the car was hit while travelling on a street next to other vehicles.
In a statement, the army accused Baajour of being behind rocket launches against Israel and working to entrench Hamas in Lebanon while procuring weapons through clandestine networks across the region.
According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, the country’s Health Ministry put the final casualty numbers from the bombing in Ayrouniyeh at three people killed and 13 injured.
US fully ‘engaged’ in attacks on Gaza
Annelle Sheline, a former US State Department official, says it is not only Israel committing “horrific crimes” in Gaza, but the United States is also an accomplice.
She noted that American mercenaries are now on the ground in Gaza as part of the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“There’s been whistleblowers reporting these Americans are firing on Palestinians seeking aid. So to be clear, it is not only the Israeli government and members of the Israeli military who are engaged in these crimes,” said the research fellow for the Middle East at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Discussing the proposal to force the 2.3 million population out of Gaza, she said US President Trump appears to be completely behind the ethnic-cleansing plan.
“Unfortunately, Trump has displayed a complete disregard for international law and seems fully committed to this plan put forward to move Palestinians into concentration camps and then move them somewhere else,” Sheline told Al Jazeera.
Trump ‘trying to seize momentum’ for Gaza truce
The US president is saying he wants to get the situation in Gaza solved and he will meet at the White House on Tuesday evening with Netanyahu – just 24 hours after there was a similar meeting.
It wasn’t on the schedule.
We’ve also just heard from the Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff, who said the team is hoping to announce the 60-day ceasefire this week. We understand he is preparing to go back to Doha, where indirect truce talks are ongoing.
Witkoff went on to say the contentious issues between Israel and Hamas have been reduced from four to one.
So the timeline is imminent. The US president clearly is trying to seize momentum after that meeting on Monday where he said they already had a number of successes and they don’t believe there are any obstacles to a ceasefire.
‘Famine is spreading and people are dying trying to find food’
An official from the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has just returned from Gaza and describes the situation there as “the worst I have seen so far”.
“The needs are greater than ever, and our capacity to respond has never been more constrained. Famine is spreading, and people are dying trying to find food,” WFP Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau said.
“Our teams in Gaza are doing their best to deliver aid and are often caught in the crossfire. We are suffering from shortages of fuel, spare parts and essential communications equipment.”
Three killed in Israeli bombing of al-Mawasi in southern Gaza
Three Palestinians were killed and five others wounded after the Israeli military targeted the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital.
The drone strike targeted a tent housing displaced Palestinians in the area in southern Gaza, which the Israeli army has designated a “humanitarian zone” but continues to fire on it.
Recognition of Palestinian state ‘only way’ to peace: Macron
French President Emmanuel Macron, who is in the UK for what is the first state visit by a European leader since Brexit, has made the following remarks:
- A ceasefire in Gaza is a matter of urgency.
- A war without end in Gaza poses a threat to the entire region.
- Formal recognition of a Palestinian state is the only way to build peace in the region.
- Britain and France must work together to defend an efficient multilateralism and to protect the international order.
Photos: Wounded Palestinians arrive at Al-Aqsa Hospital after Israeli attack
Yemen’s Houthis release footage of soldiers boarding, sinking ship
The Houthis in Yemen have aired footage of their attack on the Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned Magic Seas, a cargo ship they sank after their special forces boarded it.
The group, which said the ship was attacked on Sunday because it had conducted business with Israeli ports, said its crew refused to heed warnings before it was hit with unmanned explosives-rigged boats. The crew was safely evacuated to Djibouti by a passing ship before Houthi soldiers blew it up with planted explosives.
The Houthis also attacked the Eternity C bulk carrier on Monday in the Red Sea, which according to the European Union’s naval mission Aspides killed three crew members and wounded two.
These were the first major naval attacks in the Red Sea since late 2024, and the deaths on the Eternity C constituted the first since June 2024.
As Netanyahu meets Trump, could a Gaza ceasefire emerge?
Could the Israeli prime minister’s third trip to the US since Trump’s return to office mean a ceasefire in Gaza is close at hand?
In its latest episode, our podcast series The Take examines what the meeting at the White House could mean for the ceasefire efforts. Listen below:
‘Gaza exclusively’: Trump to meet Netanyahu again
Trump says he’ll meet again with Netanyahu this evening to push for a Gaza deal, a day after the two leaders had dinner at the White House.
“He’s coming over later. We’re going to be talking about, I would say, almost exclusively Gaza. We’ve got to get that solved,” Trump told reporters.
“It’s a tragedy, and he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to.”
Trump’s special envoy said he’s hopeful for a deal between Israel and Hamas.
“We are hopeful that by end of this week we will have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire,” Witkoff said. “Ten live hostages will be released. Nine deceased will be released.”
Netanyahu is in Washington until Thursday on his third visit to the US capital since Trump returned to power in January.
‘Total impunity’: EU commissioner condemns Israeli settler violence in West Bank
European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib has denounced escalating Israeli settler attacks in the occupied West Bank, saying they are continuing “with total impunity”.
In a post on X, Lahbib, who oversees the EU’s crisis management and equality portfolio, wrote: “Palestinian families and children continue to be forced to leave their homes in the West Bank because of repeated settler attacks.
“This escalating violence takes place with total impunity. Safe and voluntary returns must be guaranteed.”
Her comments follow a surge in settler violence. According to the UN, more than 740 settler attacks have impacted about 200 Palestinian communities in the first half of 2025 alone.
Earlier, we reported for the third day in a row Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian shepherds in the village of al-Minya, southeast of Bethlehem – part of a wider pattern of intimidation and forced displacement across the West Bank.
In case you’re just joining us
Let’s bring you up to speed with recent developments:
- Israeli attacks have killed at least 78 people across the Gaza Strip since dawn, according to medical sources.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues his visit to Washington, DC, meeting US officials after discussing his plan to forcibly displace Palestinians with President Donald Trump.
- British Foreign Secretary David Lammy says the UK would oppose plans to forcibly displace Palestinians.
- Israel says it has targeted a “key” Hamas member near Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli.
- The Zeitoun Medical Clinic in Gaza City has ceased operations after Israeli shelling in the surrounding areas posed a “serious threat” to the safety of patients and staff, the Palestine Red Crescent Society says.
Israeli settlers attack farmland in the occupied West Bank
Israeli settlers have stolen a donkey and vandalised farmland in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank under the protection of the Israeli army.
Anti-settlement activist Osama Makhamreh told the Wafa news agency a group of settlers from the Mitzpe Yair outpost raided Khirbet al-Qawawees, where they stole a donkey belonging to farmer Jabr Awad.
According to Makhamreh, the settlers released large herds of sheep near Palestinian homes and among fruit-bearing trees, causing significant damage to crops.
Several wells were also seized, and settlers barred members of the Abu Aram al-Naameen family from accessing them, according to the report.
Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank are illegal under international law.
‘Costing more lives than it saves’: UNRWA boss slams Gaza aid distribution mechanism
Philippe Lazzarini has told the Caux Democracy Forum that “nowhere [in Gaza] is safe”, condemning the distribution of aid under the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as “costing more lives than it saves”.
The UNRWA chief said more than 55,000 people have been reported killed in Gaza, “mostly women and children”, and accused Israel of “weaponising humanitarian assistance”.
Lazzarini said the GHF has replaced what he described as the “principled” United Nations-led effort, adding that the new system forces starving Palestinians to “walk for miles, and stand for hours in wired enclosures, in blistering heat”.
“They are shot at, and hundreds have been killed and injured.”
UNRWA itself has lost more than 320 staff and seen most of its buildings destroyed since the start of the war, he said. Without accountability, Lazzarini warned, “we set a dangerous precedent”.
He closed his speech by urging “a meaningful political pathway that addresses the longstanding question of Palestine”.
Three explosives, gunfight part of Qassam Brigades ambush in Beit Hanoon
An initial investigation by the Israeli army has found that three explosives were detonated in succession in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoon during the ambush that killed five soldiers and wounded 14 on Monday night.
An infantry force belonging to Israel’s Netzah Yehuda Battalion was advancing in the area after weeks of air strikes and artillery shelling when it was targeted about 9:55pm (18:55 GMT), according to Israeli media reports citing the investigation.
The first explosive device detonated against the leading force while the next two devices detonated against the team rushing to evacuate the wounded, they said. Palestinian fighters then opened fire from among the ruins of buildings and structures.
In response, Israeli fighter jets, helicopters and drones launched intensive air strikes on the area to prevent Qassam Brigades fighters from taking any Israeli soldiers captive. Within an hour and a half, the Israeli forces managed to evacuate all the wounded.
The Israeli army has continued to launch attacks in the aftermath of the ambush, killing at least 78 Palestinians so far today, according to medical sources.
Gaza’s starving men and women chase trucks, face death to feed families
Gaza City – My last two trips north brought me face-to-face with the “aid seekers”.
That harsh label has dominated news headlines recently, but witnessing their journey up close defies all imagination. It belongs to another world entirely.
On June 6, to fulfil my daughter Banias’s Eid wish to see her grandfather, we boarded a tuk-tuk as evening fell.
Near the western edge of what people in Gaza call al-Shari al-Jadeed (“the new road”), the 7km (4-mile) Netzarim Corridor, which the Israeli army built to bisect the enclave, I saw hundreds of people on sand dunes on both sides of the street. Some had lit fires and gathered around them.
It’s a barren, ghostly stretch of sand and rubble filled with the living shadows of Gaza’s most desperate.
I started filming with my phone as the other passengers explained that these “aid seekers” were waiting to intercept aid trucks and grab whatever they could.
Read the full Reporter’s Notebook here.
People in Gaza defiant: ‘We are staying on this land’
Even though hundreds of thousands of lives have been shattered during Israel’s war on Gaza, Palestinians have flatly rejected Trump’s Israeli-backed plan to displace its 2.1 million people.
“This is our land. Who would we leave it to? Where would we go?” Mansour Abu Al-Khaier, a technician, told Reuters.
Saed, 27, said he woke up troubled at the news that Trump and Netanyahu are again floating the displacement idea. “We have the right to leave of our own free will and visit other countries, but we reject the plan of displacement as Palestinians,” Saed said.
Abu Samir el-Fakaawi promised: “I will not leave Gaza. This is my country.”
He added: “Our children who were martyred in the war are buried here. Our families. Our friends. Our cousins. We are all buried here. Whether Trump or Netanyahu or anyone else likes it or not, we are staying on this land.”
Israeli settlers attack Palestinians in Bethlehem, Hebron
For a third consecutive day, Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian shepherds in the village of al-Minya, southeast of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.
Local sources told the Wafa news agency the assailants forced the Palestinians to leave at gunpoint in an attempt to eject them from their land.
In Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, Israeli settlers stole a donkey and vandalised Palestinian crops.
Israeli soldiers also raided the town of Khader, south of Bethlehem, and arrested a 15-year-old boy. Two more Palestinians were arrested by Israeli forces at a military checkpoint north of Ramallah.
Two Europeans who sacrificed their lives for Palestinian cause
A French nurse and an Italian photographer devoted their lives to the Palestinian cause and paid the ultimate price.
Francoise Kesteman was a French nurse who worked in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was a communist, saw the displacement of millions of Palestinians as a fundamental injustice, and joined armed Palestinian groups fighting the Israeli occupation.
Franco Fontana was an Italian photographer who cofounded a Marxist-Leninist political group in the 1970s and organised exhibitions to raise awareness of the Palestinian cause. As a photojournalist, he visited Palestine and Lebanon, where he also joined armed groups.
Kesteman was killed in 1984 in a paramilitary operation in Lebanon. Fontana fell ill in 2015 and chose to return to a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, where he died and was buried.
Qassam Brigades hails successful attack, threatens Netzah Yehuda Battalion
Five Israeli soldiers have been killed when Palestinian fighters detonated explosive devices in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoon area, a source in the armed wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, tells Al Jazeera. The source added:
- On Monday, Qassam fighters carried out an ambush against a multinational force in Beit Hanoon.
- The ambush took place in several stages and resulted in the killing and wounding of a large number of Israeli soldiers.
- The ambush targeted the Netzah Yehuda Battalion in the third such attack in Beit Hanoon.
- The Qassam Brigades previously targeted the battalion in farm and railway ambushes.
- “If this battalion continues its crimes, we promise the occupation to destroy it and put it out of service.”
Israel has ‘carte blanche’ to pursue concentration zone plan
Israel’s plan to relocate Palestinians into concentration zones comes as Netanyahu is in Washington, DC, but such matters do not interest Trump, Israeli analyst Gideon Levy says from Tel Aviv.
“I think Israel has a carte blanche to go for this plan, and my only hope is that it will not be achievable and implementable. But if it is, we will be facing another huge crime of war,” the Haaretz writer told Al Jazeera.
He said 21 months of “ugly war hardly bothered most Israelis” as many believe there are no innocent people in Gaza.
“That’s the mindset of Israel today. We might like it or not but can’t ignore it. The majority of Israelis will be either indifferent or very supportive [of the concentration plan]. That’s the zeitgeist.”
Levy said the Israeli state has already become a pariah but it does not seem to care about its status internationally.
Israeli attacks across Gaza kill nearly 80 people since dawn
Since dawn, Israeli attacks have killed at least 78 people, medical sources tell Al Jazeera.
The Health Ministry reported earlier that Israeli attacks on Gaza since the war broke out in October 2023 have killed at least 57,575 people and wounded 136,879.
UK opposes Gaza displacement plan, warns of measures on Israel if ceasefire not agreed
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said the UK would oppose plans to forcibly displace Palestinians after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he wanted to move 600,000 Palestinians to a “camp in the ruins of the city of Rafah” in southern Gaza.
Lammy told a parliamentary committee of lawmakers the plan runs “contra to the proximity to a ceasefire that I thought we were heading towards”.
He said: “So I wonder if there’s some politicking going on for those within the government that, for some reason, stand opposed to this.”
When pressed on whether Britain would oppose any such plans, Lammy responded, “Yes”.
Moreover, Lammy warned of measures against Israel if a ceasefire was not reached.
‘Nothing humane’ about plan to forcibly displace all in Gaza
Tamara al-Rifai, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, says there’s a “siege on the international humanitarian system” with the takeover of aid distribution by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
She said the reported forced displacement plan by Israel, backed by the United States, would create the “most overpopulated open-air prison in the world”. The proposal would see 2.1 million Palestinians herded into the “ruins of Rafah”.
“There’s nothing humanitarian or humane about seeking to confine the first 600,000 – but then the entirety of the population in Gaza – into a space that’s highly affected by the Israeli forces,” al-Rifai told Al Jazeera.
“It is not feasible given the level of destruction in Gaza. It is not feasible given the collapse of humanitarian action in Gaza. The [GHF] ‘mechanism’ is actually killing Gazans looking for food. We fear the worst may still come.”