In Gaza over the past 24 hours, at least 60 Palestinians have died trying to get aid. Since US- and Israeli-backed GHF took control of distribution, which UN officials described as a “death trap,” more than 500 people have died.
According to medical sources, at least 51 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip as a result of Israeli attacks, including 14 Palestinians who were waiting nearby aid distribution centers, despite Donald Trump’s assertion that “great progress” was being made to put an end to the conflict.
At least nine Palestinians were killed and several others were hurt early on Wednesday while waiting for medical assistance near Netzarim Junction in central Gaza, according to sources at al-Awda and al-Aqsa Martyrs hospitals in Gaza.
The controversial Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) established a recent wave of violence close to aid distribution points late last month.
Aid organizations and the UN have harshly criticized the GHF, who claim that it uses food as a weapon to support Israel’s military operations and cannot meet the needs of the population.
According to Hani Mahmoud, a reporter for Al Jazeera from Gaza City, aid distribution centers run by GHF are typically set up very close to Israeli forces, with their tanks, armored vehicles, and nearby snipers.
He claimed that when large crowds assemble, they are vulnerable to Israeli fire.
People are only given 20-minute window passes to access available goods, such as food parcels, at the aid centers, disturbingly. Shooting frequently begins after that 20-minute break. One of the causes of the high death toll rates at these centers is because of it, he continued.
The GHF, which entered Palestinian territory at the end of May, is being under increasing pressure to investigate the attacks. The organization, however, denies that it is accountable.
Israel has claimed that the approach of “suspects” toward soldiers has caused previous shootings to occur close to GHF aid sites.
In addition to the deaths reported in the central Gazan town of Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud reported five other fatalities in the bombing of a home.
A bomb dropped there instantly killed five family members. In the Nuseirat refugee camp, he claimed, three additional family members had died.
When Israeli forces attacked a shelter in Gaza City overnight, resident Ramzi Khaled, who was standing close to the building that was housing displaced people, said: “Suddenly, without any prior notice, people who are staying and living in a shelter that is al-Shawwa [fuel] station…
“The ceiling fell to the ground,” the statement read. They are all fragments. There were roughly 12 people in this building, all completely unharmed. He continued, “We retrieved what we could, three people who were in pieces, and now we are trying to retrieve some, a martyr, and the others who are under the rubble.”
According to the Gaza-based Ministry of Health, Israel’s war on Gaza has resulted in the deaths of at least 56, 077 people, and 848 others.
During the October 7 attacks, an estimated 1, 139 people died in Israel, and more than 200 were taken prisoner.
Seven soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza on Tuesday, according to Israel’s military, as it continues its assault.
Six of them were given public names by the military, but one was kept secret because the family of the seventh soldier had not yet been informed of his passing.
According to the military, those who were killed ranged in age from 19 to 21. The 605th Combat Engineering Battalion had a total of six members.
According to the military, an eighth soldier from the same unit was seriously hurt and taken to Israel for treatment.
Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, declared today to be “a very difficult day for the people of Israel.”
There are indications that diplomatic efforts to end the conflict are picking up as the conflict in Gaza gets going.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the prime minister of Qatar, stated on Tuesday that Hamas and Israel might engage in indirect negotiations.
Talks with mediator nations “in recent hours” have “intensified in recent hours,” a senior Hamas official told the AFP news agency on Wednesday.
According to Taher al-Nunu, “our communications with the brother mediators in Egypt and Qatar have not stopped and have increased in recent hours.” The group also stated that it has “not yet received any new proposals” to put an end to the conflict that is now in its 21st month.
Trump, who is currently attending a NATO summit in The Hague, added that “great progress” was being made in putting an end to the Gaza conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Trump remarked that “I think Gaza is very close” to reaching a peace agreement and that “we made great progress because of this attack that we made.” He also suggested that US strikes on Iran might have a positive impact on the Middle East.
Many Israelis are also questioning the wisdom of continuing the conflict in Gaza, according to Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House in London.
Trump is more well-known in Israel right now than Netanyahu, he claimed, referring to the US president’s efforts to end the conflict between Israel and Iran.
He noted that Israelis are hoping that Trump will succeed in releasing the remaining prisoners from Gaza as quickly as Netanyahu.
They are aware that Netanyahu is attempting to keep his coalition in place by continuing the conflict in Gaza, he said.
A pro-Palestinian campaign group called Palestine Action will be prohibited under anti-terrorism laws in the United Kingdom on June 23. In the UK, this would make it illegal to be a member of Palestine Action, making it on par with armed organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).
Human rights organizations have criticized the government’s announcement, which has sparked protests. Following protests between London’s Metropolitan Police officers and protesters, 13 people were detained on Tuesday and seven were charged. A racially aggravated offence and assaulting emergency personnel were among the charges.
Palestine Action describes itself as a movement “determined to end global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime.” In July 2020, the organization was established.
The organization claims it intends to target “corporate enablers” and businesses engaged in Israeli weapons production, such as Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, and Italian aerospace company Leonardo. The group has targeted these companies’ British locations.
According to Manaal Siddiqui, a Palestine Action spokesperson, “Palestine Action is a direct action group that has majoritively focused on weapons factories that are operating on British soil and are implicated in the Palestinian people’s ongoing genocide,” as well as the longer-term kind of oppression of the Palestinians,
The group broke into a Glasgow-based Thales equipment factory in 2022, causing more than 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) worth of damage.
Members of Palestine Action staged protests on the roof of Leicester’s subsidiary UAV Tactical Systems for six days before being detained by the police in 2021.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced in a statement on Monday that she had made the decision to enlist the organization under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Two military aircraft were sprayed with red paint by Palestine Action activists inside RAF Brize Norton, the largest station of the Royal Air Force in Oxfordshire, on June 20.
The activists sprayed red paint into the turbine engines of two Airbus Voyager aircraft to repair their damaged engines with crowbars in the most famous move the organization has ever made.
In an X-post the same day, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued a condemnation of the incident. He wrote, “Vandalism took place at RAF Brize Norton, which is haughty.”
According to the police, millions of pounds of criminal damage were caused by the Palestine Action activists’ actions.
In her Monday statement, Cooper stated that the scandalous attack on Brize Norton on Friday morning on June 20 was the most recent instance of unacceptable criminal damage that Palestine Action has committed.
However, Siddiqui claimed that Brize Norton stores will use aircraft “all over the world, but particularly in Gaza.” She continued, adding that Syria and Yemen have also used them.
More than 56, 000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s Gaza war, which started on October 7, 2023.
According to Siddiqui, “These aircraft can be used to refuel and have been used to refuel Israeli fighter jets.” Additionally, Brize Norton aircraft are transported to a British air base in Cyprus, where they are “dispatched on spy missions and intelligence is shared with the Israeli government and the Israeli air forces.
The British Air Force announced last year that it had carried out large-scale aid airdrops to Gaza. According to the air force, hundreds of tonnes of aid were dropped on April 9, 2024.
According to Siddiqui, “the amount of aid being dropped is an absolute drop in the ocean,” Siddiqui continued, noting that Gaza’s daily needs are met by the UN’s 2,300-tonnage aid.
Vandalism took place at RAF Brize Norton, which is haughty.
Our armed forces, who sacrifice their lives every day for us, represent the best of Britain.
Our duty is to stand up for those we disagree with.
Palestine Action stated in a statement posted on its X profile on Tuesday that the real crime is not the “red paint” being sprayed on these warplanes, but the war crimes that have been committed as a result of the UK government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.
Starmer is also accused of “hypocrisy” because the prime minister supported protesters who allegedly entered an RAF base to stop US bombings entering Iraq in 2003. Starmer was an attorney at the time.
According to Siddiqui, “I think it’s an overblown reaction from an embarrassed government,” and it’s “very knee-jerk.”
Siddiqui claimed that Palestine Action’s encounter with the ban was unheard of. The majority of the groups under international law. The majority of them act in incredibly different ways. A complete outlier would be Palestine Action. The government’s draconian strategy is to thwart protests that they don’t want to. Anyone who cares about civil liberties in the UK will be genuinely terrified.
In total, the Terrorism Act of 2000 prohibits 81 groups in the UK. They include political parties with armed wing groups like Hamas and Hezbollah as well as armed organizations like ISIS (ISIL), al-Qaeda, and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, as well as armed organizations like Tehreek-e-Taiba Pakistan.
In a news release on Monday, Amnesty International UK’s CEO, Sacha Deshmukh, stated in a statement that “the UK has an overly broad definition of terrorism, and excluding a direct-action protest group like Palestine Action could lead to unlawful interference with the fundamental rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.”
He claimed that legitimate human rights protections and regular criminal justice systems were sufficient to stop direct action protesters, like those who are members of Palestine Action.
Deshmukh added that the decision to outlaw Palestine Action “presents a significant risk to the freedom of expression of many other activists who are deeply concerned about the situation of Palestinians in the wake of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
CAGE International, a nonprofit organization based in London, has also responded to the announcement. Naila Ahmed, CAGE International’s head of campaigns, stated in a statement that was made available on the company’s website that: “We stand in complete solidarity with Palestine Action in their effort to end the Zionist war machine in Gaza.” The continuation of a livestreamed genocide is now blatantly being facilitated by terrorism and proscription laws.
Sally Rooney, an Irish author known for her 2018 novel Normal People, wrote an opinion piece titled “Israel kills innocent Palestinians,” which was published by The Guardian on Sunday. Spray-painting of a plane by activists. Guerrilla propaganda by the UK government
According to Rooney, it was against the law for the activists who vandalized Brize Norton to know what they were doing. Real political resistance has always involved intentional breaking of laws, from the suffragettes to the gay rights movement to the anti-apartheid struggle.
However, prosecuting a particular individual for a particular transgression under the Terrorism Act does not equate to prosecuting them for specific acts, as I am currently doing. Supporting the group solely in words could also be a serious legal offence that could lead to a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
On June 30th, Cooper has stated that the British Parliament will receive a draft of a proscription order against Palestine Action.
If passed, the ban would become law, making it impossible to join or receive support for it.
The Terrorism Act provides for up to 14 years in prison and a fine.
The organization will file a legal challenge to the proposed order, Siddiqui claimed. In an X-post, Palestine Action stated that it had “informed lawyers who will fight the Home Secretary’s attempt to ban our movement.” The organization is accepting donations from supporters through an online fundraiser for legal action. As of 08: 00 GMT on Wednesday, the group had received more than 79, 000 pounds ($107, 000) out of its 100, 000-pound ($140, 000) goal.
Trump, the US president, made the claim that Iran’s nuclear sites were “obliterated” at the NATO summit, which was in opposition to a leaked US intelligence report. NATO allies have come to an agreement that defense spending will be 5% of GDP by 2035. James Bays of Al Jazeera re-posts.
Thousands have taken to the streets in Kenya to mark a year since antigovernment protests culminated in the storming of Parliament, despite fears they would be confronted by state-backed gangs and police violence.
According to rights groups, at least 60 people were killed last year by security forces during weeks of protests over tax increases and the dire economic situation facing young Kenyans, reaching a climax when thousands stormed Parliament on June 25.
Activists and families of victims had called for peaceful anniversary marches, but some instead urged people to “occupy State House” – a reference to the official residence of President William Ruto – and many schools and businesses were closed amid fears of unrest.
Police blocked main roads leading to the capital’s business district, and government buildings were barricaded with razor wire.
The marches were largely peaceful early on Wednesday, with protesters – mostly young men – waving Kenyan flags, roses, and placards bearing pictures of those killed last year, while chanting “Ruto must go”.
In Nairobi, there were signs of violence, with some protesters throwing stones and police firing tear gas.
Protests were also reported in Mombasa and several other counties.
Anger has intensified over police brutality, especially after a teacher was killed in custody earlier this month.
A group of peaceful protesters was also attacked last week by a gang of motorbike-riding “goons”, as they are known in Kenya, armed with whips and clubs and acting in tandem with the police.
At the NATO summit in The Hague, US President Donald Trump claimed that the attacks “ended the war” and prevented further conflict by comparing US strikes on Iran to those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.