From Paris to Lisbon, locals and tourists are struggling as a powerful heatwave grips European countries. Temperatures are soaring past 40°C, prompting school closures, tourist attraction restrictions, and warnings about wildfires and climate change.
Israeli forces have killed at least 102 Palestinians in attacks across the Gaza Strip, medical sources told Al Jazeera, even as United States President Donald Trump claimed that he would be “very firm” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on ending Israel’s war on the Palestinian enclave.
Israeli attacks on Tuesday destroyed clusters of homes in the north and south of Gaza, amid fears of yet another looming ground invasion.
The attacks come ahead of a planned visit next week by Netanyahu to Washington, DC. Trump said on Tuesday that the Israeli prime minister wanted to end the war on Gaza, even as his forces ramp up attacks in Gaza.
Among the Palestinians killed were 16 hungry aid seekers who died when Israeli soldiers attacked crowds at aid distribution hubs run by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), according to medical sources.
They are the latest victims in a wave of daily killings at these sites, which have killed nearly 600 Palestinians since GHF took over limited aid deliveries in Gaza in late May amid a crippling Israeli blockade.
More than 170 major international charities and nongovernmental organisations have called for an immediate end to GHF, which rights groups say is operating in violation of international principles.
“Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” a joint statement read.
GHF brings “nothing but starvation and gunfire to the people of Gaza,” it added.
Israeli forces also attacked Gaza City in the north, where it recently issued forced evacuation orders for residents of the area, which has already been bombarded into rubble. At least five people were killed when an Israeli quadcopter struck a gathering of people, local news agency Wafa reported.
At least 82 percent of Gaza is now an Israeli-militarised zone or under forced displacement threats, according to the United Nations, warning people have nowhere to go.
Ismail, a resident of the Sheikh Radwan suburb of Gaza City, said that newly displaced families were setting up tents in the road, after fleeing from areas north and east of the city and finding no other ground available.
“We don’t sleep because of the sounds of explosions from tanks and planes. The occupation is destroying homes east of Gaza, in Jabalia and other places around us,” he said.
In Khan Younis and its al-Mawasi area in the south, at least 12 Palestinians were killed when a home belonging to the al-Zanati family was targeted. Separately, a child was killed and several others wounded when an Israeli air strike struck a displacement camp.
Several more were killed in an Israeli attack west of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to sources at al-Awda Hospital, while two others were killed and several wounded in a separate attack on a UN-run school sheltering displaced families in the al-Maghazi refugee camp.
In a statement, the Israeli army said it attacked Gaza more than 140 times in the past 24 hours, claiming all those hit were “terror targets” and “militants”.
The attacks come as hospitals in the devastated enclave struggle to cope with the influx of people amid a severe shortage of medical supplies and much-needed fuel.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said critical services at the al-Shifa Hospital – which has come under attack and besieged several times throughout Israel’s assault on Gaza – will soon come to a halt.
“Critical services at al-Shifa Hospital have either stopped or will stop in the coming hours as backup generators are running out of fuel,” Mahmoud said.
“This hospital was once the largest healthcare facility in Gaza, but has slowly turned into a waiting room for death, not just because of the war wounds, but because of a lack of fuel that keeps everything running,” he said.
The desperate situation in Gaza is increasing the pressure on world leaders to secure a deal that would end the war.
Trump continues to maintain that a ceasefire deal is close, and that he hopes one will be secured “sometime next week”, during Netanyahu’s White House visit.
Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close Netanyahu ally, is in Washington this week for talks with senior officials on a Gaza ceasefire, Iran and other matters.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said pressure by Trump on Israel would be key to any breakthrough in stalled ceasefire efforts.
“We call upon the US administration to atone for its sin towards Gaza by declaring an end to the war,” he said.
Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, said there is “cautious optimism” in Israel regarding a ceasefire.
“But there are still a lot of concerns, especially among family members of Israeli captives who have been calling for a deal,” Salhut said, adding that Netanyahu “has never signalled he wants to end the war”.
A Danish man has been arrested on suspicion of spying in Germany on behalf of Iran, an allegation swiftly denied by the Iranian embassy in Berlin.
German prosecutors on Tuesday said the man, identified only as Ali S under German privacy law, was suspected of conducting the surveillance “in preparation of further intelligence activities in Germany, possibly including terrorist attacks on Jewish targets”.
It added that the individual was suspected of receiving the espionage orders from “an Iranian intelligence service”.
German and Danish authorities said the man had been arrested in Denmark but would be extradited to Germany.
The Iranian embassy in Berlin decried what it called “unfounded and dangerous accusations”.
“Previous discussions with relevant German authorities have already highlighted that certain third parties are attempting to divert public perceptions from the actual events through artificial staging,” the embassy said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said Iran’s ambassador had been summoned after the arrest.
“If this suspicion were confirmed, it would be an outrageous incident that would once again demonstrate that Iran is a threat to Jews all over the world,” Wadephul said during a visit to Odesa, Ukraine, shortly after visiting a synagogue there.
According to Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, the suspect took photos of at least three buildings in Berlin in June.
They included the headquarters of the German-Israeli Society, which has lobbied the European Union to list Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a “terrorist” organisation, and a building where the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, was said to occasionally stay.
Der Spiegel reported that investigators believe the suspect was working on behalf of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the IRGC.
He was arrested in the Danish city of Aarhus by local police last week and was awaiting extradition to Germany.
During the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his country was preparing “in case Iran targets Israeli or Jewish institutions”.
He did not provide further details at the time.
Amid their public feud over the looming tax bill, US President Donald Trump has suggested that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) review subsidies tied to once ally Elon Musk, including those received by Tesla and SpaceX, in order to save money.
“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED! ! ! ,” the president said in an early morning post on Trump’s social media platform Truth Social.
Trump’s remarks on Tuesday came after Musk renewed his criticism of the sweeping tax-cut and spending bill — which the White House hopes to sign into law by July 4th — pledging to unseat lawmakers who supported it after campaigning on limiting government spending.
Shortly after, Senate Republicans hauled Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill to passage Tuesday on the narrowest of margins, pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session.
The outcome capped an unusually tense weekend of work at the Capitol, the president’s signature legislative priority teetering on the edge of approval or collapse. In the end, that tally was 50-50, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.
Feuding with Trump could create hurdles for Tesla and the rest of Musk’s business empire.
The US Transportation Department regulates vehicle design and would play a key role in deciding whether Tesla can mass-produce robotaxis without pedals and steering wheels, while Musk’s rocket company SpaceX has about $22bn in federal contracts.
Trump previously threatened to cut Musk’s government contracts when their relationship erupted into an all-out social media brawl in early June over the bill, which non-partisan analysts have said would add about $3 trillion to the US debt.
But after weeks of relative silence, Musk rejoined the debate on Saturday as the Senate took up the package, calling it “utterly insane and destructive” in a post on X.
On Monday, he said lawmakers who campaigned on cutting spending but backed the bill “should hang their heads in shame! ” “And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth,” Musk added.
The criticism marked a dramatic shift after the billionaire spent nearly $300m on Trump’s re-election campaign and led the administration’s controversial DOGE initiative.
Musk has argued that the legislation would greatly increase the national debt and erase the savings he says he achieved through DOGE.
Musk was long slammed for his conflicts of interest while leading DOGE — accused of going after government agencies that had open investigations against him and his associated companies.
A report from the left-leaning think tank Public Citizen found that 70 percent of the agencies in May found that Musk aimed to make significant cuts to agencies, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which had been investigating Tesla.
The Food and Drug Administration, which had been investigating his brain implant chip, Neuralink, and cuts to the Department of Defense, which has been called for by both progressive Democrats as well, comes as SpaceX receives more than $22bn in federal contracts from the agency, according to the report.
The market response
There are conflicts with Musk within the bill he’s actively rallying against. The bill, which Trump eliminated the EV tax credit, Musk originally said would not hurt Tesla. The EV tax credit, however, has helped other carmakers make more affordable electric vehicles for more consumers, and Musk has recently changed his tune.
In a note last month, JP Morgan said cutting the EV tax credit could cost Tesla $1. 2bn annually. Now the market is reacting as these plans might come to fruition in a matter of days, and amid the president’s Truth Social post, spooking investors.
Tesla stock tumbled roughly 6 percent as of 11:00am ET (15:00 GMT) and about 13 percent over the last five days.
“[This] BFF situation has now turned into a soap opera that remains an overhang on Tesla’s stock with investors fearing that the Trump Administration will be more hawkish and show scrutiny around Musk related US government spending related to Tesla/SpaceX and most importantly the autonomous future with the regulatory environment key to the future of Robotaxis and Cybercabs,” Dan Ives, senior analyst at Wedbush Securities said in a note provided to Al Jazeera earlier this morning.
Musk’s other companies include SpaceX, X Corp, and Neuralink are privately held companies.
The United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has released a new report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law.
Francesca Albanese’s latest report, which is scheduled to be presented at a news conference in Geneva on Thursday, names 48 corporate actors, including United States tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. – Google’s parent company – and Amazon. A database of more than 1000 corporate entities was also put together as part of the investigation.
“[Israel’s] forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech – providing significant supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability – while investors and private and public institutions profit freely,” the report said.
“Companies are no longer merely implicated in occupation – they may be embedded in an economy of genocide,” it said, in a reference to Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip. In an expert opinion last year, Albanese said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel was committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
The report stated that its findings illustrate “why Israel’s genocide continues”.
“Because it is lucrative for many,” it said.
Israel’s procurement of F-35 fighter jets is part of the world’s largest arms procurement programme, relying on at least 1,600 companies across eight nations. It is led by US-based Lockheed Martin, but F-35 components are constructed globally.
Italian manufacturer Leonardo S. p. A is listed as a main contributor in the military sector, while Japan’s FANUC Corporation provides robotic machinery for weapons production lines.
The tech sector, meanwhile, has enabled the collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians, “supporting Israel’s discriminatory permit regime”, the report said. Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon grant Israel “virtually government-wide access to their cloud and AI technologies”, enhancing its data processing and surveillance capacities.
The US tech company IBM has also been responsible for training military and intelligence personnel, as well as managing the central database of Israel’s Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) that stores the biometric data of Palestinians, the report said.
It found US software platform Palantir Technologies expanded its support to the Israeli military since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023. The report said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the company provided automatic predictive policing technology used for automated decision-making in the battlefield, to process data and generate lists of targets including through artificial intelligence systems like “Lavender”, “Gospel” and “Where’s Daddy? ”
The report also lists several companies developing civilian technologies that serve as “dual-use tools” for Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
These include Caterpillar, Leonardo-owned Rada Electronic Industries, South Korea’s HD Hyundai and Sweden’s Volvo Group, which provide heavy machinery for home demolitions and the development of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Rental platforms Booking and Airbnb also aid illegal settlements by listing properties and hotel rooms in Israeli-occupied territory.
The report named the US’s Drummond Company and Switzerland’s Glencore as the primary suppliers of coal for electricity to Israel, originating primarily from Colombia.
In the agriculture sector, Chinese Bright Dairy & Food is a majority owner of Tnuva, Israel’s largest food conglomerate, which benefits from land seized from Palestinians in Israel’s illegal outposts. Netafim, a company providing drip irrigation technology that is 80-percent owned by Mexico’s Orbia Advance Corporation, provides infrastructure to exploit water resources in the occupied West Bank.
Treasury bonds have also played a critical role in funding the ongoing war on Gaza, according to the report, with some of the world’s largest banks, including France’s BNP Paribas and the UK’s Barclays, listed as having stepped in to allow Israel to contain the interest rate premium despite a credit downgrade.
The report identified US multinational investment companies BlackRock and Vanguard as the main investors behind several listed companies.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is listed as the second largest institutional investor in Palantir (8. 6 percent), Microsoft (7. 8 percent), Amazon (6. 6 percent), Alphabet (6. 6 percent) and IBM (8. 6 per cent), and the third largest in Lockheed Martin (7. 2 percent) and Caterpillar (7. 5 percent).
Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager, is the largest institutional investor in Caterpillar (9. 8 percent), Chevron (8. 9 percent) and Palantir (9. 1 percent), and the second largest in Lockheed Martin (9. 2 percent) and Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems (2 percent).
The report states that “colonial endeavours and their associated genocides have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector. ” Israel’s expansion on Palestinian land is one example of “colonial racial capitalism”, where corporate entities profit from an illegal occupation.
Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, “entities that previously enabled and profited from Palestinian elimination and erasure within the economy of occupation, instead of disengaging are now involved in the economy of genocide,” the report said.
For foreign arms companies, the war has been a lucrative venture. Israel’s military spending from 2023 to 2024 surged 65 percent, amounting to $46. 5bn – one of the highest per capita worldwide.
Several entities listed on the exchange market – particularly in the arms, tech and infrastructure sectors – have seen their profits rise since October 2023. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange also rose an unprecedented 179 percent, adding $157. 9bn in market value.
Global insurance companies, including Allianz and AXA, invested large sums in shares and bonds linked to Israel’s occupation, the report said, partly as capital reserves but primarily to generate returns.
Booking and Airbnb also continue to profit from rentals in Israeli-occupied land. Airbnb briefly delisted properties on illegal settlements in 2018 but later reverted to donating profits from such listings to humanitarian causes, a practice the report referred to as “humanitarian-washing”.
According to Albanese’s report, yes. Corporate entities are under an obligation to avoid violating human rights through direct action or in their business partnerships.
States have the primary responsibility to ensure that corporate entities respect human rights and must prevent, investigate and punish abuses by private actors. However, corporations must respect human rights even if the state where they operate does not.
A company must therefore assess whether activities or relationships throughout its supply chain risk causing human rights violations or contributing to them, according to the report.
The failure to act in line with international law may result in criminal liability. Individual executives can be held criminally liable, including before international courts.
The report called on companies to divest from all activities linked to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, which is illegal under international law.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion ruling that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”. In light of this advisory opinion, the UN General Assembly demanded that Israel bring to an end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory by September 2025.
Albanese’s report said the ICJ’s ruling “effectively qualifies the occupation as an act of aggression … Consequently, any dealings that support or sustain the occupation and its associated apparatus may amount to complicity in an international crime under the Rome Statute.
The Milwaukee Bucks are waiving nine-time All-Star guard Damian Lillard and signing free agent centre Myles Turner, ESPN reported on Tuesday.
The Bucks are stretching the remaining $113m on Lillard’s contract over the next five seasons, per the report, using the “stretch and release” provision in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Lillard is currently recovering from surgery in May to repair a torn Achilles tendon.
Turner spent his entire 10-year career with the Indiana Pacers. He agreed to a four-year, $107m contract with Milwaukee, per ESPN. The deal reportedly includes a player option in the final season in 2028-29 and a 15 percent trade kicker, a bonus paid to Turner in the event he’s traded.
Turner, 29, helped the Pacers reach the NBA Finals this season, losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder in seven games. He averaged 15. 6 points, 6. 5 rebounds and 2. 0 blocks in 72 starts in the regular season, and 13. 8 points, 4. 8 boards and 2. 0 blocks in 23 starts in the postseason.
The 6’11 (2. 11-metre) Turner will team up on the Milwaukee front line with former Most Valuable Player (MVP) Giannis Antetokounmpo for the 2025-26 season, beginning in late-October.
Lillard turns 35 on July 15 and faces a long rehab from the Achilles injury to return to top basketball form. A timeline hasn’t been formally set, but he will likely miss a large chunk of next season and possibly all of it.
He was hurt in the first quarter of the Bucks’ 129-103 Game 4 loss to the Pacers in the first round of the playoffs on April 27. He missed the first game of that series and the last 14 games in the regular season with a blood clot in his calf.
Lillard averaged 24. 9 points, 7. 1 assists and 4. 7 rebounds in 58 games during his second campaign with the Bucks. He spent his first 11 seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers.
Lillard owns career averages of 25. 1 points, 6. 7 assists and 4. 3 rebounds in 900 regular-season contests. His 2,804 3-pointers rank fourth in NBA history.
Turner leaves Indiana as the franchise’s all-time leader in blocked shots (1,412). He also ranks sixth in games (642) and ninth in total rebounds (4,349).