According to Al Jazeera, US President Donald Trump has again made a threatening statement regarding Iran’s nuclear program, saying that if necessary, Iran’s nuclear facilities will be attacked.
His remarks come as Iranian officials have warned that any new US or Israeli aggression will be met with a firm and crushing response.
Tehran and Washington were engaged in negotiations led by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US President Donald Trump’s foreign envoy Steve Witkoff and had conducted five rounds of indirect talks mediated by Oman when Israel launched a series of unprovoked aggressions, which upended the process.
While the Zionist regime waged a war of aggression against Iran on June 13 and struck Iran’s military, nuclear, and residential areas for 12 days, the US stepped in and conducted military attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran’s Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan on June 22.
The Iranian military forces conducted powerful counterattacks immediately after the aggression. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Aerospace Force carried out 22 waves of retaliatory missile strikes against the Zionist regime as part of Operation True Promise III, which inflicted heavy losses on cities across the occupied territories.
Also, in response to the US attacks, Iranian armed forces launched a wave of missiles at al-Udeid air base in Qatar, the largest American military base in West Asia.
A ceasefire that came into force on June 24 has brought the fighting to a halt.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the Israeli military attacked its staff residence and main warehouse in Deir al-Balah on Monday, compromising its operations in Gaza.
The WHO said its staff residence was attacked three times, with airstrikes causing a fire and extensive damage, and endangering staff and their families, including children.
On Monday, Israeli tanks for the first pushed into southern and eastern districts of Deir al-Balah, an area where Israeli sources said the military believes hostages may be held. Tank shelling in the area hit houses and mosques, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding several others, local medics said.
In its daily update, Gaza’s health ministry said on Monday 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.
“Israeli military entered the premises, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward al-Mawasi amid active conflict. Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot, and screened at gunpoint,” the WHO said.
Two WHO staff and two family members were detained, it said in a post on X. It said three were later released, while one staff member remained in detention. Its director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “WHO demands the immediate release of the detained staff and protection of all its staff.”
Evacuation zones in Gaza
Deir al-Balah is packed with Palestinians displaced during more than 21 months of war in Gaza, hundreds of whom fled west or south after Israel issued an evacuation order, saying it sought to destroy infrastructure and the capabilities of the militant group Hamas.
But the area is also the main hub for humanitarian efforts in the devastated territory and Gaza health officials have warned of potential “mass deaths” in coming days from hunger.
The WHO describes the health sector in Gaza as being “on its knees”, with shortages of fuel, medical supplies and frequent mass casualty influxes from Israeli attacks.
Palestinians desperate for in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood of central Gaza City, on Sunday. Israel has routinely attacked Palestinians seeking food aid. Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock
It said its main warehouse, located within an evacuation zone, was damaged on Sunday by an attack that triggered explosions and a fire inside. It said it would remain in Deir al-Balah and expand its operations despite the attacks.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, who earlier said two UN guesthouses had been struck, said the attacks had happened “despite parties having been informed of the locations of UN premises, which are inviolable. These locations – as with all civilian sites – must be protected, regardless of evacuation orders.”
UN secretary-general António Guterres was appalled by an accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions in Gaza “where the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing,” Dujarric said.
“Israel has the obligation to allow and facilitate by all the means at its disposal the humanitarian relief provided by the United Nations and by other humanitarian organizations,” he said.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said the agency’s local head in Gaza, Jonathan Whittall, had decided to remain in Deir al-Balah. Last week Israel said it would not renew Whittall’s visa beyond August, claiming he was biased against Israel.
In a series of posts on X early on Tuesday, Whittall said the territory was witnessing “conditions of death” and that “This death and suffering is preventable. And if it’s preventable, but still happening, then that suggests to me that it’s intentional.”
Unrwa, the UN refugee agency dedicated to Palestinians, said on X it was receiving desperate messages from Gaza warning of starvation, including from its own staff, as food prices have soared.
“Meanwhile, just outside Gaza, stockpiled in warehouses, Unrwa has enough food for the entire population for over three months. Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale,” it said.
Deir el-Balah resident Abdullah Abu Saleem, 48, told AFP on Monday 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 south-eastern area”.
The spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, told AFP it had “received calls from several families trapped in the Al-Baraka area of Deir el-Balah due to shelling by Israeli tanks”.
Early on Tuesday health authorities said at least 12 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured when Israeli tanks fired on tents housing displaced families at al-Shati camp in western Gaza City. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
In southern Gaza, the health ministry said an Israeli undercover unit had on Monday detained Marwan Al-Hams, head of Gaza’s field hospitals and the health ministry spokesperson, in a raid that killed a local journalist, Tamer al-Zaanein, and wounded another outside a field medical facility run by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Marwan Al-Hams, head of Gaza’s field hospitals, was seized by an undercover Israeli unit in a raid that killed a Palestinian journalist. Photograph: Reuters
An ICRC spokesperson said the ICRC had treated patients injured in the incident, but did not comment further on their status. It said it was “very concerned about the safety and security” around the field hospital.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Monday more than two dozen western countries called for an immediate end to the war, saying suffering there had “reached new depths”.
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar condemned the countries’ statement, saying any international pressure should be on Hamas, while US ambassador Mike Huckabee called the joint letter “disgusting”.
With Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
HODEIDA (Yemen) (AFP) – Israel pounded Yemen’s Huthi-held port of Hodeida with air strikes on Monday for the second time in a month, stoking fears of escalation as it warned Yemen could face the same fate as Iran.
Huthi-controlled areas of Yemen have come under repeated Israeli strikes since the Iran-backed rebels began launching missile and drone attacks on Israel, declaring they act in solidarity with Palestinians over the Gaza war.
In its latest raids, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel struck “targets of the Huthi terror regime at the port of Hodeida” and aimed to prevent any attempt to restore infrastructure previously hit.
The renewed strikes on Yemen are part of a year-long Israeli bombing campaign against the Huthis, but the latest threats have raised fears of a wider conflict in the poverty-stricken Arabian Peninsula country.
“Yemen’s fate will be the same as Tehran’s,” Katz said.
His warning was a reference to the wave of suprise strikes Israel launched on Iran on June 13, targeting key military and nuclear facilities.
During the 12-day war, the United States carried out its own attacks on Iran’s nuclear programme on June 22, striking facilities at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz.
A Gulf official told AFP there were “serious concerns in Riyadh… that the Israeli strikes on the Huthis could turn into a large, sustained campaign to oust the movement’s leaders”.
The Huthis withstood more a decade of war against a well-armed, Saudi-led international coalition, though fighting has died down in the past few years.
Any Israeli escalation could “plunge the region into utter chaos”, said the official, requesting anonymity because he cannot brief the media.
‘HEAVY EQUIPMENT’
The Huthis’ Al-Masirah television reported “a series of Israeli air strikes on the Hodeida port”.
A Huthi security official, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, told AFP that “the bombing destroyed the port’s dock, which had been rebuilt following previous strikes.”
On July 7, Israeli strikes hit Hodeida and two nearby locations on the coast, with targets including the Galaxy Leader cargo ship, captured in November 2023, which the Israelis said had been outfitted with a radar system to track shipping in the Red Sea.
A Yemeni port employee in Hodeida said the strikes targeted “heavy equipment brought in for construction and repair work after Israeli airstrikes on July 7… and areas around the port and fishing boats”.
An Israeli military statement said that the targets included “engineering vehicles… fuel containers, naval vessels used for military activities” against Israel and “additional terror infrastructure used by the Huthi terrorist regime”.
It said the port had been used to transfer weapons from Iran, which were then used by the Huthi rebels against Israel.
The statement added that Israel had identified efforts by the Iran-backed rebels to “re-establish terrorist infrastructure at the port”.
The Huthis recently resumed deadly attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, targeting ships they accuse of having links to Israel.
MUMBAI: An Indian court acquitted on Monday 12 men previously convicted for a series of bomb blasts that ripped through packed commuter trains in Mumbai in 2006 that killed 187 people.
The men were convicted in 2015 of murder, conspiracy, and waging war against the country over the attacks during the evening rush hour of July 11, 2006 that also injured more than 800 people. Five were sentenced to death, while the other seven were given life imprisonment.
But, 10 years later, the Bombay High Court set aside a lower court’s verdict and acquitted the 12 men. Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak said in their judgement, the prosecution had “utterly failed to establish the offence beyond the reasonable doubt against the accused on each count”.
The men were ordered to be released from jail “if they are not required to be detained in any other case”. The prosecution can appeal against the order in the Supreme Court.
A total of seven blasts ripped through the trains after the bombs, packed into pressure cookers, were placed in bags
and hidden under newspapers and umbrellas. Prosecutors said the devices were assembled in Mumbai and deliberately placed in first-class coaches to target the city’s wealthy Gujarati community.
They said the bombings were intended as revenge for the riots in the western state of Gujarat in 2002, which left some 2,000 people dead, most of them Muslims. Prosecutors accused Lashkar-e-Taiba of being behind the attacks, although a little-known outfit called the Lashkar-e-Qahhar later claimed responsibility.
SWEIDA: Syrian authorities evacuated Bedouin families from the Druze-majority city of Sweida on Monday, after a ceasefire in the southern province halted a week of sectarian bloodshed that a monitor said killed more than 1,260 people.
The violence, which followed massacres of Alawis in March and clashes involving the Druze in April and May, has shaken the rule of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has pledged to protect minorities in a country devastated by 14 years of war.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the ceasefire was largely holding despite isolated gunfire in areas north of Sweida city, with no new reports of casualties.
A correspondent saw a convoy of buses and other vehicles enter the provincial capital and exit carrying civilians, including women and children. State news agency SANA quoted the governor of neighbouring Daraa, Anwar al-Zubi, as saying his province had “received about 200 Bedouin families who had been detained in Sweida”, sending them to local shelters.
Ceasefire holds despite isolated gunfire in areas north of Sweida
The ceasefire announced on Saturday put an end to the sectarian violence that killed more than 1,260 people — about 800 of them Druze fighters and civilians, including nearly 200 noncombatants “summarily executed” by government forces, according to the Observatory. The toll also includes more than 400 government security personnel.
Fatima Abdel-Qader, 52, a Bedouin who was leaving the city on foot, said her family had been surrounded during the fighting, “unable to leave or come back — anyone who wanted to go out risked gunfire and clashes”. “We were afraid that someone would come to our home and kill us all,” she said, adding they had no way of getting food or water.
Damascus has accused Druze groups of attacking and killing Bedouins during the clashes, which broke out on July 13 after a Druze vegetable seller was kidnapped by local Bedouins, according to the Observatory.
The Observatory’s toll includes 35 Bedouins, three of them civilians executed by Druze fighters. The Druze and Bedouin tribes have had tense relations for decades.
‘Unthinkable’
Witnesses, Druze factions and the Observatory have accused government forces of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses when they entered Sweida last week. Sunni Arab tribes also converged on the area in support of the Bedouin.
The ceasefire effectively began on Sunday after Bedouin and tribal fighters withdrew from Sweida city and Druze groups regained control.
The US special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, said on Monday that what had happened in Sweida was “unthinkable”. “You have a Syrian government in effect. They need to be held accountable,” he told a press conference on a visit to neighbouring Lebanon.
The weekend ceasefire announcement came hours after Barrack said the United States had negotiated a truce between Syrian authorities and Israel, which had bombed government forces in both Sweida and Damascus earlier in the week.
Israel, which has its own Druze community, has said it was acting in defence of the group, as well as to enforce its demands for the total demilitarisation of Syria’s south.
The deal allowed the deployment of government security forces in Sweida province but not its main city.
A correspondent said security forces had erected sand mounds to block some of Sweida’s entrances. Tribal fighters were sitting on the roadside beyond the checkpoints.
Aid convoy
At the main hospital in Sweida city, dozens of bodies were still waiting to be identified, with a forensic medicine official at the facility saying “we still have 97 unidentified corpses”.
According to the United Nations, the violence has displaced more than 128,000 people, an issue that has also made collecting and identifying bodies more difficult.
More than 450 of the dead had been brought to the Sweida national hospital by Sunday evening, with more still being recovered from the streets and homes.
“The dead bodies sent a terrible smell through all the floors of the hospital,” said nurse Hisham Breik, who had not left the facility since the violence began.
“The situation has been terrible. We couldn’t walk around the hospital without wearing a mask,” he said, his voice trembling, adding that the wounded included women, children and the elderly.
The United Nations’ humanitarian office said hospitals and health centres in Sweida province were out of service, with “reports of unburied bodies raising serious public health concerns”.
Humanitarian access to Sweida “remains highly constrained”, it said in a statement late Sunday. On Sunday, a first humanitarian aid convoy entered the city, which has seen power and water cuts and shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies. A Red Crescent official said the supplies included body bags.
HONG KONG: China’s Premier Li Qiang announced construction had begun on what will be the world’s largest hydropower dam, on the eastern rim of the Tibetan Plateau, at an estimated cost of at least $170 billion, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Commencement of the hydropower project, China’s most ambitious since the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze, was seized by Chinese markets as proof of economic stimulus, sending stock prices and bond yields higher on Monday.
Made up of five cascade hydropower stations with the capacity to produce 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, equal to the amount of electricity consumed by Britain last year, the dam will be located in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo. A section of the river tumbles 2,000 metres in a span of 50km, offering huge hydropower potential.
India and Bangladesh have already raised concerns about its possible impact on the millions of people downstream, while NGOs warned of the risk to one of the richest and most diverse environments on the plateau.
India, Bangladesh raise concerns about dam’s possible impact on millions of people downstream
Beijing has said the dam will help meet power demand in Tibet and the rest of China without having a major effect on downstream water supplies or the environment. Operations are expected sometime in the 2030s.
Broader impact
The Chinese premier described the dam as a “project of the century” and said special emphasis “must be placed on ecological conservation to prevent environmental damage,” Xinhua said.
Government bond yields rose across the board, with the most-traded 30-year treasury futures falling to five-week lows, as investors interpreted the news as part of China’s economic stimulus. The project marks a major boost in public investment to help bolster economic growth as current drivers show signs of faltering.
“Assuming 10 years of construction, the investment/GDP boost could reach 120 billion yuan ($16.7 billion) for a single year,” said Citi in a note. “The actual economic benefits could go beyond that.” China has not given an estimate on the number of jobs the project could create.
The Three Gorges, which took almost two decades to complete, generated nearly a million jobs, state media reported, though it displaced at least a similar number of people. Authorities have not indicated how many people would be displaced by the Yarlung Zangbo project.
The Yarlung Zangbo becomes the Brahmaputra River as it leaves Tibet and flows south into India and finally into Bangladesh. NGOs say the dam will irreversibly harm the Tibetan Plateau and hit millions of people downstream.
The chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, Pema Khandu, said earlier this year that such a colossal dam barely 50km from the border could dry out 80pc of the river passing through the Indian state while potentially inundating downstream areas in Arunachal and neighbouring Assam state. Some experts also express concerns for a project in a seismically active zone.
LONDON: Britain and 24 Western allies, including Australia, Canada, France and Italy, declared on Monday that the war in Gaza “must end now”, arguing that civilians’ suffering had reached new depths as Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern districts of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday.
“We urge the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire,” the grouping added in a joint statement.
“Further bloodshed serves no purpose. We reaffirm our complete support to the efforts of the US, Qatar and Egypt to achieve this.” The signatories, which also included Japan, several EU countries, Switzerland and New Zealand, added they were “prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire”.
The statement branded the controversial Israeli-supported aid in Gaza as “dangerous” and said it deprives people 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 statement said.
In a joint statement, 25 states say denial of essential assistance to people is ‘unacceptable’
“The Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable,” it added, urging Israel to “comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law”.
The statement called for the Israeli government “to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and to urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their life saving work safely and effectively”.
The UN said last week that it had recorded 875 people who had been killed in Gaza while trying to get food via the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
The 25-nation statement also condemned the continued detention of Israeli prisoners by Hamas, demanding “their immediate and unconditional release” and noting that a negotiated ceasefire “offers the best hope of bringing them home”.
Meanwhile, the signatories said they “strongly oppose any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” and said an Israeli plan to shift Palestinians into a so-called “humanitarian city” was unacceptable.
“Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law,” they warned.
The statement was also signed by EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib.
Israel sends tanks into Deir al-Balah
Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern districts of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday, an area where Israeli military claimed Israeli prisoners may be held.
The area is packed with Palestinians displaced during more than 21 months of war in Gaza, hundreds of whom fled west or south after Israel issued an evacuation order, saying it sought to destroy infrastructure and capabilities of Hamas.
Tank shelling in the area hit houses and mosques, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding several others, local medics said.
To the south in Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike killed at least five people, including a husband and wife and their two children in a tent, medics said.
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.
The thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza from Israel’s bombing campaign are “indefensible”, minister Tony Burke has said, after Australia joined 27 other countries condemning Israel for denying humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
The international statement – signed by Australia, the UK, France, Canada, New Zealand and Japan among others – warned “the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths”.
It expressed horror at the deaths of hundreds of people at aid distribution sites through Gaza, and demanded Israel comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.
“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 statement said.
“It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid. The Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable.”
The statement pleads for the end of the war in Gaza and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Israeli hostages “cruelly held captive by Hamas since 7 October 2023 [who] continue to suffer terribly”.
“A negotiated ceasefire offers the best hope of bringing them home and ending the agony of their families.”
Burke, Australia’s home affairs minister, said Australia wanted to see the war stop.
“We’ve seen too many images of children being killed, of horrific slaughter, of churches being bombed. The images that we’ve seen have been pretty clear that so much of this is indefensible and – as that statement referred to – aid being drip-fed in,” he told the ABC on Tuesday.
Palestinians gather at a food distribution point in Gaza City on 20 July. Photograph: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
On Monday, Israel launched substantial air raids and a ground operation in Gaza, targeting Deir al-Balah, the main hub for humanitarian efforts in the devastated Palestinian territory, amid warnings of widening starvation.
The latest assault began 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 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.
But the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, claimed “the most important thing” to note was the continuing detention of Israeli citizens by Hamas.
“Of course we want to see aid reach those who deserve it, but it is so important that Hamas, that has control, often over the flow of that aid, but certainly over the ongoing, completely unacceptable detention of those hostages, act in the interests of the people of Gaza,” she said.
The Palestinian foreign ministry said it valued the “principled collective stance” but urged the countries to “translate these principled positions into practical and concrete actions”.
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While the Greens initially welcomed the statement, with reservations about its impact on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the minor party’s deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, used a rally outside Parliament House to condemn the Albanese government as “heartless and gutless cowards”.
“To be honest, I have never seen such moral cowardice in my whole life than I see in there, in that parliament, because nothing has moved,” she told an audience of hundreds of pro-Palestine supporters.
“Nothing has moved these heartless and gutless cowards and politicians in that building, week after week, headline after headline, homes flattened, refugee camps bombed, aid convoys attacked. Entire families have been wiped out.”
On Monday afternoon, the Israeli foreign ministry rejected the joint statement, saying: “Hamas is the sole party responsible for the continuation of the war and the suffering on both sides. At these sensitive moments in the ongoing negotiations, it is better to avoid statements of this kind.”
Amir Maimon, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, wrote on X: “Israel rejects the joint statement published by a group of countries, including Australia, as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas.”
Federal parliament returns on Tuesday, with rallies and events to be held in Canberra calling on the government to do more to address the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. A coalition of aid groups including Amnesty International and Médecins Sans Frontières will hold a 24-hour vigil where speakers will read the names of more than 17,000 Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
The Greens senator David Shoebridge is also expected to table an open letter to Anthony Albanese from more than 2,500 healthcare workers from across Australia urging stronger action to address the humanitarian crisis.
Responding to the international joint statement, Shoebridge wrote on X that it was “a welcome, if extremely late, step”.
The independent senator David Pocock wrote: “While welcome, we need more than words from the international community to stop the killing of civilians in Gaza, especially those seeking aid.”
An Indian court acquitted on Monday 12 men previously convicted for a series of bomb blasts that ripped through packed commuter trains in Mumbai in 2006 that killed 187 people.
The men were convicted in 2015 of murder, conspiracy, and waging war against the country over the attacks during the evening rush hour of July 11, 2006 that also injured more than 800 people.
Five were sentenced to death, while the other seven were given life imprisonment.
But, 10 years later, the Bombay High Court set aside a lower court’s verdict and acquitted the 12 men.
Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak said in their judgement, the prosecution had “utterly failed to establish the offence beyond the reasonable doubt against the accused on each count”.
The men were ordered to be released from jail “if they are not required to be detained in any other case”.
