Hamas launches war on Israel

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Israeli PM scraps war cabinet after key departures

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved his six-member war cabinet, a widely expected decision that follows the departure of centrist opposition leader Benny Gantz and his ally Gadi Eisenkot.

Israeli media report that sensitive issues about the war with Hamas in Gaza will now be decided by a smaller forum.

Since Mr Gantz quit eight days ago over what he said was the lack of strategy for the war, there have been calls from far-right ministers to take his place.

By dissolving the war cabinet, Mr Netanyahu avoids a tricky situation with his coalition partners and international allies.

A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that, as far as it was concerned, it would not affect the chain of command.

Mr Gantz and Mr Eisenkot joined a national unity government with Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition days after the start of the war in October.

The two former IDF chiefs of staff announced their resignations on 9 June, with Mr Gantz saying that the prime minister’s leadership was “preventing us from approaching true victory”.

Immediately afterwards, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he had written to Mr Netanyahu to demand that he be added to the war cabinet.

On Sunday night, Mr Netanyahu reportedly informed ministers that he had decided to dissolve the decision-making body rather than bring in new members.

“The [war] cabinet was in the coalition agreement with Gantz at his request. As soon as Gantz left - there is no need for a cabinet anymore," he said, according to the Jerusalem Post, external.

Haaretz reported, external that some of the issues previously discussed by the war cabinet would be transferred for discussion in the 14-member security cabinet, which includes Mr Ben-Gvir and fellow far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

It said sensitive decisions would be addressed in a “smaller consultation forum”, which was expected to include Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and the chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Aryeh Deri. The three men were in the war cabinet along with the prime minister, Mr Gantz and Mr Eisenkot.

The IDF's chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, insisted on Monday that such moves would not affect its operations.

"Cabinet members are being changed and the method is being changed. We have the echelon, we know the chain of command. We're working according to the chain of command. This is a democracy,” he told reporters.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 37,340 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

There have been further signs of strain in the Israeli government in the past day, with Mr Netanyahu and his far-right ministers criticising a decision by the IDF to introduce daytime “tactical pauses in military activity” near the southern Gaza city of Rafah to allow more deliveries of humanitarian aid.

The pauses are meant to allow lorries to collect aid from the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossing, south-east of Rafah, and then travel safely to reach the main north-south road inside Gaza. Supplies have been held back at the crossing point since Israel began an operation in Rafah last month.

But Mr Ben-Gvir decried the policy as foolish, while Israeli media quoted Mr Netanyahu as saying: “We have a country with an army, not an army with a country.”

The IDF responded by saying that the pauses did not mean the fighting in southern Gaza would stop, which created confusion over what exactly was happening on the ground.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), which is the largest humanitarian organisation in Gaza, reported that fighting was continuing in Rafah and elsewhere in the south on Monday and that “operationally nothing has changed yet”.

The IDF meanwhile said that its troops were “continuing intelligence-based, targeted operations in the area of Rafah”. It added that they had located weapons, struck structures rigged with explosives and eliminated “several terrorists” in the Tal al-Sultan area.

With little sign of progress towards a full ceasefire in Gaza, there have been new warnings from the Israeli military that the lower-level conflict with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah is now threatening to spiral into a wider war.

Following a recent intensification in exchanges of fire, a key US diplomat is returning to the region to try to reduce tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce99m0n99z0o

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Israeli forces step up bombardment across Gaza, amid fierce fighting

CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli forces pounded Rafah and other areas across the Gaza Strip and engaged in close-quarter combat with fighters led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, residents and Israel's military said.

Residents said the Israelis appeared to by trying to complete their capture of Rafah, the city on the enclave's southern edge that has been the focus of an Israeli assault since early May.

Tanks were forcing their way into the western and northern parts of the city, having already captured the east, south and centre. Israeli forces fired from planes, tanks and ships off the coast, forcing a new wave of displacement from the city, which had been sheltering more than a million displaced people, most of whom have been forced to flee again.

Palestinian health officials said at least 12 Palestinians had been killed in separate Israeli military strikes on Friday.

The Israeli military said on Friday its forces were conducting "precise, intelligence-based" actions in the Rafah area, where troops were involved in close-quarter combat and had located tunnels used by militants. It also reported actions elsewhere in the enclave.

Some Rafah residents said the pace of the Israeli raid has been accelerated in the past two days. They said sounds of explosions and gunfire indicating fierce fighting have been almost non-stop.

"Last night was one of the worst nights in western Rafah, drones, planes, tanks, and naval boats bombarded the area. We feel the occupation is trying to complete the control of the city," said Hatem, 45, reached by text message.

"They are taking heavy strikes from the resistance fighters, which may be slowing them down."

More than eight months into the war in Gaza, Israel's advance is now focused on the two last areas its forces had yet to storm: Rafah on Gaza's southern edge and the area surrounding Deir al-Balah in the centre.

"The entire city of Rafah is an area of Israeli military operations," Ahmed Al-Sofi, the mayor of Rafah, said in a statement carried by Hamas media on Friday.

"The city lives through a humanitarian catastrophe and people are dying inside their tents because of Israeli bombardment," he added.

Sofi said there was no medical facility functioning in the city, and that remaining residents and displaced families lacked the minimum of their daily needs of food and water.

Palestinian and UN figures show that fewer than 100,000 people may have remained in the far western side of the city, which had been sheltering more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people before the Israeli assault began in early May.

The military accused Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields, an allegation Hamas denies.

"The soldiers located inside a civilian residence large quantities of weapons hidden in wardrobes, including grenades, explosives, a launcher and anti-tank missiles, ammunition, and arms," the military said in a statement late on Thursday.

Hamas' armed wing said on Thursday its fighters had hit two Israeli tanks with anti-tank rockets in the Shaboura camp in Rafah, and killed soldiers who tried to flee through the alleys. There was no Israeli immediate comment on the Hamas claim.

In nearby Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike on Friday killed three people, including a father and son, medics said.

In parallel, Israeli forces continued a new push back into some Gaza City suburbs in the north of the enclave, where they fought with Hamas-led militants. Residents said the army forces had destroyed many homes in the heart of Gaza City on Thursday.

Later on Friday, an Israeli air strike on a facility of the Gaza City municiplaity killed five people, including four municipality workers, the territory's Civil Emergency Service said. It added that rescue teams were searching the rubble for more missing victims.

Israel's ground and air campaign was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The offensive has left Gaza in ruins, killed more than 37,400 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and left nearly the entire population homeless and destitute.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...867cd4da&ei=37

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Israeli army strapped wounded Palestinian to jeep

The Israeli military has said its forces violated protocol by strapping a wounded Palestinian man to the front of their vehicle during a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the incident after it was captured on video and shared on social media. An IDF statement said the man was wounded in an exchange of fire during the raid, in which he was a suspect.

The injured man's family said that when they asked for an ambulance, the army took him, strapped him to the bonnet of their jeep and drove off.

The individual was eventually transferred to the Red Crescent for treatment. The IDF said the incident would be investigated.

Eyewitnesses speaking to Reuters news agency identified him as a local man and named him as Mujahed Azmi.

"This morning [Saturday], during counter-terrorism operations to apprehend wanted suspects in the area of Wadi Burqin, terrorists opened fire at IDF troops, who responded with fire," the IDF statement said.

"During the exchange of fire, one of the suspects was injured and apprehended.

"In violation of orders and standard operating procedures, the suspect was taken by the forces while tied on top of a vehicle.

"The conduct of the forces in the video of the incident does not conform to the values of the IDF. The incident will be investigated and dealt with accordingly."

There has been a surge in violence in the West Bank since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by Hamas's deadly attack on southern Israel on 7 October.

The UN says at least 480 Palestinians - members of armed groups, attackers and civilians - have been killed in conflict-related incidents in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Ten Israelis, including six security forces personnel, have also been killed in the West Bank.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjqq5n8911do

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Intense phase of Israel’s war with Hamas nearing end, says Netanyahu

Israel’s prime minister has said the most intense phase of the assault against Hamas in Gaza is coming to an end, freeing up forces to move to the Lebanese border, where escalating exchanges of fire with the militant group Hezbollah have increased fears of a wider war.

In his first public interview with a Hebrew-language network outlet in more than eight months of conflict, Benjamin Netanyahu also walked back on his commitment to a US-backed ceasefire proposal with Hamas, instead suggesting a more limited offer.

Later on Monday, however, Netanyahu insisted he was committed to the proposal.

Netanyahu made the remarks on Israel’s rightwing Channel 14 as the top US military officer warned of the risk that Iran would be drawn into a wider war with Hezbollah, threatening US forces in the region.
“We will have the possibility of transferring some of our forces north, and we will do that,” Netanyahu said in the interview, which was frequently interrupted by applause from the studio audience.

He said he hoped a diplomatic solution to the crisis could be found but vowed to solve the problem “in a different way” if needed. “We can fight on several fronts and we are prepared to do that,” Netanyahu added.

The prime minister said the offensive in Gaza would have to continue with “mowing” operations – targeted strikes aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping.

He suggested he was prepared “to make a partial deal [with Hamas] – this is no secret – that will return to us some of the people”, referring to the roughly 120 hostages still held in the Gaza Strip. “But we are committed to continuing the war after a pause, in order to complete the goal of eliminating Hamas. I’m not willing to give up on that,” he added.

Hamas later issued a statement saying Netanyahu’s position confirmed his rejection of the ceasefire proposal put forward by the US president, Joe Biden.

The group said its insistence that any deal should include a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces out of the Gaza Strip “was an inevitable necessity to block Netanyahu’s attempts of evasion, deception, and perpetuation of aggression and the war of extermination against our people”.

The connection between the two conflicts – between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and Israel and Hezbollah around the Lebanese border – has increasingly complicated the dynamics of a war on several fronts.

Hezbollah says an end to the war in Gaza is a precondition for it to end its firing and being open to negotiations, while Israel has said Hezbollah must withdraw from the Lebanese border as mandated by the UN security council resolution that ended the second Lebanese war in 2006.

The threat of an escalating conflict in the north, meanwhile, appears to have offered support to Hamas’s insistence that it will not agree to a ceasefire-for-hostages deal while Israeli troops are present in Gaza and offensive operations continue.

Netanyahu’s comments came amid stark warnings from international officials of the danger of the war in the north with Hezbollah rapidly spreading.

Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, who is in Washington for talks with senior Biden administration officials, told the US presidential envoy, Amos Hochstein, that a halt of Hezbollah firing would not satisfy Israel and that the group would need to withdraw a substantial distance from the border area.

Gallant is scheduled to meet the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the CIA director, William Burns, on Monday. He is due to meet the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, on Tuesday.

The Biden administration is keen to cultivate and promote Gallant, who US officials see as the most moderate figure left in Netanyahu’s cabinet. The Israeli minister posted a picture on the X social media platform of him boarding an official US plane which he implied had been laid on to take him from New York to Washington.

Blinken, Burns and Austin will all restate the administration’s opposition to a major offensive on Lebanon, which US officials believe will be disastrous for the region. US officials admit however the US was not able to persuade the Israeli government to hold back on its offensive on Rafah, to do more to spare civilian casualties or to allow significantly more humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

The European foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said on Monday the conflict was close to expanding into Lebanon, days after Iran-backed Hezbollah threatened the EU member Cyprus.

“The risk of this war affecting the south of Lebanon and spilling over is every day bigger,” Borrell told reporters before a foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg. “We are on the eve of the war expanding.”

The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said the situation between Israel and Hezbollah was “more than worrying”, adding that she would travel to Lebanon soon. “A further escalation would be a catastrophe for people in the region,” she said.

Reinforcing the growing concern, the top US military officer, Gen Charles Brown, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, said Iran “would be more inclined to support Hezbollah”.

Netanyahu’s comments in his television interview were in sharp contrast to the outlines of the deal detailed by Biden late last month.

His remarks could further strain Israel’s ties with the US, Israel’s top ally, which launched a diplomatic push for the latest ceasefire proposal, including asking Arab countries to pressure Hamas – which Washington portrayed as the “holdout” – to accept.

The three-phase plan would bring about the release of the remaining hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. But disputes and mistrust persist between Israel and Hamas over how the deal plays out.

Hamas has insisted it will not release the remaining hostages unless there is a permanent ceasefire and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. When Biden announced the latest proposal last month, he said it included both.

The families of hostages have grown increasingly impatient with Netanyahu, seeing his apparent reluctance to move ahead on a deal as tainted by political considerations. A group representing the families condemned the prime minister’s remarks, which it viewed as an Israeli rejection of the ceasefire proposal.

“This is an abandonment of the 120 hostages and a violation of the state’s moral duty toward its citizens,” the group said, noting that it held Netanyahu responsible for returning all the captives.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...44eeddcc&ei=29

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'High risk' of famine in Gaza persists, new UN-backed report says

A UN-backed assessment says almost half a million Palestinians across Gaza are still facing “catastrophic levels” of hunger and that a “high risk” of famine persists as long as the Israel-Hamas war continues and humanitarian access is restricted.

However, the report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) says the available evidence does not indicate a famine is currently occurring in the north of the Palestinian territory.

The previous assessment in March had projected that one was imminent in the area.

The amount of food and other aid allowed into the north has increased since then, and nutrition, water, sanitation and health services have been stepped up, the report says.

But it warns that food availability in the south and central Gaza has been significantly reduced due to the closure of the Rafah border crossing and the displacement of more than one million people from the city of Rafah since early May, when Israel launched a ground operation there.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said the report “paints a stark picture of ongoing hunger” and showed the critical importance of sustained humanitarian access.

UN officials have blamed the situation on Israeli military restrictions on aid deliveries, the ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of law and order.

Israel insists there are no limits to the amount of aid that can be delivered into and across Gaza and blames UN agencies for failing to distribute supplies. It also accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv22g81djdyo

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Palestinians flee Gaza City's Shejaiya area amid heavy bombardment

Palestinians have been fleeing Gaza City's eastern Shejaiya district amid intense Israeli bombardment and a reported incursion by ground forces.

One Gaza City resident said it had "sounded as if the war is restarting", while Hamas-run authorities said air strikes had killed at least seven people.

Palestinian armed groups said they had targeted a tank and a bulldozer east of Shejaiya, where there were fierce battles during an Israeli operation at the end of last year.

The Israeli military has not commented on the reports, but it did order residents to evacuate and head southwards.

It comes days after Israel’s prime minister said that "the intense phase" of the fighting against Hamas was "about to end".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wepdxzdy3o