The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly demanded an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in the war in Gaza and aid access, after the United States vetoed a similar effort in the Security Council last week, Reuters reports.
The 193-member General Assembly adopted a resolution that also demands the release of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, the return of Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
The text garnered 149 votes in favor, while 19 countries abstained and the US, Israel and 10 others voted against.
The resolution “strongly condemns the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and the unlawful denial of humanitarian access and depriving civilians … of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supply and access.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon told the General Assembly this was “blood libel.” He had urged countries not to take part in what he said was a “farce” that undermines hostage negotiations and fails to condemn Hamas.
“It must be acknowledged that by failing to condition a ceasefire on the release of the hostages, you told every terrorist organization that abducting civilians works,” he said.
The United Nations said on Thursday that there was a full internet blackout in the Gaza Strip, likely due to military activity damaging the last cable into the enclave, that has paralysed aid operations, Reuters reports.
“Lifelines to emergency services, humanitarian coordination, and critical information for civilians have all been cut. There is a full internet blackout, and mobile networks are barely functioning,” deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters.
“In a context already limited by physical access restrictions and widespread damage, emergency services are cut off, and civilians cannot access life-saving support,” Haq said.
Israel’s foreign ministry has said that six people detained aboard a boat while trying to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza were put on a plane for deportation, AFP reports.
“Six more passengers from the ‘selfie yacht’, including Rima Hassan, are on their way out of Israel. Bye-bye — and don’t forget to take a selfie before you leave,” the ministry wrote on X.
The post was accompanied by photos of Hassan, a member of European Parliament for the hard-left France Unbowed party who is of Palestinian descent, and other deportees.
Adalah, the rights group that legally represented some of the detainees, told AFP that the six detainees — two French citizens and nationals of Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands and Turkiye — had departed Israel.
“While in custody, volunteers were subjected to mistreatment, punitive measures and aggressive treatment, and two volunteers were held for some period of time in solitary confinement,” it said.
All 12 people on board the Madleen have been banned from Israel for 100 years.
The US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) says that at least eight people had been killed in an attack on its workers in the Palestinian territory, raising the earlier given toll of five, AFP reports.
“As of now, we can confirm at least eight fatalities, multiple injuries, and we fear that some of our team members have been taken hostage,” GHF interim executive director John Acree said in a statement.
Egyptian authorities have deported dozens of foreign nationals who arrived in Egypt to take part in a pro-Palestinian march and dozens more face deportation, Reuters reports quoting organisers and airport and security sources.
Organisers said people from 80 countries were set to begin the march to Egypt’s Rafah Crossing with Gaza, and confirmed some had been deported or were detained at the airport.
Three airport sources told Reuters at least 73 foreign nationals had been deported on a flight to Istanbul on Thursday after authorities said they violated entry protocols, and that about 100 more were at the airport awaiting deportation.
The Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Israel’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and its targeting of aid distribution points is causing civilians to starve, which constitutes a war crime, says Sweden’s foreign minister, AFP reports.
“To use starvation of civilians as a method of war is a war crime. Life-saving humanitarian help must never be politicised or militarised,” Maria Malmer Stenergard said at a press conference.
“There are strong indications right now that Israel is not living up to its commitments under international humanitarian law,” she said.
“It is crucial that food, water and medicine swiftly reach the civilian population, many of whom are women and children living under wholly inhumane conditions,” she said.
Hamas has accused a US- and Israeli-backed aid organisation in Gaza of becoming a “filthy tool” of Israeli forces, following its allegation that Hamas had killed eight aid workers.
“The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has become a filthy tool in the hands of the occupying army, used to lure civilians into deadly traps,” the Hamas government media office in Gaza told AFP.
Gaza’s civil defence agency has said Israeli fire killed 22 people across the Palestinian territory today, including 16 who were waiting to collect aid, AFP reports.
Civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP that the Al-Awda Hospital received 10 dead and around 200 wounded, including women and children, “after Israeli drones dropped multiple bombs on gatherings of civilians near an aid distribution point around the Netzarim checkpoint in central Gaza”.
He said that Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital received six dead following Israeli attacks on aid queues near Netzarim and in the Al-Sudaniya area in northwestern Gaza.
Mughayyir said another six people were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza.
The Israeli army said it was looking into the reports when asked for comment by AFP.
Israel’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and its targeting of aid distribution points is causing civilians to starve, which constitutes a war crime, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard has said, AFP reports.
“To use starvation of civilians as a method of war is a war crime. Life-saving humanitarian help must never be politicised or militarised,” csaid at a press conference.
“There are strong indications right now that Israel is not living up to its commitments under international humanitarian law,” she said.
“It is crucial that food, water and medicine swiftly reach the civilian population, many of whom are women and children living under wholly inhumane conditions,” Maria Malmer Stenergard stressed.
Egypt has detained over 200 pro-Palestinian activists ahead of their march to the besieged enclave of Gaza, AFP quotes the organisers as saying.
Thousands of activists from across the globe are marching to the Gaza Strip to try to break Israel’s siege of the enclave, according to Al Jazeera.
Activists of the Global March to Gaza plan to coordinate with the Tunisian-led Sumud Convoy, which departed from Tunis on Monday and arrived in Libya on Tuesday morning.
It had planned to enter Egypt to reach the Rafah border.
Internet and communications services have been cut off in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, Al Jazeera reports.
The disconnect and the “digital isolation” of the besieged enclave come as a result of a systematic targeting of communications infrastructure, it said.
“The dangerous escalation against communications infrastructure threatens to cut Gaza off from the outside world.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has said that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is “charting a path toward peace”.
In a post on X, the French president said he has received a “letter of hope, courage, clarity” from Abbas, who said “we reject violence and terrorism and denounce all attacks on civilians, whether Palestinians or Israelis”.
Abbas also condemned the October 2023 attack and called for the release of hostages, demilitarisation of Hamas, end of Israel’s “bloodshed” and occupation of Gaza, and a lasting peace for all in the region.
Macron said Abbas expresses the Palestinian people’s commitment to the two-state solution. He said the “concrete and unprecedented commitments demonstrate a real desire to move forward”.
Israel is to expel by the end of the week four French nationals held after security forces intercepted their Gaza-bound aid boat, France’s foreign minister has said, as an Israeli NGO said one of the French campaigners was briefly put in solitary confinement, AFP reports.
The four, who include Rima Hassan, a member of European Parliament from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party who is of Palestinian descent, will be deported today and tomorrow, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X.
Four of the 12 activists on board the Madleen ship, including two French citizens and Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, agreed to be deported immediately.
The remaining eight were taken into custody after they refused to leave Israel voluntarily, according to Adalah, an Israeli rights NGO representing most of the activists. All 12 of them have been banned from Israel for 100 years.
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will vote on a draft resolution today, demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire against Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the United States vetoed a similar effort in the Security Council last week, Reuters reports.
The 193-member General Assembly is likely to adopt the text with overwhelming support, diplomats say, despite Israel lobbying countries this week against taking part in what it called a “politically-motivated, counter-productive charade”.
The draft resolution to be voted on by the UNGA demands the release of hostages held by Hamas, the return of Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
It demands unhindered aid access and “strongly condemns the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and the unlawful denial of humanitarian access and depriving civilians … of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supply and access”.
“This is both false and defamatory,” Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon wrote in a letter to UN member states, sent earlier this week and seen by Reuters.
Danon described the UNGA draft resolution as an “immensely flawed and harmful text”, urging countries not to take part in what he said was a “farce” that undermines hostage negotiations and fails to condemn Hamas.
Argentine President Javier Milei has said his country would in 2026 move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the status of which is one of the most delicate issues in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, AFP reports.
“I am proud to announce before you that in 2026 we will make effective the move of our embassy to the city of west Jerusalem, as we promised,” Milei said in a speech in the Israeli parliament during an official state visit.
Israel has occupied east Jerusalem since 1967, later annexing it in a move not recognised by the international community. Israel treats the city as its capital, while Palestinians want east Jerusalem to become the capital of a future state.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei (R) shakes hands with Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu (L) after the latter’s address to the assembly during a session of the Israeli parliament at its headquarters in Jerusalem on June 11, 2025. — AFP
Argentina’s embassy is currently located in Herzliya near the coastal city of Tel Aviv. This is Milei’s second visit to Israel since being elected in 2023. During the previous 2024 trip, he announced plans to move Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem — a controversial move that echoed US President Donald Trump’s shock 2017 decision to unilaterally recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Most foreign embassies to Israel are located in the coastal hub city of Tel Aviv in order to avoid interfering with negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
Several countries, including the United States, Paraguay, Guatemala, Honduras and Kosovo, have moved their embassies to Jerusalem, breaking with international consensus.
Israeli forces have retrieved the bodies of two hostages from the Gaza Strip, the military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said, as Israel presses its offensive in the Palestinian territory, AFP reports.
A military statement said a joint operation by the army and the Shin Bet security agency recovered the bodies of Yair Yaakov and “an additional hostage whose name has not yet been cleared for publication” from the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza.
Yaakov, a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz, was 59 years old when he was seized in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and killed the same day.
The military statement said he had been abducted and killed by fighters from Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally.
Yaakov was abducted along with his partner Meirav Tal, as they sheltered in their safe room in Nir Oz. She was freed on November 28, 2023 during the first truce.
The Trump administration cannot use US foreign policy interests to justify its detention of Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a judge has ruled, but stopped short of ordering Khalil’s immediate release, Reuters reports.
US District Judge Michael Farbiarz in Newark, New Jersey, said his ruling would not take effect until Friday at 9:30am EDT (6:30pm PKT) to give the administration the chance to appeal.
Farbiarz wrote that the administration was violating Khalil’s right to free speech by detaining and trying to deport him under a little-used provision of US immigration law granting the US secretary of state the power to seek the deportation of any non-citizen whose presence in the country is deemed adverse to US foreign policy interests.
The judge also barred the administration from deporting Khalil on the grounds that his presence was allegedly adverse to US foreign policy.
“This is the news weve been waiting over three months for,” Khalil’s wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, said. “Mahmoud must be released immediately and safely returned home to New York to be with me and our newborn baby, Deen.”
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the United States and Israel-backed organisation established to supplant the aid work of the United Nations, has accused Hamas of killing five staff and wounding multiple others in an attack on a bus en route to a food distribution centre, Al Jazeera reports.
A bus carrying more than two dozen Palestinians working with the organisation was “brutally attacked” while travelling to a distribution centre west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the foundation said in a statement.
While the organisation was still gathering facts, “at least” five people were killed and there were “multiple injuries”, the foundation said, adding there were fears that some of its staff had been taken captive.
Hamas did not immediately comment on the claims.
Hamas earlier this week denied that it had threatened the foundation after the organisation accused the Palestinian group of making “direct threats” against its operations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition has survived an opposition-backed effort to dissolve parliament, as lawmakers rejected a bill that could have paved the way for snap elections, AFP reports.
The opposition had introduced the bill, hoping to force elections with the help of ultra-Orthodox parties angry at Netanyahu over the contentious issue of conscription for deeply religious Jews.
Local media reported yesterday morning however, that most ultra-Orthodox lawmakers ultimately agreed not to support the proposal to dissolve the government.
After their failed vote, the opposition will now have to wait six months to submit another bill.
Opposition faction leaders had said Wednesday that their decision to bring the bill to the Knesset for a vote was “made unanimously and is binding on all factions”.
They added that all opposition parties would freeze their lawmaking activities to focus on “the overthrow of the government”.
Nearly half of all Canadians believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports citing a new poll by public opinion firm Leger.
Forty-nine per cent of Canadians agreed with the idea that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, the poll found, compared with 38pc of US respondents who said the same.
“In the US, Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to agree with the accusation,” Leger said, by a margin of 52pc to 30pc.
US President Donald Trump’s administration is discouraging governments around the world from attending a UN conference next week on a possible two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, according to a US cable seen by Reuters.
The diplomatic demarche, sent on Tuesday, says countries that take “anti-Israel actions” following the conference will be viewed as acting in opposition to US foreign policy interests and could face diplomatic consequences from Washington.
The demarche, which was not previously reported, runs squarely against the diplomacy of two close allies, France and Saudi Arabia, who are co-hosting the gathering next week in New York that aims to lay out the parameters for a roadmap to a Palestinian state, while ensuring Israel’s security.
“We are urging governments not to participate in the conference, which we view as counterproductive to ongoing, life-saving efforts to end the war in Gaza and free hostages,” read the cable.
Egypt has said that it backs efforts to put “pressure on Israel” to lift its blockade on Gaza, but added that any foreign delegations seeking to visit the border area must receive prior approval through official channels, AFP reports.
Egypt “asserts the importance of putting pressure on Israel to end the blockade on the [Gaza] Strip”, the foreign ministry said as hundreds of activists in a Gaza-bound convoy head to the Egyptian border on their way to the besieged Palestinian territory, but added “we will not consider any requests or respond to any invitations submitted outside the framework defined by the regulatory guidelines and the mechanisms followed in this regard.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has failed to answer a question about whether the Trump administration is exerting pressure on countries that take part in an upcoming UN conference on the two-state solution, Al Jazeera reports.
Reuters said today that Washington had warned nations that participate in next week’s event that they could face diplomatic consequences if they take “anti-Israel actions”.
“Right now, the president views the situation in Israel and Gaza as deeply unfortunate and needing to end, and the president is realistic about the current state of affairs in this region of the world,” Leavitt replied, without addressing the question.
“That’s why the president has said the number-one focus and priority of the administration is to release all of hostages from Gaza and to end this conflict as soon as possible,” she said.
“Clearly, Gaza is an uninhabitable place. It needs to be rebuilt with the help of our Arab partners, and the president wants to see that happen, as well.”
