Middle East latest: Israel kills a journalist in a media tent outside a Gaza hospital
Israel struck tents outside two major hospitals in the Gaza Strip overnight, killing at least two people, including a local reporter, and wounding nine, including six journalists, Palestinian medics said. It was one of a string of Israeli attacks in Gaza that killed more than 30 people, mostly women and children, hospital officials said.
Israel ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March and has cut off all food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza — a tactic that rights groups say is a war crime — while issuing new displacement orders that have forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee Israeli bombardments and ground operations.
Israel’s war in Gaza, now in its 18th month, has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel has vowed to escalate the war until Hamas returns dozens of remaining hostages, disarms and leaves the territory.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, and taking 251 others hostage. The group still holds 59 captives — 24 of whom are believed to be alive.
Here is the latest:
UN estimates nearly 400,000 people are newly displaced in Gaza after ceasefire ended
That works out to nearly one in every five Palestinians in Gaza being newly displaced since Israel resumed the war less than three weeks ago, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday.
“No arrangements to secure their safety and survival have been made — a responsibility that falls on Israel as the occupying power,” he said.
Israel says it orders Palestinian civilians to evacuate combat zones in order to protect them.
Israel has dramatically expanded its footprint in the Gaza Strip since relaunching its war against Hamas on March 18. It now controls more than 50% of the territory and is squeezing Palestinians into shrinking wedges of land.
An Israeli evacuation order issued Sunday covers more than 3 square kilometers (1 square mile) — the size of New York’s Central Park – in the Deir al-Balah area, Dujarric said.
Hundreds of Israelis protest Netanyahu and his government
The protests in Tel Aviv come as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has recently moved to oust top security and legal officials, and has resumed the war in Gaza.
“We’re here today to send a very clear message,” said one protester Menashe Yehezkel-Baum, “Stop destroying our very basic and essential institute like the Supreme Court, the army, the security services, the police.”
Monday’s demonstrations coincided with Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. Some of the hostages recently freed by Hamas militants in Gaza, as well as their families and supporters, have urged U.S. President Donald Trump to help end the war.
“We are on the verge from turning from democracy to dictatorship, and I’m here to defend the democracy,” said another protester Nitzan Shekel.
An Israeli strike hit near a charity kitchen in Gaza as Palestinians gathered for food
Video footage showed people carrying the body of a little girl, her face covered with blood, from the blast that witnesses said hit a tent next to the charity kitchen outside the southern city of Khan Younis. Six other people were killed, including two women, and at least 10 people were wounded, hospital officials said.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strike.
Samah Abu Jamie said her nephew was among those killed and her young daughter was wounded as they waited with their pots to collect meals for their families.
“They were going to get food. I told her, ‘Daughter, don’t go’,” she said. “These were children, and they had nothing with them but a pot. Is a pot a weapon?”
The strike hit around noon as the kitchen was distributing meals to displaced people living in tent camps. Charity kitchens have been drawing bigger crowds in Gaza because other sources of food are running out.
Trump and Netanyahu hold White House talks on tariffs, the war in Gaza and more
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the first foreign leader to visit President Donald Trump since he unleashed tariffs on countries around the world.
Whether Netanyahu’s visit Monday succeeds in bringing down or eliminating Israel’s tariffs remains to be seen. But how the meeting plays out could set the stage for how other world leaders try to address the new tariffs.
Netanyahu’s office has put the focus of his hastily organized Washington visit on the tariffs, while stressing that the two leaders will discuss major geopolitical issues including the war in Gaza, tensions with Iran, Israel-Turkey ties and the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against the Israeli leader last year.
What might Trump and Netanyahu be discussing?
Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel relations and a professor at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, said he expected Trump to use the tariffs as leverage to force concessions from Netanyahu.
In Israel’s case, those concessions might not be economic. Trump may pressure Netanyahu to move toward ending the war in Gaza — at the very least through some interim truce with Hamas that would pause the fighting and free more hostages.
Gilboa said Trump is hoping to return from his first overseas trip — expected next month to Saudi Arabia — with some movement on a deal to normalize relations with Israel, which would likely require significant Israeli concessions on Gaza.
Trump speaks with leaders of France, Egypt and Jordan about a Gaza ceasefire
The French and Mideast leaders spoke to Trump on Monday about ways to urgently secure a ceasefire in Gaza, stressing the need to resume access for aid supplies, according to the French president’s office.
The three leaders — France’s Emmanuel Macron, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and King Abdullah II of Jordan — decided to keep in close contact with Trump, Macron’s office said.
The phone call took place ahead of Trump’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday. Egypt and Jordan are both key U.S. allies and Cairo has been a mediator in ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas.
Macron is on a visit to Egypt and will visit security forces and aid workers Tuesday in the Egyptian port of El Arish. Earlier Monday he urged a lifting of Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Slow progress on a more permanent Lebanon ceasefire is now possible, UN commander says
The head of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon says the balance of force in the country has now “significantly changed” which may finally enable slow progress toward a more permanent ceasefire, “but this may still take a long time.”
Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz told the U.N. Security Council Monday that an internal political process could be required to deal with key issues including dealing with Hezbollah fighters and other armed groups.
Sáenz said other issues that need to be tackled are military capabilities “and a political track between Lebanon and Israel to deal with questions of sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as border demarcation.”
He said Lebanon’s consent to the deployment of the 10,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, which faces increasing threats from disinformation and misinformation, is also key.
To counter disinformation and misinformation, Sáenz said UNIFIL must establish “a strong fact-based narrative” to avoid misperceptions, for example, that U.N. peacekeepers work at the behest of Israel, have a hidden agenda, and are an occupation force.
‘World must act with urgency’ on Gaza, UN agency heads say
The leaders of the United Nations’ humanitarian agencies issued a dire joint warning about Gaza on Monday, calling for world leaders “to ensure the basic principles of international humanitarian law are upheld.”
The plea from humanitarian chiefs come as Israel has blocked the entrance of commercial and humanitarian supplies to Gaza for more than a month while issuing new displacement orders that have forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee once again.
“More than 2.1 million people are trapped, bombed and starved again, while, at crossing points, food, medicine, fuel and shelter supplies are piling up, and vital equipment is stuck,” directors and leaders of WHO, UNICEF, UNOPS, UNRWA, WFP and OCHA said in a statement. “Over 1,000 children have reportedly been killed or injured in just the first week after the breakdown of the ceasefire, the highest one-week death toll among children in Gaza in the past year.”
They added that “we are witnessing acts of war in Gaza that show an utter disregard for human life.”
Death toll climbs across Gaza
Gaza’s Health Ministry said over the last 24 hours local hospitals have received the bodies of 57 people killed by Israeli strikes. Another 137 people have been wounded, it said.
Monday’s update brings the total Palestinian death toll from the 18-month Israel-Hamas war to 50,752, with more 115,475 wounded.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its records, but says more than half the dead are women and children.
Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Palestinians observe general strike to protest war in Gaza
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, shops were closed on Monday and there were few cars on the streets of Ramallah where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is headquartered.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state. The Palestinian Authority administers population centers with limited autonomy.
Macron calls for Gaza ceasefire during Egypt visit
French President Emmanuel Macron has also urged the lifting of Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid.
Macron was in Cairo on Monday to meet with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and later with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, close Western allies, who are also calling for a ceasefire.
Israel ended its truce with Hamas last month and cut off all imports of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to the territory’s 2 million Palestinians to try and pressure Hamas to accept new terms in their ceasefire agreement.
Egypt and the Gulf nation of Qatar have served as key mediators with Hamas.
Palestinian-American teen shot and killed was throwing rocks, Israeli military says
The military said Monday that soldiers killed the teen who endangered motorists on a road in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Sunday that a Palestinian-American teen was killed in the incident and two others were injured, one in critical condition.
The violence occurred near Turmus Aya, a town with a sizable population of Palestinian-Americans.
Israeli strike kills a reporter
The strike hit a media tent outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, setting it ablaze, killing Yousef al-Faqawi, a reporter for the Palestine Today news website and another man. Six other reporters were wounded in that strike.
The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas militant, without providing further information.
Israel also struck tents on the edge of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza.
Nasser Hospital also said it received 13 bodies, including six women and four children, from separate strikes overnight. Al-Aqsa Hospital said two people were killed and three wounded in a strike on a home in Deir al-Balah.
___
This story has been corrected to show that Palestine Today is a news website, not a TV station.
By The Associated Press
