Live: 54 Palestinians killed, 831 wounded in 24 hours

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, urged the European Union to suspend a trade association agreement with Israel during its EU-Southern Neighbourhood meeting on Monday. 

The EU is Israel's largest trading partner and investment partner, she said in a series of posts on X, and suspending an agreement would be "seismic". 

"Economic leverage is the single most powerful tool the EU holds to end Israel’s illegal occupation and ongoing genocide," she added.

The Italian human rights lawyer said that "maintaining trade with an economy inextricably tied to occupation, apartheid, and genocide is complicity" and EU leaders "face a choice: to deepen this appalling stain, or to finally uphold the values the Union claims to represent".

She dismissed vice-president of the European Commission Kaja Kallas's claims that the meeting was historic, saying, "'Historic' would be a meeting leading to the end of the genocide, the dismantling of Israel’s forever-occupation and apartheid, and the beginning of justice and accountability - in line with int'l law, and as per ICJ and ICC proceedings".

At least nine people were killed after an Israeli air strike on the Shati refugee camp, which is located west of Gaza City, Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday.

Five of those killed were children.

An additional 25 people were left injured in the attack.

The toll of Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israeli forces since October 2023 has risen to 58,479, according to the Palestinian health ministry. At least 139,355 others have been wounded during that time. 

At least 93 bodies, including three that were recovered from under rubble, and 278 wounded individuals were brought to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours.

In the past day, six people were killed and more than 29 others wounded while seeking aid in Gaza, medics have reported. 

Palestinian infants reliant on incubators in Gaza are fighting for their lives amid a critical fuel shortage, exacerbated by Israel’s increasingly stringent blockade on aid and essential supplies.

For several days, hospitals and humanitarian agencies in Gaza have issued urgent appeals for international intervention to secure fuel deliveries, as shortages continue to paralyse vital services for over two million Palestinians.

Multiple healthcare centres have warned that operations may grind to a halt, with Israel maintaining restrictions on fuel entering the besieged territory, further straining an already overwhelmed healthcare system.

Mohammed Tabaja, head of the paediatric ward at al-Helou Hospital in Gaza City, said the facility is “100 per cent dependent on the generator”.

His department is responsible for the intensive care of newborns weighing less than 1.5 kilograms, as well as infants suffering from oxygen deprivation and congenital abnormalities, all of whom require uninterrupted electricity.

“We have a problem in the nursery ward: there is no uninterruptible power supply (UPS). The motor shuts down every two hours due to the fuel shortage. When that happens, the electricity cuts out,” he explained, noting that the hospital currently relies entirely on generators.

Read more: Gaza infants' lives at risk amid fuel shortages

The United Nations human rights office says it has documented at least 875 Palestinians killed over the past six weeks near aid delivery points across Gaza, most of them in areas tied to the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Thameen al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the UN rights office, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that 674 deaths occurred near GHF distribution sites.

Another 201 people were killed along aid convoy routes operated by the UN and other agencies, according to the official.

“The data we have is based on our own information gathering through various reliable sources, including medical, human rights and humanitarian organisations,” Al-Kheetan said.

The GHF has rejected the findings and accused the UN of spreading misinformation - an allegation the UN firmly denies. 

Read more: UN says at least 875 Palestinian killed near Gaza aid sites

Israeli strikes on Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on Tuesday killed 12 people, the region's governor, Bachir Khodr, told Reuters. 

It marks the deadliest air strikes since a ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hezbollah in November. Israel has breached the ceasefire and carried out strikes on a near-daily basis.

A security source told Reuters that five of the dead were Hezbollah fighters. Khodr said seven of the dead were Syrian nationals.

Syrians often work in the agricultural fields of the Bekaa region.

The UN has warned that mass displacement in the occupied West Bank had hit levels not seen since the start of Israel's occupation of the territory nearly 60 years ago.

It said an Israeli military operation launched in the north of the occupied West Bank in January had forcibly displaced tens of thousands of people, raising concerns of ethnic cleansing. 

The military operation "has been the longest since... the second Intifada", in the early 2000s, said Juliette Touma, spokesperson for Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

"It is impacting several refugee camps in the area, and it is causing the largest population displacement of the Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967," she told reporters.

The UN human rights office meanwhile warned that mass forced displacement by an occupation force could amount to ethnic cleansing. 

Since the Israeli military launched its operation in January, dubbed "Iron Wall", rights office spokesperson Thameen al-Kheetan said that "about 30,000 Palestinians remain forcibly displaced" had been displaced from the northern West Bank. 

Israeli security forces had during the same period issued demolition orders for about 1,400 homes in the northern West Bank, he said, describing the figures as "alarming".

He pointed out that Israeli demolitions had displaced 2,907 Palestinians across the West Bank since October 2023.

Another 2,400 Palestinians - nearly half of them children - had been displaced as a result of Israeli settler actions, he added, stating that the combined result was "emptying large parts of the West Bank of Palestinians".

"Permanently displacing the civilian population within occupied territory amounts to unlawful transfer," Kheetan said.

Kheetan said 757 attacks by Israeli settlers had been recorded in the West Bank during the first half of the year, a 13 percent increase on the same period last year.

The attacks injured 96 Palestinians in June alone, he told reporters, adding that this was the highest monthly injury toll of Palestinians from Israeli settler attacks in over two decades. 

Since October 2023, at least 964 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, according to the UN.

During that same period, 53 Israelis have been killed in reported attacks by Palestinians or in armed confrontations - 35 of them in the West Bank and 18 in Israel.

Reporting by AFP

Israeli forces detained more than 32 Palestinians during wide-scale raids across the occupied West Bank overnight, according to the Wafa news agency. 

Wafa said the raids included house searches, vandalism of property, the setting up of military checkpoints, and the closure of roads.

A rescheduled UN conference this month will discuss post-war plans for Gaza and preparations for the recognition of a Palestinian state by France and others, the French foreign minister said on Tuesday.

France and Saudi Arabia had initially planned to host the conference in New York between 17 and 20 June. 

"The aim is to sketch out post-war Gaza and prepare the recognition of a Palestinian state by France and countries that will engage in this approach," Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in Brussels before a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

The conference was postponed under US pressure and after the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, during which regional airspace was closed, making it hard for some Arab representatives to attend. 

The summit has been rescheduled for 28 and 29 July, diplomats told Reuters.  

French President Emmanuel Macron was set to attend the original conference and had suggested he could recognise a Palestinian state. 

However, Macron is no longer expected to attend, reducing the likelihood of any major announcements being made.

- Reporting by Reuters

Since April 2025, Mike Huckabee, a white evangelical American Protestant and Baptist minister, has served as the US ambassador to Israel.

A right-wing religious fanatic and former Republican presidential candidate, Huckabee previously served as governor of Arkansas.

He believes, as part of his Protestant zealotry, that "there is no such thing as a Palestinian", and that Palestinian identity is merely "a political tool to try and force land away from Israel".

Most recently, the ambassador described Palestinians in Gaza as "wicked, uncivilised savages" - in keeping with the tradition of missionaries, colonists and other "civilising" forces.

Huckabee opposes Palestinian statehood and dismisses Israeli settler-colonialism on Palestinian land as nothing more than urban development.

Opinion: Why do evangelical Protestants hate Palestinians?

The UN human rights office says it has documented at least 875 Palestinians killed over the past six weeks near aid delivery points across Gaza, most of them in areas tied to the Israeli- and US-backed GHF.

Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the UN rights office, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that 674 deaths occurred near GHF distribution sites, while another 201 people were killed along aid convoy routes operated by the UN and other agencies.

“The data we have is based on our own information gathering through various reliable sources, including medical, human rights and humanitarian organisations,” Al-Kheetan said.

The GHF has rejected the findings and accused the UN of spreading misinformation—an allegation the UN firmly denies.

The UN has called the GHF’s aid model as “inherently unsafe” and in breach of impartial humanitarian principles. The foundation, which began operations in late May following an 11-week Israeli blockade, uses private US mercenaries for delivery, bypassing the UN-led aid system Israel claims has been infiltrated by Hamas—an accusation Hamas denies.

Three independent UN experts assigned to investigate human rights in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories have stepped down, citing personal reasons and the need for “renewal.”

The UN Human Rights Council, which established the Commission of Enquiry, confirmed the resignations on Monday. The letters were submitted last week but only became public this week.

Their departure follows mounting political pressure. Last week, the United States imposed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, another UN-appointed expert focused on Israel and Palestine.

Israel has consistently refused to cooperate with the commission, rejecting its legitimacy, denying entry to investigators, and accusing the panel of bias. Despite repeated requests, the government has blocked all access to Israeli and occupied Palestinian territory.

The United Nations has warned of a sharp rise in deadly violence by Israeli settlers and security forces targeting Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

“Israeli settlers and security forces have intensified their killings, attacks and harassment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in the past weeks,” Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters at a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.

Rights groups and UN agencies have long accused Israel of enabling settler violence through military backing and near-total impunity.

European Union aid chief Hadja Lahbib says Israel is still not fully honouring its agreement with the EU to ease humanitarian access into Gaza.

“We have seen some positive developments. It's true that we have trucks that are able to enter, but we don't know exactly how many,” Lahbib told reporters in Brussels ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers. “What is clear is that the agreement is not fully implemented.”

The EU has repeatedly criticised Israel for severely restricting aid deliveries, warning that the trickle of supplies allowed into Gaza is far from meeting the needs of the besieged population.