Live: Hamas agrees to release 10 Israeli captives

Gaza's civil defence agency has said that the number of people killed by Israeli forces on Thursday has risen to 69. 

Spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 69 people were killed by Israeli strikes, artillery or gunfire across the enclave, including 38 people waiting for humanitarian aid. 

A Palestinian man has denied leading a new anti-Hamas militia in Gaza after being named as its leader in an Israeli media report.

Ynet news outlet reported on Wednesday that Israel was arming and funding two new criminal gangs in the Gaza Strip, in the latest push to sow chaos and lawlessness.

The report said the two armed groups were operating in Khan Younis and Gaza City and are affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA), a political rival of Hamas. 

It said they follow in the footsteps of the gang led by Yasser Abu Shabab - a former criminal prisoner-turned-militia leader - who has coordinated with Israeli forces in Rafah to loot humanitarian aid and shoot at Palestinians.

In addition to receiving arms and support from Israel, members of the two new gangs were reportedly on the PA’s payroll, according to Ynet. 

Read more: Palestinian man denies leading new Gaza gang following Israeli report

The Israeli army has carried out over 26 massacres in less than 48 hours, killing more than 300 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, the local Government Media Office said on Thursday.

According to the office, the latest attacks targeted densely populated areas, including shelters, displacement centres, leisure spaces, homes, markets, hospitals and aid distribution points.

"The majority of the martyrs are women and children - all unarmed civilians - reflecting the occupation’s deliberate targeting of the most vulnerable groups," the office said.

Since dawn on Thursday alone, at least 73 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes across the besieged enclave, 33 of whom were seeking humanitarian aid, according to Al Jazeera.

The Palestinian health ministry confirmed that 118 people were killed on Wednesday and 142 on Tuesday.

Read more: Israel kills over 300 Palestinians in 48 hours as Gaza runs out of graves

At least 19 Palestinians have been killed - including a footballer - and dozens wounded after Israeli forces carried out air strikes and fired live ammunition across the Gaza Strip. 

In Rafah, southern Gaza, seven people were killed and 30 others reportedly wounded following heavy Israeli strikes on al-Shakoush.

In central Gaza, six Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli soldiers as they gathered to collect food near an aid distribution centre.

Meanwhile, Muhannad al-Layyeh, a player for the Khidmat al-Maghazi football club, succumbed to his wounds sustained in a previous Israeli air strike on his home in the Maghazi refugee camp.

Elsewhere, in Gaza City, three civilians were killed and others wounded when Israeli air strikes hit a residential apartment.

Israeli strikes on the Zaytoun and Tuffah neighbourhoods also killed three more Palestinians and wounded several others, including children.

In northern Gaza, Israeli forces bombed an area near the Halawa roundabout in Jabalia refugee camp, killing at least two people. 

US security contractors working with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) have fired live ammunition and stun grenades at starving Palestinians queuing for food and supplies, according to a report by the AP. 

The report published on Thursday was based on testimony from two US contractors and videos obtained by the AP. 

The contractors said their colleagues frequently threw stun grenades and fired pepper spray in all directions at the sites, including towards Palestinians. 

They also said that staff hired to secure the aid distribution sites were often unqualified, heavily armed and had an open licence to do as they wished. 

“There are innocent people being hurt. Badly. Needlessly,” one contractor said, adding that staff monitor anyone deemed “suspicious” and pass that information over to the Israeli military. 

Read more: US contractors fired live bullets at Palestinians queuing for food, according to AP

The Israeli military has killed a prominent Palestinian doctor and the director of one of Gaza’s largest hospitals in an air strike on Gaza City.

Dr Marwan al-Sultan was killed, along with his wife, sister, daughter and son-in-law, when a missile struck his home on Wednesday.

The doctor was the 70th healthcare worker killed in the past 50 days, according to the Palestinian medical organisation, Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW). 

The missile “specifically targeted” the room where Sultan was, his surviving daughter Lobna al-Sultan said, according to the HWW report. 

“A missile was dropped on his room exactly, on his place, on him precisely. All the rooms were fine except for his; the missile hit it precisely,” Lobna said.

Sultan was the director of the Indonesian Hospital, one of the largest medical facilities in the besieged Gaza Strip, which has been heavily damaged by Israeli attacks since the war began on 7 October 2023.

Read more: Israel kills prominent Gaza doctor Marwan al-Sultan in targeted strike

The number of Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes and shootings since last night in Gaza has risen to 94, including 45 who were attempting to reach humanitarian aid, according to the Associated Press, citing the Gaza health ministry and hospital sources.

US strikes on Iran's nuclear sites last month have set the country's nuclear programme back by up to two years, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

"We have degraded their program by one to two years, at least intel assessments inside the Department (of Defense) assess that," Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, told a news briefing, without providing evidence to support the conclusion.

Parnell said the assessment indicates that the official estimate is "probably closer to two years".

On 22 June, nine days into Israel's attack on Iran, the US military struck three Iranian nuclear facilities using more than a dozen 13,600-kg bunker-buster bombs and more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles.

Immediately after the strikes, President Donald Trump said they had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear programme "like nobody’s ever seen before". Parnell echoed that conclusion on Wednesday.

Read more: US strikes degraded Iran nuclear programme by up to two years, Pentagon says

Israeli settlers broke into a home in the Palestinian village of Mu’arajat al-Sharqiya, in the southern Jordan Valley area of the occupied West Bank, overnight and forced the family living there to flee, according to the activist group Looking the Occupation in the Eye.

"They [the settlers] are starting to build an outpost very close to the community's homes, as recently happened in Maghayer a-Dir, where the residents were forced to leave," the group said in a post on X.

The settlers also reportedly stole cash and an air conditioner unit, and relaxed in the courtyard of the home after forcing the family to flee.

According to The Times of Israel, citing an Israeli activist assisting residents of the village, there were around 25 settlers present at the scene who threw stones at activists and villagers, and chased them with clubs.

Mu'arajat, southern Jordan Valley.
At theses moments, settlers from nearby illegal outposts are invading the community's arre and are starting to build an outpost very close to the community's homes - as recently happened in Maghayer a-Dir, where the residents were forced to… pic.twitter.com/HYPZjwoMSy

— מסתכלים לכיבוש בעיניים (@Mistaclim) July 2, 2025

At least 82 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes and shootings on aid seekers in the Gaza Strip overnight into Thursday, Haaretz reported, citing local hospital sources and the Gaza health ministry.

The Israeli military continued extensive strikes since last night across various parts of the Gaza Strip in the "most severe escalation in recent days," the report said. Five people were killed near the US-Israeli aid distribution sites, and 38 were killed while attempting to receive humanitarian aid, according to sources.

According to Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, 17 people were killed in a strike targeting a school sheltering displaced residents in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood, including women and children.

A UN expert on Thursday called on states to impose an arms embargo and cut off trade and financial ties with Israel amid its "genocidal campaign" in Gaza.

In a speech to the UN Human Rights Council presenting her latest report, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese said Israel is responsible for "one of the cruellest genocides in modern history".

Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper reports that the latest Gaza ceasefire proposal is focused on three central issues.

• Israeli forces to withdraw to the positions they held before the collapse of the last ceasefire on 2 March and remain stationed along the so-called Philadelphi Corridor.

• The United Nations mechanism for delivering aid would be reinstated, “to ensure uninterrupted supply”. The report suggests that the UN mechanism would be used exclusively, as it doesn't mention the US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid mechanism.

• The proposal includes a commitment to continue broader negotiations, potentially toward ending the war, even if no agreement is reached before the initial truce begins.

Very rarely is a documentary steeped in controversy before even being aired.

But 'Gaza: Doctors Under Attack', produced by Basement Films, was until less than two weeks ago supposed to be broadcast by the BBC.

But on 20 June, Britain's public broadcaster announced, after a long series of delays, that it had dropped the film.

"We have come to the conclusion that broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect of the BBC," it said in a statement.

The BBC, however, failed to explain why the film would have not met these "high standards."

Read more: Gaza: Doctors Under Attack: Powerful documentary exposes Israel's deliberate targeting of medics

American contractors guarding aid distribution sites in Gaza are using live ammunition and stun grenades, according to accounts and videos obtained by The Associated Press.

Two US contractors, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were revealing their employers' internal operations, said the security staff hired were often unqualified, unvetted, heavily armed and seemed to have an open license to do whatever they wished.

"There are innocent people being hurt. Badly. Needlessly," the contractor with military experience said.

Leaked videos filmed by a contractor at the sites show hundreds of Palestinians packed between metal gates, scrambling for aid as gunfire, stun grenades and pepper spray are used. In other clips, English-speaking men are heard discussing ways to break up the crowds and urging each other on after shots are fired, the AP said.

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir told the Kan public broadcaster that he will not support the ceasefire deal currently on the table, urging Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to join forces and vote against it.

“I hope that Smotrich will join forces with me...We must not stop the war without victory," the ultranationalist minister said as he also criticised the decision to restart the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

“I’m embarrassed that I was the only cabinet member who voted against it. If we want to win, we need to go all the way,” he said.