Live: Hamas agrees to release 10 Israeli captives

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was warmly greeted at meetings on Monday with Special Envoy for Peace Missions, Steve Witkoff, and Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, Marco Rubio.

Netanyahu is in Washington for what is understood to be a private dinner with US President Donald Trump on Monday evening, local time. 

Israeli PM Netanyahu met in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House envoy Steve Witkoff before his scheduled dinner with U.S President Trump. pic.twitter.com/aC3ELiCi7r

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) July 7, 2025

The billboards went up in Tel Aviv barely before the smoke cleared from Israel’s conflict with Iran, promising a slew of new diplomatic deals to a "victorious Israel".

In the images, US President Donald Trump is flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a bevvy of Arab leaders. The standouts are Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa. 

Netanyahu’s top priority when he arrives at the White House on Monday will be to push for diplomatic deals for Israel to normalise ties with Syria or Saudi Arabia in order to cap what he has portrayed as a major Israeli victory over Iran after 12 days of conflict.

Read more: Trump has made no secret of the fact that he wants Damascus and Riyadh to normalise ties with Israel too

The Quds News Network reported on Monday that at least 16 Israeli soldiers were wounded and later evacuated by a medical helicopter from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, after an ambush by Palestinian fighters. 

The World Health Organisation is due to deliver medical supplies to Gaza on Tuesday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Monday. 

The supplies will not contain food items.

"The Ministry of Health calls on honourable citizens, all dignitaries, families, and concerned parties to make every effort to protect the convoy, prevent any interference with the trucks, and enable their safe arrival to hospitals to save the lives of patients and the wounded," the statement said. 

A group of Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex on Monday and were filmed singing and dancing there.

Israeli police accompanied the group of Israeli settlers. 

The United Arab Emirates said on Monday it had successfully rescued all 22 people aboard the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier, Magic Seas, after an AD Ports Group vessel, Safeen Prism, responded to a distress call from the commercial ship following an attack in the Red Sea.

The Houthis in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack using gunfire, rockets and explosive-laden remote-controlled boats.

The Magic Seas was taking on water after the attack and remained at risk of sinking, the company’s representative, Michael Bodouroglou, had said earlier. The ship had been carrying iron and fertiliser from China to Turkey.

The attack ended half a year of calm in the Red Sea, one of the world's busiest shipping routes, where Houthi attacks from the end of 2023 through late 2024 had disrupted shipping between Europe and Asia through the Suez Canal.

The Houthis launched more than 100 attacks on ships in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandab Strait that links them, in what they described as solidarity with the Palestinians after war erupted in Gaza in October 2023.

- Reporting by Reuters

Axios reported on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House will include discussions on US support for further Israeli strikes on Iran.

President Donald Trump took credit for ending what he coined "the 12-day war" between the two countries last month, but only after the US conducted its own strikes on Iran's three nuclear facilities - something no other US president had done. 

"Israeli officials say Netanyahu wants to reach understandings with Trump about future US nuclear negotiations with Iran, and on possible scenarios that would justify renewed military strikes," the Axios report said. 

Israel and Hamas did not achieve a breakthrough in their latest round of indirect talks in Doha for a Gaza ceasefire, a Palestinian official told AFP on Monday. 

"No breakthrough was achieved in the morning negotiation session, but the talks will continue, and Hamas hopes to reach an agreement," the official told AFP.

Another Palestinian source close to the talks told AFP the negotiations would resume later in the evening.

The head of London's Metropolitan Police force has been heavily criticised for defending the arrest of an 83-year-old retired priest who expressed support for the direct action group Palestine Action.

The Reverend Sue Parfitt, from Bristol, was detained for holding a placard on Saturday that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” She was among 29 people arrested on Saturday for acts of defiance against the proscription.

In an interview with the BBC on Sunday, Met commissioner Mark Rowley was asked whether the arrest of Parfitt was a good use of police time.

"The law doesn't have an age limit, whether you're 18 or 80," he replied. "If you're supporting proscribed organisations, then the law is going to be enforced. Officers, you could see, did it with great care and tried to preserve that person's dignity, but they're breaking a serious law."

Zack Polanski, the Green party deputy leader who is standing to lead the party, remarked on X that Rowley "says 'serious' so many times.

"The depravity of arresting people for helping placards when they're actively opposing a genocide which our government are active participants is what's serious here.

"Starmer has put him in this indefensible position."

Read more: Met police chief slammed for defending arrest of 83-year-old priest over Palestine Action placard

The controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has proposed creating camps called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” in the Gaza Strip to house Palestinians and "deradicalise" them, Reuters reported on Monday.

The proposal is part of an overall strategy to end the control of Hamas over the Palestinian enclave.

Reuters reported that the $2bn plan was submitted to the Trump administration and recently discussed in the White House.

The camps are described as "large-scale" and "voluntary" in the plan, and places that Palestinians can “temporarily reside, deradicalize, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so”.

A slide deck seen by Reuters called for using the sprawling facilities to "gain trust with the local population" and to facilitate US President Donald Trump's "vision for Gaza".

Read more: GHF proposed camps for Palestinians to 'reside, de-radicalise and re-integrate'

Palestinian resistance factions have condemned the leader of an Israel-backed armed gang in Gaza, accusing them of operating to protect the occupation's interests. 

The Joint Room for Palestinian Resistance Factions, otherwise known as the Palestinian Joint Operations Room, described Yasser Abu Shabab as a "traitor for hire" in a statement on Sunday.

"The mercenary traitor called Yasser Abu Shabab and his gang are a group outside the ranks of our homeland. They are completely stripped of their Palestinian identity, and their blood is forfeited by all our resistance factions," the statement read.

The factions said that amid the wide-scale starvation in the besieged enclave, the Popular Forces - lead by 35-year-old Abu Shabab - are a "traitorous group that refuses to do anything but serve as a tool in the hands of the usurping occupier".

The Joint Operations Room added that the gang operates under the protection and supervision of the Israeli military.

Read more: Palestinian factions threaten 'traitor' Abu Shabab over collaboration with Israel

Ismail Patel, visiting research fellow at the University of Leeds and Chair of NGO Friends of Al-Aqsa, has written in a column for Middle East Eye that Britain is "more worried about words than war crimes"

He writes: "The controversy ignited by Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance - specifically the chant of “death to the IDF”, in reference to the Israeli army - has exposed far more than artistic outrage. 

It has laid bare the limits of free speech in Britain when it comes to Palestine, the deep discomfort with confronting complicity, and the ease with which expressions of solidarity are demonised as hate.

Glastonbury has long served as a cultural platform for political protest. From the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament to environmental justice, anti-poverty activism, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ equality, it has never shied away from uncomfortable truths. 

The festival’s founder, Michael Eavis, famously said that if people don’t like the politics of Glastonbury, they “can go somewhere else”. 

The festival also hosts a dedicated political space called Left Field, featuring daily debates and discussions on a wide range of issues. Over the years, the festival has witnessed powerful political moments, from solidarity with striking miners in the 1980s to a video address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2022."

You can read the full column below. 

Opinion: Britain is more worried about words than war crimes

The US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation proposed building camps called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” inside - and possibly outside - Gaza to house the Palestinian population, according to a proposal reviewed by Reuters.

The $2bn plan, created after 11 February for the GHF, was submitted to Donald Trump's administration and recently discussed in the White House, according to a source familiar with the matter cited by Reuters. 

The plan describes "large scale" sites where the Palestinian population in Gaza could "temporarily reside, deradicalize, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so". 

A slide deck seen by Reuters goes into detail about these Humanitarian Transit Areas, and how they would be used to "gain trust with the local population" and facilitate Trump's "vision for Gaza". 

In February, Trump said that the US should "take over" Gaza and rebuild it as the "Riviera of the Middle East", after ethnically cleansing the population outside of the territory. 

The undated slide presentation, which includes photos dated 11 February, said that the GHF was "working to secure" over $2bn for the project, to "build, secure and oversee large-scale Humanitarian Transit Areas (HTAs) inside and potentially outside Gaza Strip for the population to reside while Gaza is demilitarized and rebuilt".

The GHF told Reuters that the slides were not a GHF document, adding that it had studied "a range of theoretical options to safely deliver aid in Gaza," but that it "is not planning for or implementing Humanitarian Transit Areas".

A senior US administration official told Reuters "nothing of the like is under consideration", noting that "no resources are being directed to that end in any way". 

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said during an interview published on Monday that Israel had attempted to assassinate him.

"They did try, yes. They acted accordingly, but they failed," Pezeshkian told American media personality Tucker Carlson in response to a question on whether he believed Israel had tried to kill him.

"It was not the United States that was behind the attempt on my life. It was Israel. I was in a meeting... they tried to bombard the area in which we were holding that meeting," he said, without specifying whether the alleged attempt was during the recent 12-day conflict. 

Pezeshkian said Iran had "no problem" restarting nuclear talks with the US.

"We see no problem in re-entering the negotiations," he told Carlson. "There is a condition... for restarting the talks. How are we going to trust the United States again?"

Yemen's Houthi administration said on Monday that it had attacked the bulk carrier "Magic Seas" in the Red Sea, and that the vessel was now at risk of sinking. 

The 19-member crew of the Greek-owned and Liberia-flagged bulk carrier was severely damaged in the Red Sea by repeated attacks on Sunday. 

In a raid lasting more than four hours, the Magic Seas was attacked by gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades from skiffs, as well as by sea drones and missiles.

It was the first such incident reported in the Red Sea since mid-April. 

Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted international shipping in the Red Sea as an act of solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli bombardment. 

In May, it struck a ceasefire deal with the US to stop attacks on ships - though the agreement did not include ships linked to Israel. 

The Magic Seas has made a port call to Israel in the past, but the latest transit had nothing to do with Israel, Michael Bodouroglou, a representative of its operator Stem Shipping told Reuters.