Israel attacks Gaza as Hezbollah targets Jabal Al-Sheikh base

This live blog on Israel's war on Gaza has concluded. Make sure to follow us for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

A Palestinian is killed and others wounded following Israeli bombing targeting a home near Gaza City's Al-Tayaran junction, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

Israeli quadcopter drones fired heavily in the Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

Israeli artillery shells Gaza City's Al-Remal neighbourhood, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

The shelling comes as gunshots are heard.

Israeli aircraft attack a home in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday called on all sides to exercise "caution" on the border between Israel and Lebanon, in his first telephone conversation since he was elected with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Starmer told his counterpart the "situation on the northern border of Israel was very concerning, and it was crucial all parties acted with caution", a spokesperson for his 10 Downing Street office said.

Discussing Gaza, the prime minister reiterated his condolences for the mass loss of life during the 7 October attacks, the spokesperson said.

"He then set out the clear and urgent need for a ceasefire, the return of hostages and an immediate increase in the volume of humanitarian aid reaching civilians."

In his conversation with Netanyahu, Starmer added that it was also "important to ensure the long-term conditions for a two-state solution were in place, including ensuring the Palestinian Authority had the financial means to operate effectively".

Efforts towards a truce are continuing with US, Qatari, and Egyptian mediators hoping to halt Israel's war on Gaza, which has caused mass civilian casualties and devastated the coastal territory.

The spokesperson said the prime minister also spoke by phone to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Starmer told Abbas that his "longstanding policy on recognition to contribute to a peace process had not changed, and it was the undeniable right of Palestinians".

Israeli forces have attacked a flat on Al-Mughribi Street in Gaza City, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

The Israeli army says its forces are bombing alleged Hamas targets in central Gaza, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

Sirens sounded in Israel's western Naqab (Negev) region, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

Bombing carried out by Israeli aircraft targeted Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

Thousands of Moroccans demonstrated on Sunday in the northern city of Tangier in support of the Palestinian people and against Morocco's ties with Israel, an AFP journalist saw.

"Gaza is not alone," chanted the protesters during the event which saw the grouping of leftist parties and Islamist movements.

The protesters took to the streets of the coastal city after reports last month of an Israeli ship's docking in Tangier port.

Coming from the United States, the ship made a pit stop in Tangier on 19 June, according to Israeli media.

Moroccan authorities have yet to confirm the reports.

Morocco controversially normalised relations with Israel in 2020.

Normalisation is viewed by Palestinians as a betrayal of their national cause.

Sunday's protests called on Morocco to end its ties with Israel.

Israeli forces launched illumination flares over the skies of Gaza City's Al-Daraj and Al-Tuffah neighbourhoods, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

Hezbollah says it launched an aerial attack with drones on a long-range technical and electronic reconnaissance centre on Jabal Al-Sheikh in the occupied Syrian Golan.

The Lebanese group added that the drones hit equipment including technical systems, leading to the destruction of the targeted devices and causing a significant fire.

The Israeli army said an explosive drone crossed from Lebanon and exploded on the Jabal Al-Sheikh mountain.

It added that intercepted several other drones over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the Galilee panhandle.

Jabal Al-Sheikh is on the Lebanon-Syria border. Part of it is located in the illegally occupied Golan.

The Israeli army reveals that the commander of the 52nd Batallion in its 401st Armoured Brigade was injured in southern Gaza, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

He was moderately hurt in fighting in Rafah's Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood.

The civil defence agency in Gaza said a strike Sunday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians killed at least four people, the second such Israeli attack in two days.

The Israeli military, which has long accused Palestinian militants of using schools and other civilian infrastructure, confirmed the strike "in the area of the school" in Gaza City.

It claimed in a statement the school complex was used as a militant hideout and housed "a Hamas weapons manufacturing facility".

The civil defence agency said Ihab Al-Ghussein, the Gaza government's deputy labour minister, was among those killed in the strike on the Holy Family school.

The strike came a day after a UN-run school in the central Nuseirat refugee camp was hit, in an attack that the Gaza health ministry said killed 16 people and drew condemnation from the United Nations. Israel claimed militants were hiding there.

Hamas has repeatedly denied Israeli accusations that militants were hiding in civilian infrastructure.

The vast majority of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced by Israel's war on the strip, now in its 10th month, and many have taken shelter in UN-run schools across the besieged territory.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, expressed outrage at the repeated attacks on its premises.

"Another day. Another month. Another school hit," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on X.

UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma told AFP that 190 – or more than half – of the agency's facilities in Gaza have been hit, "some more than once", since the war began in October.

"When the war started we closed the schools and they became shelters," she said.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) calls for the rotation of humanitarian staff so workers in Gaza can be replaced by colleagues from the West Bank.

"Over 1,000 PRCS staff and volunteers in Gaza are exhausted," the humanitarian organisation says.

"They have been working tirelessly to deliver lifesaving aid, day in day out, for 9 months in horrific conditions.

"On top of this, many have been displaced with their families, now living in tents unable to ever really 'clock off'."

PRCS says it "urgently calls" for the rotation of humanitarian staff to "allow PRCS members from the West Bank to replace their colleagues in Gaza".

It adds that this should be feasible given it is takes just two hours to travel from PRCS headquarters in Ramallah, the administrative centre of the West Bank, to Gaza.

"But our colleagues are currently not permitted to enter Gaza," PRCS says.

🔴PRCS staff in Gaza are exhausted after nine months of nonstop work.
Despite being just two hours from Ramallah, our colleagues can’t enter Gaza. 📢We urgently call for rotating humanitarian staff to allow West Bank PRCS members to replace their colleagues in #Gaza. pic.twitter.com/orE4ib4RZP

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) July 7, 2024

US Central Intelligence Agency director William Burns is expected to visit Cairo this week for Gaza ceasefire talks, Egypt's Al Qahera News TV reported on Sunday, citing a high-ranking source.

A source familiar with the matter said earlier in the day that Burns would also travel to Qatar this week. Egypt will also host an Israeli delegation this week, Al Qahera News TV added.

(Reuters)

Any Gaza ceasefire deal must allow for Israel to keep fighting until it achieves its war objectives, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

He added that the deal must prohibit weapons smuggling to Hamas via the Gaza-Egypt border and should not allow for thousands of armed militants to return to northern Gaza.

Israel will maximise the number of live hostages returned, Netanyahu said in a statement. 

A top Hamas official told news agency AFP on Sunday that the Palestinian group is ready to discuss a hostage deal and an end to the Gaza war without a "complete and permanent ceasefire".

Hamas had required that Israel "agree to a complete and permanent ceasefire" to start talks on a hostage-swap and ending the nine month old war, the official told AFP, adding that "this step was by-passed, as the (Qatari) mediators pledged that as long as the prisoner negotiations continued, the ceasefire would continue."

Israeli news outlet Haaretz reports Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant stating that a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas will not halt an Israeli offensive in the north until a Hezbollah agreement is solidified.

During a meeting with his armed forces, he was quoted as saying the following:

"Even if there's a ceasefire, we will continue fighting here and do all that needs to be done."

Gaza's media office released updated statistics on the 275th day of Israel's war on Gaza, reporting 3,376 massacres by the Israeli army.

The conflict has resulted in 38,153 deaths, including 15,983 children and 10,637 women.

Additionally, 10,000 people are missing, 34 have died from malnutrition, and 87,828 are wounded.

Among the casualties are 500 medical personnel, 75 civil defense members, and 158 journalists. Israeli forces have targeted 157 shelters and recovered 520 bodies from seven mass graves near Gaza hospitals. Seventy percent of the victims are children and women, and 17,000 children are now orphaned.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society accused Israeli forces of killing four men during their release at the Karem Abu Salem crossing from Israel into Gaza.

The group called it a "field execution" and stated the men had been guarding humanitarian aid.

Photos showed their hands were bound, and they exhibited signs of torture.

Since October 7, Israeli forces have detained over 9,700 Palestinians, with 3,800 held without charge in "administrative detention".

Hundreds of Israeli protesters have begun marching in Tel Aviv, blocking the Azrieli junction on the 'Day of Resistance'.

Additional marches are planned in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem later this evening.

For a second day on Sunday, campaigners have been demanding the government secure a captive deal with Hamas, and are also calling for elections, as the war on Gaza enters a 10th month.

A nationwide "disruption day" began at 6:29 am, corresponding to the Hamas 7 October attacks on southern Israel.

Police stepped up security around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Jerusalem residence before a rally called for Sunday.

#TelAviv NOW: The largest rally yet (estimated crowd of 175,000) since Oct 7, calling for a ceasefire-hostage deal and the ousting of the #Netanyahu govt.

▪️54% of Israelis believe that Netanyahu isn't ending the #GazaWar for personal political expediency. pic.twitter.com/dNevYVx8de

— Yonatan Touval (@Yonatan_Touval) July 6, 2024

Hezbollah claims to have struck Israel’s Birkat Risha military site near the border with guided missiles, killing and injuring soldiers.

Earlier, Hezbollah reported bombing two other army sites around the Israeli-Lebanese border. This follows Israeli artillery attacks near Yaroun and Maroun al-Ras in southern Lebanon.

Israeli Army Radio reports about 60 rockets fired from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel in recent hours. Hezbollah also claimed attacks on al-Baghdadi, Nimra, and Mount Meron bases in retaliation for the killing of one of its fighters.

BREAKING: Hezbollah launches a widespread rocket attack on Israeli settlements in northern occupied Palestine, explosions reported. pic.twitter.com/ysXz3X7awv

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) July 7, 2024

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed the deputy minister of labour in the Palestinian enclave, local Palestinian media reported on Sunday.

Ehab al-Ghussein was killed along with three other people in the attack, according to the Civil Emergency Service.

Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, reports on its Telegram page that its fighters targeted a Merkava 4 tank with an al-Yassin 105 rocket in eastern Gaza’s Shujaiya neighbourhood, where fierce fighting has taken place.

It added that another Merkava 4 tank was struck with a Shawaz antitank weapon in the southern Gaza's Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah city.

Jordan's Foreign Ministry has denounced Israeli attacks on humanitarian facilities, where displaced Palestinians in Gaza are sheltering.

The foreign ministry wrote in a post on X that Palestinians were living through "an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression."

It highlighted that Israel recently targeted a UNRWA-operated school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, resulting in the deaths of 15 individuals, primarily women and children, and causing injuries to many others.

"Repeated attacks on humanitarian facilities and shelters reflect Israel’s intention to continue its violence," the ministry added.

The health ministry in Gaza said Sunday that at least 38,153 people have been killed in the war in the devastated Palestinian territory now in its tenth month.

The toll includes at least 55 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said.

It added that 87,828 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

A 28-year-old Israeli man has been seriously injured by rocket shrapnel following a barrage from southern Lebanon targeting northern Israel's Lower Galilee, according to Magen David Adom emergency service.

He is being treated at a hospital in Tiberias.

The incident occurred in an open area in Kfar Zeitim, about 9 km from Tiberias.

The Israeli army reported multiple fires around Tiberias after dozens of rockets were launched from Lebanon, with sirens sounding as far as Sde Ilan, 35 km from the Lebanon border.

The new UK Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told UK news broadcaster Sky News that his country can "show real leadership" on facilitating a peace process to end Israel's war on Gaza. 

Reynolds also commented on Jonathan Ashworth losing his seat to new independent MP Shockat Adam in Leicester South during Thursday night's general election.

This follows Labour being criticised over its stance on Gaza and whether the party had concerns about losing the support of Muslim voters.

This was said to contribute to Ashworth's defeat. Reynolds told Sky News that Labour will always put country first, party second.

The EU naval mission protecting ships crossing the Red Sea said its frigate Psara had destroyed two unmanned aerial vehicles in the Gulf of Aden on Sunday.

The Aspides mission began in February in response to drone and missile attacks on vessels by Houthi fighters. The Houthis describe the attacks as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Israel's war in Gaza.

Other countries, including the United States, also have naval forces operating in the area.

According to Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera English, the bodies of three handcuffed Palestinians were discovered east of Rafah.

The victims had been shot shortly after their release. Videos shared on Telegram channels captured the moment when their family members identified the bodies, reacting with shock and tears.

In recent months, numerous bodies have been found in Gaza, some bearing signs of mutilation and torture, which Palestinian officials assert amount to war crimes.

Yair Lapid, the leader of the Israeli opposition, has called for an end to the ongoing Gaza conflict.

He urged the Israeli government to negotiate a permanent ceasefire agreement with Hamas and to secure the release of Israeli captives.

According to Israeli Army Radio, Lapid emphasized the need for this resolution, saying that the Israeli army relies heavily on reservists and is "not suitable for long wars."

News agency AFP reports tank tracks still fresh on their fields in southern Gaza's coastal area of Al-Mawasi, as a farmer told the outlet that he lamented the damage war has wrought on his trees and crops.

"Look at the destruction," 39-year-old Nedal Abu Jazar told AFP, holding an uprooted tomato plant.

He pointed to his greenhouse's metal frame and its white plastic sheeting strewn across the plot, inside an area designated a humanitarian zone by the Israeli army.

"People were sitting peacefully on their farmland ... and suddenly tanks arrived and fired at us, and then there were (air) strikes."

Abu Jazar said the Israeli operation in late June destroyed about 40 dunams (10 acres) of land and killed five labourers.

His is not an isolated case. Across Gaza, 57 percent of agricultural land has been damaged since the war began, according to a joint assessment published in June by the UN's agriculture and satellite imagery agencies, FAO and UNOSAT.

The damage threatens Gaza's food sovereignty, Matieu Henry of the Food and Agriculture Organization told AFP, because 30 percent of the Palestinian territory's food consumption comes from agricultural land.

"If almost 60 percent of the agricultural land has been damaged, this may have a significant impact in terms of food security and food supply."