Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
0813 GMT — Hamas accepts a UN Security Council ceasefire resolution and is ready to negotiate over the details, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
Hamas accepts the UN Security Council resolution in regard to the ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli troops and swap of hostages for detainees held by Israel, he said.
"The US administration is facing a real test to carry out its commitments in compelling the occupation to immediately end the war in an implementation of the UN Security Council resolution," Abu Zuhri said.
1011 GMT — Hezbollah says 3 militants killed after Israel strikes east Lebanon
Hezbollah said that it targeted an Israeli military position following overnight strikes in eastern Lebanon that killed three of its militants, hours after the group downed an Israeli drone.
Lebanon's Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces since the Palestinian group's October 7 attack on Israel, which was followed by Tel Aviv's launching a brutal war in Gaza, with violence intensifying in recent weeks.
Hezbollah said Tuesday that its militants attacked a military position on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights "with dozens of Katyusha rockets", adding the move was "in response to the Zionist enemy attack that targeted the Bekaa region" in eastern Lebanon.
0848 GMT — Blinken says Netanyahu 'reaffirmed commitment' to Gaza ceasefire plan
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had "reaffirmed his commitment" to a Gaza ceasefire proposal during their meeting in Jerusalem.
"I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu last night, and he reaffirmed his commitment to the proposal," Blinken said, adding that Hamas's welcoming of a UN vote on the US-drafted ceasefire resolution was a "hopeful" sign.
"But it's not dispositive. What is dispositive — or at least what so far been dispositive in one way or another — is the word coming from Gaza and from the Hamas leadership in Gaza.
0843 GMT — Gaza civilian deaths during Israel's freeing of hostages could amount to war crime: UN
The United Nations human rights office said that the civilian deaths in Gaza during the Israeli operation to secure the release of four hostages and their holding by armed groups in densely populated areas could amount to war crimes.
"We are profoundly shocked at the impact on civilians of the Israeli forces' operation in the Nuseirat at the weekend to secure the release of four hostages," spokesman Jeremy Laurence told reporters in Geneva.
"Hundreds of Palestinians, many of them civilians, were reportedly killed and injured," said the spokesperson.
"Furthermore, by holding hostages in such densely populated areas, the armed groups doing so are putting the lives of Palestinian civilians, as well as the hostages themselves, at added risk from the hostilities. All these actions, by both parties, may amount to war crimes."
0801 GMT — Jordan welcomes UN resolution for ceasefire in Gaza
Jordan welcomed the UN Security Council’s adoption of a US draft resolution aimed at a comprehensive ceasefire in Gaza.
In a statement, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry stressed the importance of implementing the resolution as it goes in line with the rules of international law, and represents the international will in ending the war on Gaza.
It also emphasised the importance of obliging Israel to adhere to international law and humanitarian law and end its "futile" war on Gaza.
0744 GMT — 9 Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes on homes in Gaza
At least nine Palestinians were killed and others injured in a series of Israeli airstrikes on residential areas across Gaza.
The Palestinian Civil Defense said in a statement that its rescue teams removed eight bodies of people, including children, along with a number of injured from under the rubble of a destroyed home that belongs to the Ashour family in Gaza City.
In a separate statement, the Civil Defense also said its teams removed at least one Palestinian killed in targeting a home for the Abu Olba family in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, northern Gaza City.
0732 GMT — Spanish premier welcomes UNSC ceasefire resolution
Spain's prime minister welcomed the UN Security Council's adoption of a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Sanchez underlined Madrid's "firm support" to the plan presented by US President Joe Biden "to achieve the cessation of hostilities and calls on the parties to accept it."
0556 GMT — Israel army says four soldiers killed in south Gaza
The Israeli military said that four soldiers had been killed in fighting in southern Gaza the previous day, more than eight months into its war in Gaza.
The soldiers were "killed in fighting in south Gaza" on Monday, the military said in a statement, without elaborating on the circumstances of their deaths.
Israeli public broadcaster KAN said that the soldiers were killed in an explosion in a building in Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah.
The latest deaths took to 298 the military's overall losses since its ground offensive in Gaza began on October 27, it said.
0423 GMT — Blinken in Israel to push ceasefire plan for Gaza
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold talks with key Israeli opposition figures a day after he arrived in the country to push a ceasefire plan for Israel's war in Gaza.
Blinken will meet in Tel Aviv on Tuesday with Benny Gantz, a former army chief who quit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's emergency government on Sunday, and opposition leader Yair Lapid.
0208 GMT — Jordan to host emergency aid summit for Gaza
Jordan is hosting a summit on the urgent humanitarian response for Palestinians enduring more than eight months of devastating Israeli carnage in besieged Gaza, where Israeli-imposed starvation and famine are taking innocent lives.
The summit seeks to bring together leaders and aid officials to "determine means for enhancing the international community's response to the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip", according to the Jordanian royal court.
The conference, jointly organised by the UN, Jordan, and Egypt on the Dead Sea coast, will be attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Jordan's Foreign Ministry said the conference would discuss "preparations for early recovery and seek commitments for a collective and coordinated response to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza".
"The main purpose of this summit is to reach consensus over practical measures to meet the immediate needs" in Gaza, the ministry added in a statement.
0126 GMT — US claims its partners destroyed Houthi drone
The US Central Command [CENTCOM] has claimed that in the past 24 hours, its partner forces destroyed one un-crewed aerial system [UAS] launched by Yemen's Houthi group over the Gulf of Aden.
"There were no injuries reported by US, coalition or merchant vessels," CENTCOM said, adding the UAS presented an "imminent threat" to vessels in the region.
0116 GMT — US claims Israel did not use floating aid pier off Gaza
The Pentagon has rejected claims that Israel used the US's floating aid pier off besieged Gaza during its hostage rescue operation but said there was some type of activity "nearby."
"I don't have a proximate location...It was near, but I think it's incidental," spokesperson Major General Pat Ryder told reporters when asked how close the rescue operation got to the pier.
"Again, the pier, the equipment, the personnel — all supporting a humanitarian effort — had nothing to do with the IDF rescue operation," he added.
"We've acknowledged that there was some type of helicopter activity nearby, but that was completely separate and not associated with the JLOTS operation."
2300 GMT — Hamas seeks public pledge from Israel before talks on Gaza truce
Mediators must obtain public pledge from Israel for ceasefire in Gaza "so that we can enter into negotiations," a senior Hamas official has told TRT World.
"And US must be a guarantor of everything that is agreed upon," the official said.
It comes after the UN Security Council overwhelmingly approved its first resolution endorsing a ceasefire plan aimed at ending the brutal eight-month war waged by Israel in Gaza.
The US-sponsored resolution welcomes a ceasefire proposal announced by President Joe Biden that the United States claims Israel has accepted. It calls on the Palestinian resistance group Hamas to accept the three-phase plan. Ever since the plan was announced Israeli officials including hawkish premier Benjamin Netanyahu had been rejecting its contents on one pretext or the other.
Hamas is skeptical that Israel will honour the agreement and is thus seeking guarantees from Israel's staunch ally, the US.
The resolution — which was approved with 14 of the 15 Security Council members voting in favoUr and Russia abstaining — calls on Israel and Hamas "to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition."
Whether Israel and Hamas agree to go forward with the plan remains in question, but the resolution's strong support in the UN's most powerful body puts added pressure on both parties to approve the proposal.
2027 GMT — Palestine hails UNSC's Gaza truce vote
Hamas has welcomed a UN Security Council resolution backing a proposal for a ceasefire in besieged Gaza, saying it is ready to cooperate with mediators over implementing the principles of the plan.
"Hamas welcomes what is included in the Security Council resolution that affirmed the permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the complete withdrawal, the prisoners' exchange, the reconstruction, the return of the displaced to their areas of residence, the rejection of any demographic change or reduction in the area of the Gaza Strip, and the delivery of needed aid to our people in the Strip," the resistance group said in a statement.
Hamas also said it was willing to engage in indirect negotiations over implementing the principles "that are consistent with the demands of our people and resistance."
Palestinian Presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh also welcomed the resolution backing, saying that the presidency is with any resolution that calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and preserves Palestinian land unity.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas also "welcomed" the vote adopting a US-drafted resolution supporting a ceasefire plan in Gaza.
"The Palestinian president considers the adoption of this resolution a step in the right direction to end the war of genocide against our people in the Gaza Strip," Abbas's office said in a statement.
2032 GMT — Israeli military kills 4 Palestinians in West Bank
Israeli military have killed four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The latest murders take the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli military and illegal Zionist settlers since October 7 in the area to 536, including at least 132 children.
2004 GMT — US university fires professor over Gaza genocide assignment
Illinois-based DePaul University has fired a now-former adjunct Biology professor for offering students an optional lesson on the health impacts of the Gaza genocide.
Protesters have been demonstrating Dr. Anne d'Aquino's dismissal on campus in Chicago, and an appeals board unanimously ruled that her firing was a violation of her academic freedom, according to CBS News.
DePaul Provost Salma Ghanem will issue a final decision.
The firing stems from d'Aquino's teaching of Health 194, Human Pathogens and Defense, in May. The class syllabus said instruction would seek to explore the real-world applications of microbiology research, specifically with an eye toward current events.
She offered students an optional assignment to explore what she called "the impacts of genocide on human biology."
Speaking at a student rally last Thursday, d'Aquino said her case is a reminder "that if faculty and staff are not protected from the swift and severe reprimand of this university, students most certainly are not either."
Administrators had sought to argue that the assignment was unrelated to the course, a claim disputed by d'Aquino, according to CBS.
"For months, scientists and physicians have been warning about the spread of infectious diseases in Gaza due to starvation, malnutrition, overcrowding, destruction of critical water and sanitation infrastructure," she said at last week's rally.
A petition with over 1,500 student signatures demanding her reinstatement was hand-delivered to the administration last week.
For our live updates from Monday, June 10, 2024, click here.
