Al Jazeera

By Lyndal Rowlands and Zaid Sabah

    Overnight Israeli air strikes on apartments in Gaza City have killed at least nine people, with four children reported among the dead.

    Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said no progress has been made in talks with the United States, though channels of communication remain open.

    Araghchi also defended Tehran’s attacks on US allies in the Gulf region as “self-defence” and warned: “What sanctions and war failed to achieve won’t be won with more war.”

    Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry said Iranian missile and drone attacks on Wednesday killed one person, injured more than 60, and damaged the international airport.

•     US President Donald Trump said negotiations with Iran are going “very well” and a deal to end the conflict “could happen over the weekend”, but also added: “Who knows ”

    Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid said the “limits of the ceasefire are being tested on multiple fronts” after the latest US strikes on Iran and retaliatory Iranian attacks on US forces in Kuwait and Bahrain.

    Israel’s attacks on southern Lebanon and near the capital, Beirut, killed at least nine people on Wednesday, with Israeli strikes reported on at least 10 vehicles, including an ambulance, which killed two Lebanese paramedics.

Israeli military identifies ‘suspicious aerial target’ over northern Israel

    The Israeli military said a “suspicious aerial target was identified” following the activation of warning sirens due to the presence of “hostile” aircraft over northern Israel’s Kfar Yuval area.

    According to the military, the incident was concluded and no injuries were reported.

    A separate drone alert activated around the same time in the nearby village of Arab al-Aramshe was determined to be a false alarm, the Israeli military also said.

    The Lebanese armed group’s founding message was clear when it announced itself to the world in 1985: Loyalty to Iran’s revolution, armed resistance against Israel, and rejection of Lebanon’s political order, which it said was backed by the West.

    Amid tension with some sectors of Lebanese society and decades of on-and-off conflict with Israel, another “ceasefire” has been announced, but the fighting in Lebanon does not seem to be coming to an end.

    Watch the full report by Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem:

Netanyahu calls for ‘hard line’ against ultra-Orthodox over Israeli military service protest

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned a protest outside the home of a Supreme Court justice who had ordered the arrest of ultra-Orthodox Jewish students refusing to serve in the Israeli army.

    Dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jewish protesters gathered outside the home of Justice Noam Sohlberg on Wednesday night, in the illegal Israeli settlement of Alon Shvut in the occupied West Bank, with reports of damage to his home.

    A statement from Netanyahu’s office shared on X said he expected police to “take a hard line against the rioters”.

    Israel has been trying to roll back Orthodox Jews being exempted from compulsory military service, as Israel’s wars on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and the wider region have caused troop shortages.

Israeli envoy says ceasefire in Lebanon contingent on ‘complete dismantling of Hezbollah’

    Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, took to X after the US State Department released a statement on a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.

    Leiter described the US-brokered talks as “another important step in the process to facilitate peace between Israel and Lebanon”, but he said that the deal is contingent on the end of Hezbollah.

    “This ceasefire is entirely contingent on a complete cessation of fire towards Israel, and the complete dismantling of Hezbollah,” he said.

Germany’s failed bid for Security Council seat ‘rare moment of justice’: former UN official

    Germany losing its bid to return to the UN Security Council for a seventh term was a “rare moment of justice” and an “unprecedented loss” for the country, former UN human rights official Craig Mokhiber said.

    Mokhiber attributed the failed bid to “Germany’s scandalous support for genocide in Palestine and aggression against Iran, and its repression of human rights defenders inside Germany”.

    “Germany’s money can no longer erase its responsibility for genocides in Namibia, Europe, and Palestine,” he added.

    As we reported earlier, Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul acknowledged that support for Israel may “have cost votes”, with just 104 of the General Assembly’s members voting in favour of Berlin’s continuing at the council, well short of the two-thirds majority needed.

Nine dead as overnight Israeli air strikes kill Gaza residents in their beds

By Ibrahim al-Khalili

Reporting from Gaza, Palestine

    People were caught off guard as the attacks struck without any prior warning, while many were asleep.

    According to initial reports, at least nine Palestinians were killed in the strikes, and rescue teams rushed to the scenes as a large fire broke out at one of the impacted sites.

    Witnesses described chaotic scenes as a family, including children, women and elderly people were trapped inside burning apartments.

    Rescue crews struggled to reach those stranded, and medics stated that several victims were dealing with severe burns.

    These attacks come amid continued Israeli ceasefire violations, and the Government Media Office said that Israeli forces have committed more than 3,000 violations since the ceasefire took effect back in October of last year.

    According to the media office, these violations have resulted in the deaths of at least 900 Palestinians, and injured more than 2,000 others.

    People say they went to sleep believing they were living through a period of relative calm, only to wake up to explosions, fire and scenes of devastation.

    They have been afraid that the ceasefire remains fragile, and that a further escalation could follow in the coming days.

    The group, Free Marwan Now, said that Barghouti – who has been called “Palestine’s Mandela” – has been “imprisoned by Israel for 24 years, 1 month and 19 days for crimes he did not commit”.

    “He was convicted by a court he did not recognise in a trial widely criticised by legal experts and human rights observers,” it said.

    “The statue may not stand in Parliament Square yet, but we know this is a just cause. One day, Marwan will take his rightful place alongside other civil rights leaders,” the group added.

Oil prices ease as report of Israel-Lebanon ceasefire sparks hope

    Oil prices have fallen as news of the strengthening of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon fuelled optimism for a wider diplomatic breakthrough to end the US-Israel war on Iran.

    Brent crude futures slipped 67 cents, or 0.69 percent, to trade at $97.14 per barrel as of 00:15 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures declined by 62 cents, or 0.65 percent, to $95.40 per barrel.

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Death toll in Israeli strike on Gaza apartments rises to 9, including 4 children

    The death toll from four Israeli air strikes on residential apartments across Gaza City overnight has risen to nine, including four children, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report.

    Israeli warplanes carried out the strikes without issuing any warnings to civilians.

    Search-and-rescue efforts are continuing.

How US Congress voted on resolution to curb Trump’s war powers

    The US House of Representatives has voted 215 to 208 in favour of a war powers resolution, requiring the president “to remove” US forces from “hostilities with Iran”.

    Here’s what we know:

    Four Republicans joined with Democrats to help the bill pass, while another six were absent from the vote.

    The four Republicans who voted yes were: Tom Barrett from Michigan, Warren Davidson from Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania, and Thomas Massie from Kentucky.

    Massie, an increasingly vocal opponent of the war, recently lost a primary race to retain his seat in Congress, meaning that Trump-backed candidate Ed Gallrein will represent the Republican Party at the midterm elections later this year.

    The Democrats were united in their support of the bill, unlike in the Senate, where renegade Democrat John Fetterman voted against advancing a war powers resolution to rein in Trump last month.