DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip
While people knew they had connections to Hamas, neighbors say no one could have guessed how deep those links truly went. When Israeli forces stormed the Aljamals’ building on June 8 they found Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv, hostages who had been captured from the Nova music festival on October 7, cowering in a darkened room. The experience of the three men – alongside that of Noa Argamani who was held in another house nearby, belonging to the Abu Nar family – echoes testimony from previously released hostages. They describe being confined among the civilian population, rather than in Hamas’ vast tunnel network under Gaza.
While people knew they had connections to Hamas, neighbors say no one could have guessed how deep those links truly went. When Israeli forces stormed the Aljamals’ building on June 8 they found Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv, hostages who had been captured from the Nova music festival on October 7, cowering in a darkened room. The experience of the three men – alongside that of Noa Argamani who was held in another house nearby, belonging to the Abu Nar family – echoes testimony from previously released hostages. They describe being confined among the civilian population, rather than in Hamas’ vast tunnel network under Gaza.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip Israeli forces shelled tent camps for displaced Palestinians north of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah last Friday, killing at least 25 people and wounding another 50, according to the territory’s health officials and emergency workers. This was just latest and one of many recent attacks in the tiny Palestinian enclave where hundreds of thousands have fled fighting between Israel and Hamas... It comes less than a month after an Israeli bombing triggered a deadly fire that tore through a camp for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, drawing widespread international outrage including from some of Israel’s closest allies over the military’s expanding offensive into Rafah.
The assassination would make him the highest-level Hamas official killed by Israel since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks, when militants killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. The Israel-Hamas war that followed has become the deadliest and longest in the Arab-Israeli conflict. More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to health officials in Gaza. Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, had been in self-imposed exile from Gaza since 2019 and was often seen as a relative moderate in the group. He was one of the few Hamas leaders who said the group, while it rejects recognizing Israel, doesn’t oppose a two-state solution. Based in Qatar and often moving around the region, he didn’t have a direct hand in the group’s military wing, known as the Qassam Brigades, but often coordinated between it and political branches. It is not known what he knew about the military wing’s plan to break out of tightly closed Gaza and attack surrounding communities in southern Israel. The plan was masterminded inside Gaza, likely by Hamas’ leader on the ground Yahya Sinwar and the head of the military wing Mohammed Deif. A Hamas official told the AP only a handful of its commanders on the ground knew about the “zero hour.”
LONDON, ENGLAND - The British government has dropped plans to oppose the International Criminal Court’s application for an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza, according to UK news agency PA Media. “This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the Government will not be pursuing in line with our long standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide on,” said a spokeswoman for the UK’s new Labour government, which earlier this month replaced a Conservative government led by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced in May he was seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders – including Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar – over charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The assassination would make him the highest-level Hamas official killed by Israel since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks, when militants killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages.
LONDON, ENGLAND - Six British lawmakers entered the race to lead the defeated Conservative Party by Monday’s deadline, in a contest that will decide whether the opposition party tacks to the right or steers toward the political center.
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