Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich hit out at the ceasefire proposal presented by US President Joe Biden that envisions leading to a permanent end of the war on Gaza.

Smotrich said taking the deal would “humiliate” Israel and amount to a “surrender” to Hamas’s Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar.

“If, God forbid, the government decides to adopt this offer of surrender, we will not be part of it and will work to replace the failed leadership with a new one,” he said, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“I told the prime minister, ‘We, together with the bereaved families and the majority of the people of Israel, will stand by your side for a decision and victory. But we will stand against you with all strength and aggression if you choose surrender and defeat’.”

Truce proposal ‘accurately reflects’ plan made with Israel: US

Good, Kirby is getting frustrated with Netanyahu. It's been the same since the start of the war, in all the negotiations, glad you finally notice it Kirby.

Hamas the ‘only thing’ standing in the way of ceasefire

The US Department of State’s Matthew Miller says Washington is “completely confident” the deal presented by Biden last week, which the US president said would lead to an enduring ceasefire, was put forward by the Israeli government.

“Obviously, it was a proposal that they developed in consultation with the United States and Qatar and Egypt – three countries that have played the mediating role throughout this process,” Miller said.

“But this was ultimately an Israeli proposal in terms of where it stands. It was submitted to Hamas on Thursday night.”

He added that Hamas has not responded to the plan.

Hamas has said it will deal “positively and constructively” with the proposal. But Israeli officials say they’ll continue to seek the destruction of the Palestinian group.

US Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller says once a ceasefire deal is implemented, Washington will pursue a different governing authority for Gaza that is not Hamas.

“One of the principles that we see for the end of this conflict is that Hamas cannot continue to govern Gaza – period, full stop,” he said.

While the US claims Hamas’s military capabilities have been significantly degraded by the war, the group remains an active force on the ground, with its top political and military leadership intact.

So what happens to the group’s leaders and armed members? “That is quite clearly an issue that will still need to be negotiated,” Miller said. “We haven’t even gotten an acceptance of this proposal yet.”

He stressed the Biden administration’s position is Hamas should lay down its arms.

In a so-called statement of administration policy, the White House voiced opposition to a proposal in the US Congress that would penalise International Criminal Court (ICC) officials over pursuing war crime charges against Israeli leaders.

It described the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan’s push for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yaov Gallant as “heedless”. But it said it rejects compelling sanctions against ICC personnel.

“There are more effective ways to defend Israel, preserve US positions on the ICC, and promote international justice and accountability, and the administration stands ready to work with the Congress on those options,” the White House said.

The bill, which has dozens of sponsors in the House of Representatives, would also enable sanctions against foreign entities and people who assist in the ICC investigation of Israel.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s says Israel is prepared to sign onto the truce deal despite growing doubts over the plan outlined by President Biden.

“We’ve seen again over the weekend from Israel a willingness to step forward and do a deal,” Sullivan told the Global Impact Forum in Washington. “All of those people who have been calling for a ceasefire for all of this time, they need to train their eyes on Hamas this week and say, ‘It’s time come to the table, do this deal’.”

Sullivan, who has made a series of visits to the Middle East, said an agreement would be the “best thing” for the people of Gaza, Israel and the United States.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office has stressed that Israel will push on with the war until Hamas is “destroyed” – a statement that goes against the “permanent” end to the war stipulated in the proposal. An Israeli government spokesman added on Monday that Netanyahu views the plan Biden set out as “partial”.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi says the White House is pushing the truce deal that it says would lead to a lasting ceasefire to boost Biden’s re-election chances.

“This is about Biden’s political survival now. This isn’t about the survival of the people in Rafah or the children in Gaza,” Rattansi said. “Biden needs people to start thinking about Donald Trump and not about ‘Genocide Joe’.”

Israel has sent mixed messages about the proposal. While the US stresses the plan has been approved by the Israeli government, Netanyahu’s office says the deal would allow Israel to continue the war to destroy Hamas.

Rattansi said the Biden administration appears to think it has buy-in from Israel for the deal. “But the point is: This is Netanyahu, so you never know.”

Forest fires ignited by Israeli shelling have caused “severe damage” in southern Lebanon, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) is reporting.

The fires damaged residential areas as well as olive groves and bee hives, NNA said. Fires have also been burning across the border in Israel, as Hezbollah and Israel continue to trade fire.

_{A Lebanese firefighter douses a fire that swept over fields hit by Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel, on Monday}

We get those for 'free', global warming ugh. https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/
Last year June 6 our Canadian fires shrouded the Empire State building

So much for planting trees as a carbon offset.


Back to deliberate fire starters

30 firefighting teams battling fires in Israel’s north

Footage shows wild fires reaching settlements in northern Israel

ذعر المستوطنين مع وصول الحرائق لمحيط منازل في كريات شمونة#فيديو #حرب_غزة pic.twitter.com/SKDsDRRTN0

— الجزيرة فلسطين (@AJA_Palestine) June 3, 2024

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller has said that there are “certain people” in Israel’s government who “would probably not look too kindly” on the new US-backed truce proposal.

Miller’s comments came after he was asked why there would be a need to “implore the Israelis to accept” a truce deal that the White House has claimed Israel’s government tabled itself. Miller clarified that the US was imploring “others in the Israeli government” to accept the deal, but “ultimately, this is an Israeli government proposal”.

Far-right Israeli officials have rejected the three-phase deal, announced by US President Joe Biden last week, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich pledging to push to “replace” the country’s “failed leadership” if it accepts it.

US wants UNSC backing for Biden-backed ceasefire proposal

Does that mean that the UNSC will hold Israel and Hamas to account if either breaks the agreement (if reached) Or just more publicity for Biden? A resolution that endorses a proposal? What does that even mean. (And watch Russia veto it anyway out of spite, UNSC is useless)

Sanders says won’t be attending ‘war criminal’ Netanyahu’s US Congress address

Qatar has stressed there should be a clear position from both parties to reach a ceasefire deal.

“We are waiting for a clear Israeli position that represents the entire government in response to the US’ Gaza proposal,” said Majed Al-Ansari, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson.

“The ceasefire deal should immediately end the long suffering of all people in Gaza, and the hostages and their families and provide a roadmap for a permanent ceasefire and an end to the crisis,” he said.

Qatar said that it is still waiting to reach language that is agreed by both parties.

‘No one can have a total win on this war’: Mediator Qatar

No ‘concrete approvals’ yet on current ceasefire proposal: Mediator Qatar

Israel’s Herzog promises to ‘fully support any deal’ leading to captives’ release

Naftali Bennett, a right-wing Israeli politician and former prime minister, has criticised the Israeli government’s handling of fires burning in the north of Israel caused by Hezbollah rocket fire.

“The fire is spreading,” and “we must save the north”, Bennett said in a lengthy post on X, where he described Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks on northern Israel as “heavy”.

“Places that were flourishing and beautiful have become cities of ruins,” Bennett added, claiming that people who had evacuated were “already planning their lives elsewhere.”

Israel’s fire department says most of the fires that were raging in the country’s north are now under control.

The emergency services said in a statement that one major fire, which burned nearly 990 acres near the kibbutz of Amiad in the Galilee region of northern Israel, was extinguished after a nine-hour battle.

Earlier, we reported that more than 30 firefighter teams were battling blazes in northern Israel, which were triggered by drone and missile attacks launched from Lebanon by Hezbollah.

Forest fires have also been ignited by Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon, damaging residential areas as well as olive groves and beehives.

Both Israel and Hezbollah continue to exchange cross-border fire amid soaring temperatures, which reached 41 degrees Celsius (105 degrees Fahrenheit) in Tiberias, in the Galilee region, on Monday.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has suggested that Israel should take more extreme steps to strengthen its position in the war on Gaza.

“There are things we haven’t done yet, like halting the gas, telling them ‘no more humanitarian aid’, we haven’t done that. Let’s do it for a month or two, see them then,” he said during an interview on Israel’s Army Radio.

The far-right minister was speaking as he encouraged people to attend the contentious and often incendiary annual Jerusalem Day Flag March, which will be held on Wednesday at the Damascus Gate and the Muslim quarter.

The UNRWA has said that Israel should provide access for fuel to get into the Gaza Strip so that desalination plants can function and provide water to people.

“Survival is a struggle. Families and children walk long distances in the heat for water. People need water to live. Israeli authorities must provide access now,” the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on X.

Israel is making it “virtually impossible for aid agencies to reach trapped, starved civilians” in Gaza, increasing the risk of famine in the besieged enclave, aid group Oxfam said in a statement.

It said aid groups were struggling to collect aid delivered through Karem Abu Salem, the only crossing that remains open, due to “long delays in Israeli approval” and “extremely dangerous” conditions on the Gaza side of the crossing.

“When hunger claims many more lives, nobody will be able to deny the horrifying impact of Israel’s deliberate, illegal and cruel obstruction of aid,” said Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa director, Sally Abi Khalil.

“By the time a famine is declared, it will be too late,” she added.

Hadeel Qazzaz, OXFAM’s gender coordinator for the MENA region, has described the situation in Gaza as “terrifying”.

Qazzaz, who has family in the besieged and bombarded territory, told Al Jazeera that she is worried for her 80-year-old mother who has lost nearly 25kg (55lbs) due to the lack of food. “She has one meal a day. At 80 years old, you cannot afford to lose that much weight,” she said, adding that people have been living on canned foods for eight months.

Qazzaz said one of her sisters has already moved 10 times from one house to another trying to find safety. “[During the Rafah evacuation order], she had to leave in half an hour and carry whatever she could. She had to pay a huge amount of money for a small car to carry whatever she can [bring with her] and it took her almost four hours to move because of the crowded streets.

“There are basically no streets; people are everywhere, any [space] that is empty you can find a tent.” Due to the closure of border crossings and lack of aid deliveries, it is very expensive to even buy drinking water, she added. “My sister who is also suffering from a tumour in her spine from before the war, doesn’t have any access to medication or access to medical services even when she got bitten by a scorpion.

“It’s the reality day to day that maybe the world doesn’t hear or doesn’t see enough,” Qazzaz said.

About 1.7 million Palestinians are estimated to be crammed into just one-fifth of the Gaza Strip, after more than one million people fled Rafah, according to the aid group Oxfam.

Most of the people who left Rafah have sought refuge in nearby al-Mawasi, Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis, an area totalling just 69 square kilometres (26 square miles), Oxfam added.

“This area was designated a humanitarian zone, but there is nothing humanitarian about the situation here,” said Meera, an Oxfam staff member who is now in al-Mawasi, after being displaced seven times since October.

“The conditions are unbearable, there is no access to clean water, and people are forced to rely on the sea,” she said.

The UN rights chief has demanded an end to surging violence in the occupied West Bank, saying it was “unfathomable” that more than 500 Palestinians had been killed there since October 7.

“As if the tragic events in Israel and then Gaza over the past eight months were not enough, the people of the occupied West Bank are also being subjected to day-after-day of unprecedented bloodshed,” Volker Turk said in a statement.

“It is unfathomable that so many lives have been taken in such a wanton fashion.”

Israeli forces continue to impose closure on occupied West Bank’s Jericho

UN rights chief says standards of war conduct brutally violated in Gaza

Doctors in Gaza say the war has led to a surge of miscarriages

Doctors in Gaza say Israel’s war is leading to an alarming increase in miscarriages. They say up to 10 patients are losing their unborn children each day in the besieged enclave, compared with one or two before the war.

An estimated 60,000 women in Gaza are pregnant, but the horrors of war, malnutrition and a lack of healthcare are worsening their situation.

The Israeli military has killed at least 45 people over the past 24 hours in attacks across the Gaza Strip. These include:

• Three people killed in a strike on a home in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
• Three people killed in a strike on a home in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City, northern Gaza.
• Two people killed in a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
• Seven people killed in Rafah, southern Gaza.

_{Smoke and flames rise over a destroyed building following the Israeli attacks on Bureij camp in Deir el-Balah}

Gaza death toll rises