Images show destruction of southern Lebanon village by Israeli fire

Satellite imagery shows much of the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab in ruins after months of Israeli air raids.

The images from private satellite operator Planet Labs PBC, taken on June 5 and analysed by Reuters, shows at least 64 destroyed sites. Aita al-Shaab was a front line in 2006 when Hezbollah fighters successfully repelled Israeli attacks during the full-scale, 34-day war.

“There is a lot of destruction in the village centre, not just the buildings they hit and destroyed, but those around them” which are beyond repair, said Aita al-Shaab Mayor Mohamed Srour.

Israel says fire from Lebanon has killed 18 soldiers and 10 civilians. Israeli attacks have killed more than 300 Hezbollah fighters and 87 civilians since the war on Gaza began and Hezbollah backed Palestinian armed groups.

_{A satellite image shows Aita al-Shaab, near the border with Israel}

Hezbollah claims rocket attack on Israeli army base

Hezbollah says it attacked an Israeli military base in Birya with a barrage of rockets. It is unclear if any casualties or damage were caused.

“The Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance bombed the main air defence missile base of the Northern Command in the Birya barracks with dozens of Katyusha rockets,” the armed group said on Telegram.

It noted Israeli forces earlier “struck the city of Nabatieh and the town of Sohmor” in Lebanon.

Footage posted on social media also showed the interception of dozens of rockets in Safed and surrounding settlements in northern Israel as air raid sirens sounded.

Canada sets out evacuation plans in Lebanon

Canada’s military has drawn up evacuation plans to extract about 20,000 Canadians from Lebanon as tensions intensify and threats of full-scale scale fighting increase.

The Canadian news outlet CBC reported that General Wayne Eyre, the chief of the defence staff, said on Wednesday that the plan relied on Canada’s allies to help facilitate the evacuation. “We can’t do it alone,” Eyre said. “It will very much be a coalition effort, and we are tightly tied in — very tight — with our allies.”

But despite the plans for a possible evacuation, Eyre acknowledged that he was “very concerned” about the prospect of war between Israel and Hezbollah this summer. He added that a military team was currently in Lebanon and coordinating with the embassy in Beirut.

On Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly also warned Canadians to leave Lebanon as soon as possible.

Netanyahu is still angling to draw the US into war with Iran.

Netanyahu says Iran fighting Israel on several fronts

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Tehran’s goal is “a combined ground attack from several fronts, in addition to a combined missile launch”.

“Iran is fighting us from seven fronts: of course, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the militias of Iraq and Syria, Judea and Samaria [occupied West Bank], and Iran itself,” he told a delegation of retired generals and admirals, his office posted on X.

“Our first duty is to cut off the hand – Hamas. Whoever does such a thing to us simply won’t be here … I don’t think it will be very long, but we will get rid of them.”



Pressure on the ICC is working

Several Gaza aid workers killed in Israeli bombardment: Civil defence

Gaza’s civil defence agency says its workers were hit by fire from an Israeli warplane while carrying out “their humanitarian work”.

The agency “announces the martyrdom of three of its cadres and the injury of a number of others, working in the Bureij centre”, the organisation posted on X.

Bureij and Gaza’s first-responders have repeatedly been attacked since the war began. Israeli forces launched an offensive earlier this year for several weeks in Bureij and several other nearby refugee camps in central Gaza.

Deaths, injuries in southern Gaza following Israeli strike

Several people have been killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli attack on the coastal area of al-Mawasi, northwest Rafah, our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues report.

Last week, an Israeli attack near the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) base at the al-Mawasi camp – designated by Israel as “a safe zone” – killed at least 25 people and wounded 50 others.

At least 7 dead, dozens wounded after Israeli attacks on Gaza City

Muhammad Ghurab, a doctor at Gaza City’s al-Ahli Hospital, said the facility so far received seven “martyrs including four children” and more than 40 others wounded “as the Israeli forces advanced to the east of Shujayea neighbourhood”.

Hamas’s press office reported “a significant displacement of residents” around Shujayea. Israel’s military ordered residents to head south to a declared “humanitarian zone” about 25km (15 miles) away. Such zones have repeatedly been attacked in the past.

_{A child wounded in an Israeli strike receives treatment in Gaza City on Thursday}

Death toll likely to rise in Shujayea as rescuers scour the debris

Rescuers are still digging through the rubble for survivors after Israeli forces attacked the Shujayea neighbourhood in northern Gaza City with dozens reported wounded and several killed, including four children.

Gaza’s civil defence agency says its teams are unable to reach some of the victims because of ongoing Israeli fire. Residents said they were taken by surprise by tanks rolling in and shooting at midday with drones also attacking.

“It sounded as if the war is restarting, a series of bombings that destroyed several houses in our area and shook the buildings,” said Mohammad Jamal, 25, a resident.

Gaza City was heavily bombed in the opening weeks of the war. Israel ordered the evacuation of all of northern Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people have remained in the north, even as Israeli troops have surrounded and besieged it.

_{An Israeli strike on Gaza City’s eastern suburb of Shujayea on Thursday}

‘They are targeting children’ in Gaza City attack

Footage shows women, men and children carrying bags and food as they ran in the streets after the Israeli air strikes and artillery barrage began. Some men carried wounded children in their arms as they fled.

“This is the [Israeli] occupation targeting us as you can see. You can see the children, the targeting of children here,” said one Palestinian man carrying a bleeding boy in his arms.

‘Beyond tragic’: Israeli rights groups demand more medical evacuations

Physicians for Human Rights Israel and Gisha, an Israeli human rights organisation, have petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to create a “permanent mechanism” to allow people needing medical treatment to evacuate Gaza.

Adi Lustigman, an attorney with Physicians for Human Rights Israel, said that before May 7 – when the Israeli military launched its invasion of Rafah and took control of the main crossing – about 50 Palestinian patients per day crossed into Egypt for medical treatment abroad.

The fact that fewer than 70 people left the territory on Thursday “after [the] two months the crossing has been closed is beyond tragic”, said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha. “Our sense of it is that it’s just unsustainable in terms of a response.”

She called on the Israeli military to reopen Rafah crossing and allow patients to exit the Erez crossing in the northern part of the territory, which had previously been the main crossing for Palestinians entering Israel.

Israel’s Supreme Court will hold a hearing on the petition on Monday.

WHO demands more evacuations for thousands of Gaza’s wounded

The World Health Organization welcomed news of the evacuation of 21 cancer-stricken children but noted “more than 10,000 patients still require medical care outside the Strip.”

“Of the 13,872 people who have applied for medical evacuation since 7 October, only 35 percent have been evacuated,” Hanan Balkhy, regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said in a post on X.

“Medical evacuation corridors must be urgently established for the sustained, organized, safe, and timely passage of critically ill patients from Gaza via all possible routes.”

Anti-government protests continue in Israel

Hundreds gathered on Thursday to protest against the Netanyahu government

‘Elections now’: Demonstrators in Israel demand new vote

Antigovernment protesters gathered in West Jerusalem and converged on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s home, lighting a bonfire on the street outside and calling for his resignation.

“We’ve been abandoned – Elections now!” read one sign that rose above the crowd. Demonstrators yelled through megaphones, waved flags, and banged on snare drums while police officers stood at the barricades.

Such demonstrations have grown more frequent as the war on Gaza rages and fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon threatens to escalate. But they have not reached the fever pitch of a year ago when Netanyahu’s government tried to overhaul Israel’s justice system.

Many in the crowd, which appeared to number in the thousands, also chanted their support for reaching a deal to free some 120 Israeli captives in Gaza being held by Hamas.

Anti-Netanyahu protesters say demonstrations to continue until change of government

Antigovernment demonstrations continued in West Jerusalem and the city of Caesarea outside of the home of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Protest organisers coined Thursday as a day of strikes and resistance, and they say they are going to continuously protest every single day until there is a change within Israel’s government.

On Thursday morning, demonstrators blocked major roads throughout Israel as they want to see a change within Israel’s government. But that’s not all they are asking for: They also want to see a deal to bring back the remaining Israeli captives.

Protesters say that Netanyahu’s government is neither capable nor interested in accepting a deal that would see the release of the remaining 120 Israeli captives still held in Gaza.

Large demonstrations are also expected across the country on Saturday in places like Tel Aviv, the north, and West Jerusalem. Protesters say that these types of demonstrations are the only way to up the pressure on Netanyahu and his government.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews block highway to protest mandatory military service

Protesters sat on the highway and lay on the ground as police lifted and dragged them away. Officers mounted on horseback charged into the crowd. Many demonstrators held signs and chanted “To prison! Not to the army!”

The Supreme Court this week ordered the government to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men saying the system of military exemptions is unequal.

“We all came here for one goal, we reflect the position of all the Orthodox public,” said a young man, identifying himself only by his first name, Ozer. “All the Orthodox public prefers to go to prison and not to the army.”

Military service is compulsory for most Jewish men and women in Israel. But politically powerful ultra-Orthodox parties have won draft exemptions for their followers that allow them instead to study in religious seminaries.

This longstanding arrangement has bred widespread resentment among the broader public – a sentiment that has grown stronger during the bloody eight-month war on Gaza. The ultra-Orthodox see their full-time religious study as their part in protecting the state.

_{Israeli police disperse ultra-Orthodox Jewish men during a protest in Bnei Brak on Thursday}

Israel’s Smotrich says government to promote illegal settlements

Israel’s hardline finance minister says the government will promote illegal West Bank settlements and punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority in response to its moves against Israel on the international stage.

Bezalel Smotrich, who heads a pro-settler party, said in a statement the government supports his proposal.

Among the steps Smotrich says he’s advancing is the revocation of “various approvals and benefits” for senior officials in the Palestinian Authority and approving new settlement buildings.

Smotrich claims cabinet approved legalisation for occupied West Bank ‘outposts’: Report

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has claimed that the security cabinet has approved his proposal to legalise five Israeli “outposts” in the occupied West Bank, The Times of Israel reports, citing Hebrew-language media reports.

The outposts – meaning illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian land built without official permission – that are reportedly set to be legalised are:

Still not able to address the cause, UNSC approves another resolution to 'fight' the symptoms. The Houthi attacks are on the lowest rung of the ladder to threaten international peace and security.

UN Security Council demands Houthis halt attacks on ships

The UN Security Council approved a resolution demanding Yemen’s Houthi rebels halt all attacks on ships and urged the disruption to maritime security in a critical Middle East waterway be urgently addressed.

It was approved by a 12-0 vote with Russia, China and Algeria abstaining.

Speaking on behalf of the United States and Japan, which sponsored the resolution, US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said Houthi attacks “threaten international peace and security” and they’re “a global challenge” that “necessitates a global solution”.

“With this resolution, the council once again sends a clear message to the Houthis: Cease these attacks immediately,” he said.

The Yemeni group has been launching attacks on shipping lanes in the region since November in what it says is an effort to support Palestinians and pressure Israel to end its war on Gaza.

US to release part of stalled heavy bomb shipment to Israel: Reports

At least 4 dead in separate Israeli attacks in Deir el-Balah

The Israeli military has carried out two attacks in the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, killing at least four people, the Wafa news agency reports.

Israeli fighter jets bombed a house in the al-Baraka area of Deir el-Balah, killing one woman and a child and injuring others – including children. Two people were also killed when the Israeli military bombed a house in a separate attack on al-Beeah Street in the city.

 
Deaths of three civil defence members confirmed following Israeli attack on Bureij

Israeli forces arrest 28 Palestinians in night of raids across the occupied West Bank

Soldiers meted out “severe beatings” to Palestinian detainees during arrest operations across the occupied West Bank that saw 28 Palestinians dragged away by Israeli military forces, a rights group said.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said the overnight and early morning raids on Thursday – part of Israel’s now daily and increasingly violent assault on Palestinian communities in the occupied territories – targeted the governorates of Jenin, Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah and el-Bireh, Nablus and Jerusalem.

Israeli troops feel ‘entitled’ to abuse Palestinian civilians, says military veterans

Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organisation of military veterans working to raise awareness of Israel’s abuses in the occupied Palestinian territory, said Israeli forces do not need “direct orders” to “dehumanise” Palestinian people.

In a series of posts on social media, the advocacy group said the recent incident where Israeli soldiers tied a wounded, innocent, Palestinian civilian to the bonnet of their military vehicle demonstrated how Israeli troops feel “entitled” to carry out such abuses.

“This entitlement can also be seen in Gaza in countless TikToks posted by soldiers where they are seen looting and defacing property,” the group said.

“The soldiers didn’t need direct orders in order to dehumanize an innocent injured man by tying him to the hood of a vehicle,” they said.

“Decades of corrupting occupation have brought us to the point where incidents like these have become an inevitability in the occupied territories.”

The soldiers didn’t need direct orders in order to dehumanize an innocent injured man by tying him to the hood of a vehicle. Decades of corrupting occupation have brought us to the point where incidents like these have become an inevitability in the occupied territories. pic.twitter.com/5jkntJQFSI

— Breaking the Silence (@BtSIsrael) June 27, 2024

Israeli settlers damage Palestinian home northeast of Ramallah: Report

Israeli settlers have attacked a Palestinian residence on the outskirts of Turmus Aya, located northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, causing property damage before fleeing the scene, Wafa news agency reports.

Local sources said a group of settlers hurled stones and other objects at Mohammad Rabi Jabara’s home causing damage to windows, glass, and CCTV cameras installed on the property.

Journalist Hafez Abu Samra shared a video of the attack on Instagram. The video has been verified by Sanad, Al Jazeera’s fact-checking team.

Violent settlers are being protected by the government, says activist

Ayed Abu Eqtaish, a Palestinian rights activist, says the Israeli government’s goals are to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank and to “ethnically cleanse” Palestinians from their land.

“None of the settlers who commit crimes against Palestinians was held to account, and the extremist parties in this government are there to support all the crimes that settlers are committing,” Eqtaish told Al Jazeera.

He added that the sanctions imposed by Western countries on violent settlers are not “enough”.

“At some point, there was a bargain between the US administration and the Israeli government, mainly the settlers, in order to lift this punishment in exchange for releasing some of the Palestinian money. So I believe the international community is complicit with what Israel is committing whether in the Gaza Strip or in the West Bank,” Eqtaish said.

Creating illegal settlements ‘a convenient excuse for Smotrich’ to get what he wants

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that for every country that unilaterally recognises a Palestinian state, Israel will establish an illegal settlement.

“There are five countries that committed this mistake, so we will establish five settlements. This is our response,” he said in a video.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, says this is “a convenient excuse for Smotrich to get what he wanted out of the government agenda passed”.

More importantly, he revoked administration powers from the Palestinian Authority (PA) in about 25 percent of the occupied West Bank covering 440 Palestinian villages and transferred that power to himself, she said.

Israel controls construction, zoning and planning for Palestinians in that territory. The Israeli cabinet also adopted measures against Palestinian officials, saying that some might be expelled or have their movement restricted.

“In exchange for gaining all of that – which was a personal victory for Smotrich – he has released some of the Palestinian tax funds that he’s been holding captive since May, allowing the PA to breathe a little bit easier,” Odeh said.

“It’s still technically on financial life support, but now it will continue to have a chance at the ICU, if you will.”

Israel must give international observers access to ‘the Gaza ghetto’: UN expert

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, said Israel must give international observers access to Gaza to assess the situation in what she called “the Gaza ghetto”.

In a post on social media, Albanese questioned what Israel was so “afraid of” that it has cut the war-torn enclave off from international observers. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague has already called on Israel to provide access to Gaza, Albanese said.

“This is what the [ICJ] has requested and should have happened already,” she said.

Several countries have joined South Africa’s case at the ICJ accusing Israeli forces of perpetrating genocide in Gaza.

Survey captures snapshot of suffering in Gaza: Norwegian refugee agency

In a survey of more than 1,000 Palestinian families displaced from Rafah as Israel launched its ground invasion of the southern Gaza city last month, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has found:

Completely useless, any aid that does get dropped on shore still isn't going anywhere.

US military’s Gaza air pier looks set for removal again: Report

Struggle to keep children cool as temperature climbs in tent camps

_{A Palestinian woman bathes a baby to cool him down on June 27, 2024, as Palestinians struggle with increasing temperatures in the makeshift tents they are sheltering in after Israeli attacks destroyed their homes in Deir el-Balah, Gaza}

https://www.accuweather.com/en/ps/gaza/258096/weather-forecast/258096

High of 36c (97F), RealFeel of 35c (95F) in the shade

<sub>Palestinian families with young children are struggling to cope with the heat in war-torn Deir el-Balah


Palestinians wait in line for water was they struggle with increasing temperatures in Deir el-Balah</sub>