Updates: Israel attacks kill 111; Hamas says considering ceasefire proposal

This live page is now closed.

If you’d like to read more about where things stand with a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, you can read our story on the most recent developments here.

Or, if you’d like to read about the impact of persistent and deadly Israeli attacks on Palestinians waiting for food assistance in Gaza, you can read our story here.

We will be closing this live page shortly. Here are the day’s major developments:

• Hamas said in a statement that it is studying the ceasefire proposal but noted that it wants any deal to lead to an end to the war.
• Hospital officials in Gaza said at least 111 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli air strikes across the Strip today, including 24 people waiting for aid.
• Wafa news agency reported earlier that 14 Palestinians have been arrested in Israeli raids across the Bethlehem governorate in the occupied West Bank, where about 400 families would be made homeless by an Israeli army order to demolish more than 100 homes.
• Israel’s governing Likud party, led by Netanyahu, is pushing for the formal annexation of the occupied West Bank before the Israeli parliament’s summer recess on July 27.
• British lawmakers in the House of Commons have voted to ban the group Palestine Action, proscribing it as a “terrorist organisation”. The designation will be voted on in the upper house of the UK parliament, the House of Lords, on Thursday.

Two French nationals held in Iran for more than three years have been charged with spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, according to diplomatic and family sources cited by AFP news agency.

Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris have been charged with “conspiracy to overthrow the regime”, a Western diplomatic source and Kohler’s sister were quoted as saying.

“All we know is that they have seen a judge who confirmed the three charges,” Kohler’s sister said.

This British Palestinian nurse was threatened at work for using a watermelon background on a virtual team meeting.

Watermelons share the same colours as the Palestinian flag and have been used as symbols for Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation.

Ahmad Baker has worked for the National Health Service (NHS) in London for 25 years. Now he and two other staff members are suing Barts Health NHS Trust for discrimination. The trust says its policy is about neutrality. But Ahmad says it silences Palestinians, and he believes a pro-Israel lobby is behind it.

Watch the video below:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by AJ+ (@ajplus)

A UK government minister has described the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as “horrifying”, warning that fuel shortages are threatening to bring vital infrastructure to a halt.

Jenny Chapman, the minister for international development, said in a post on X that no fuel has entered the besieged Palestinian territory in four months.

“The acute shortage is threatening to shut down water supply, hospitals and ambulances,” she wrote.

Chapman called for “a sustainable and immediate ceasefire” and unrestricted aid to be allowed into Gaza.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a US-based Muslim and Arab rights group, has released a statement condemning an Israeli attack that killed Marwan al-Sultan, the director of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, along with members of his family.

Rights groups say that Israeli forces have systematically targeted medical workers and health infrastructure in Gaza throughout the war.

“We strongly condemn the Israeli government’s assassination of Marwan Al-Sultan, the director of the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza, along with his family,” director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement.

“Medical organisations in the United States and across the world have a moral obligation to condemn the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza, especially this systematic targeting of doctors, nurses and hospitals.

“Israeli forces are purposefully targeting medical staff and turn aid distribution zones into execution sites to make Gaza uninhabitable. Medical associations must end their silence.”

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, says 400,000 Palestinians remain displaced in the occupied West Bank amid large-scale Israeli military operations that have forced people from their homes and placed widespread restrictions on Palestinian residents.

“After five months, the military operation continues,” Simona Onidi, MSF project coordinator in the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Tulkarem, said in a statement.

“The [refugee] camps remain sealed off, with Israeli soldiers actively preventing anyone from entering. Families are still in limbo, and we’re worried that humanitarian needs will keep escalating.”

The statement added that Palestinian communities impacted by the raids live in a state of constant apprehension and face challenges accessing food, water and health services.

According to a Pentagon spokesperson, there is no difference between obliterating Iran’s nuclear programme and setting it back one to two years.

He’s not taking back what Trump said – that the facilities were completely obliterated. He’s saying, without explaining that apparent contradiction, that the assessment now is that any enrichment or any path towards a nuclear weapon has been set back by two years.

The US director of national intelligence for President Trump testified under oath to Congress, months before the US decided to strike Iran, that the intelligence community did not believe that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon.

We also asked about enriched uranium, whether they believe that it was moved, and they said no. The assessment is still that they don’t believe it was moved.

But this timeline is notable because right after the strikes, a military assessment came out that said that the programme was possibly set back months, and we saw that lead to an outraged president saying it was “obliterated” and led to a press conference here with the defence secretary where he castigated the media as trying to turn the narrative.

So now they’re saying two years. They won’t give any evidence as to what was destroyed, what infrastructure is still in place, so when it comes to the timeline, they’re basically saying that “you’re just going to have to take our word for it.”

The US State Department says Marco Rubio has discussed issues such as Iran, Syria and Gaza in a call with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud. 

A pair of US lawmakers are introducing the Bunker Buster Bill, which would authorise President Trump to transfer B‑2 stealth bombers to Israel.

Representative Josh Gottheimer, who will jointly brought forward the bill, said on X, “Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terror and is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans. As Iran rebuilds its nuclear program, we must maintain maximum deterrence.”

“My bipartisan Bunker Buster Act will give Israel the tools she needs to deter Iranian aggression and take out their underground nuclear sites – strengthening US national security.”

Bunker buster bombs can penetrate more than 200 feet of concrete or rock before detonating and were used by the US in recent air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

A number of Arab countries have strongly condemned a push by lawmakers from Netanyahu’s Likud party calling on the PM to swiftly annexe the occupied West Bank.

• Egypt said it “expresses its categorical rejection of these statements, which violate international law and aim to entrench the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and undermine the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state …”.
• Qatar said it “considers these remarks an extension of the occupation’s settlement, colonial, and racist policies, and a blatant violation of international law and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334”.
• The Foreign Ministry of Saudi Arabia expressed “condemnation and denunciation of the statements made by an official from the Israeli occupation authorities calling for the imposition of sovereignty over the West Bank in Palestine …”.
• Kuwait‘s Foreign Ministry expressed the country’s “condemnation and denunciation of the statements made by several representatives of the Israeli occupation authorities … in a grave violation of international legitimacy resolutions”.
• Jordan‘s Foreign Minister “emphasised the necessity of halting the illegal and unlawful Israeli measures in the occupied West Bank, which threaten to ignite the situation and increase tensions”.

The Pentagon said US strikes targeting major Iranian nuclear installations likely degraded the country’s nuclear programme for two years. Initial reports of government assessments found that the strikes had likely only set back the programme by several months.

Those reports prompted angry attacks by President Trump, who insisted that the programme had been totally destroyed.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell said the programme had been set by “probably closer to two years”.

Marwan al-Sultan, the director of the Indonesian Hospital, was been killed along with his family in an Israeli attack in Gaza City.

The attack took place on a residential building southwest of Gaza City.

Nacho Sanchez Amor, a Spanish socialist lawmaker in the European Parliament, has said that Israeli military companies should not be able to access European Union funds.

In a social media post, he said that he and lawmaker Sandra Gomez have asked the European Commission to consider the request.

“The EU cannot fall under double standards when it comes to human rights violations and and it cannot be accessory to #Netanyahu genocidal actions,” he said. “With Sandra Gomez we ask the EU Commission to bar Israeli military companies from accessing EU Funds that can be used in Gaza.”

The US State Department said that Iran’s decision to suspend cooperation with the international atomic energy watchdog is “unacceptable”. The decision comes after the US carried out massive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities amid a war initiated by Israel against Iran.

“It is unacceptable that Iran chose to suspend cooperation with the IAEA at a time when it has a window of opportunity to reverse course and choose a path of peace and prosperity,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters.

“Iran must cooperate fully without further delay.”

While the US has said that its attacks would set back Iran’s ability to pursue nuclear weapons if it chose to do so, experts warned that the strikes could push Iran towards the pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the country has rejected IAEA requests for nuclear site inspections in recent days.

Iran had previously agreed to an agreement limiting its nuclear energy programme, but the US threw out the agreement during Trump’s first term in office.

Palestine Action has accused the UK government of an “undemocratic abuse of power” after lawmakers in the House of Commons approved a ban on the group.

The vote passed 385 to 26 on Tuesday, but campaigners say MPs were denied the chance to vote specifically on Palestine Action’s designation as a “terrorist group”.

Instead, the group was bundled into a broader motion alongside two violent neo-Nazi militias in which MPs voted to ban all three groups in one single vote.

“We don’t know – and we will never know – if MPs approve the Home Secretary’s authoritarian ban on Palestine Action,” the group said in a statement. “Instead, [UK Home Secretary] Yvette Cooper bundled our domestic civil disobedience protest group in with two violent, neo-Nazi militias and ‘murder cults’, meaning that MPs voting against Palestine Action’s proscription would have to vote against the proscription of these two extremist groups.

“Many MPs told us that as a consequence, they felt they did not have the option to vote against the measure.”

Palestine Action, which regularly targets Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, called the move a “Trumpian” tactic of executive overreach.

The measure still requires approval from the House of Lords, which is expected to debate it on Thursday.

“We are confident this unlawful order will be overturned,” Palestine Action said, arguing its civil disobedience tactics are not “terrorism” but protest against UK complicity in “Israel’s war crimes”.