We are closing our LIVE coverage of events in the region for tonight. We will be back tomorrow morning with more news updates.
Israeli artillery targeted the outskirts of the town of Aita al-Shaab, in the Bint Jbeil district.
A man was killed Friday in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Health Ministry announced, with Israel claiming he was involved in weapons smuggling operations from Iran.
Despite the cease-fire that ended a war of more than a year with the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah movement in November, Israel continues to carry out regular strikes in Lebanon.
A drone strike carried out Friday by "the Israeli enemy" on a car near al-Numairiya, in the Nabatieh district, left one dead and five wounded, the ministry said.
The Israeli army, for its part, said it had killed a man named Mohammad Shoaib, whom it accuses of taking part in weapons smuggling into Lebanon and the occupied West Bank.
The cease-fire agreement, which entered into force on Nov. 27, calls for Hezbollah to withdraw its forces and dismantle any military infrastructure in the south of the country.
Only the Lebanese army and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are supposed to be deployed there.
The Israeli forces, who were required to withdraw from Lebanon under the agreement, have, however, maintained five border positions in the south of the country.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun ruled out any normalization of relations with Israel on Friday, stating that he favored a peaceful situation with the neighboring country.
UN conference on Palestinian statehood rescheduled for late July
The international conference on the future of the Palestinian state, initially scheduled for June at the U.N. in New York, is now set for July 28 and 29, AFP has learned from diplomatic sources.
The conference on the Palestinian question and the two-state solution, Israeli and Palestinian, convened by the U.N. General Assembly, was due to take place in June, but was postponed at the last minute due to the war between Israel and Iran.
It has now been rescheduled for July 28 and 29, diplomatic sources told AFP, although they were unable to provide any further details on the schedule or the level of participation. However, heads of state and government were expected to attend in June.
France and Saudi Arabia co-chair the conference.
Houthis attack ship: Death toll rises to 4
Four crew members of a cargo ship attacked and sunk by Houthi rebels in Yemen this week are presumed dead, the European Union naval force Aspides deployed in the area said on Friday, as search operations continue in the Red Sea.
"Fifteen crew members are missing. The four presumed victims are among those missing," Aspides told AFP, citing a private company in charge of search and rescue operations. Aspides had told AFP on Tuesday that three people had been killed and at least two injured in the attack.
The Israeli army has announced that in recent months it has eliminated six senior members of the Hamas naval commando unit in Gaza, in joint operations with Israel's internal security service, the Shin Bet.
According to the statement, several of these members were involved in planning the Oct. 7 attack. The army said it was continuing, in coordination with the Shin Bet, its targeted operations against Hamas's naval infrastructure, including its warships and arms depots.
The Israeli army has said it has “learned lessons” from reported fatal incidents during food distributions in the Gaza Strip.
“Following incidents in which harm was reported to civilians who had arrived at [aid] distribution centers, thorough examinations were conducted ... and instructions were issued to forces on the ground after lessons were learned,” the army said in a statement, claiming that “the relevant Israeli army authorities are currently examining the incidents as mentioned above.”
Fatima Arafa, a pregnant and displaced Palestinian woman, has a consultation with a doctor, at al-Helou hospital, in Gaza City, July 10, 2025. (Credit: Ebrahim Hajjaj/Reuters)
At six months pregnant, Fatima Arfa wishes she could be buying cute clothes and toys for the special day when she delivers a healthy, safe child.
Instead, she spends much of her time seeking medical help in war-ravaged Gaza, weak and fearful that malnutrition will sabotage her pregnancy as Israel presses on with a military campaign that has led to widespread hunger among children and adults and reduced the enclave to rubble.
She longs for simple foods like milk, eggs and red meat that could improve her health and increase the chances of delivering a healthy baby. However, simply trying to address deficiencies is exhausting and highly risky under constant bombardment.
Injured victim of Israeli drone strike succumbs to wounds
The person who was critically wounded by the Israeli drone strike that targeted a car between the villages of Nmeirieh and Sharqiyeh, in Nabatieh district, has succumbed to his injuries, according to our correspondent in the South.
Israeli soldiers infiltrate 400 meters into southern Lebanon, shoot at farmers
Our correspondent in the South has further updates about the Majidieh attacks this morning. Israeli soldiers targeted farmers in the fields of Majidieh with heavy gunfire, having first infiltrated around 400 meters in Lebanese territory.
The Israeli troops then also fired on shepherds. No casualties were reported in either incidents. Soldiers also fired on the electric generator of one of the nearby farms, damaging it significantly.
Heavy Israeli drone strike on car in Nabatieh district
One person has been critically wounded by an Israeli drone that fired four missiles at a car as it was driving between the villages of Nmairieh and Sharqieh, Nabatieh district, according to our correspondent in the South. Ambulances have been dispatched to the site of the strike, our correspondent adds.
Israeli soldiers target farmers in the Majidieh fields with heavy gunfire
Israeli soldiers fired heavily on farmers working the fields of Majidieh in Hasbaya district, our correspondent reports, citing eyewitness accounts from residents. No casualties were reported. The Israeli army threatened farmers in this plain several times during May.
In the Qleiaa fields of Marjayoun district, the Lebanese Army detonated unexploded ordinances.
798 people killed while receiving aid in Gaza, says UN human rights office
The U.N. human rights office said it had recorded at least 798 killings both at aid points run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief groups, including the U.N., Reuters reports.
The GHF uses private U.S. security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a U.N.-led system that Israel says had let militants divert aid.
The United Nations has called the plan "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules.
"Up until July 7, we've recorded now 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys," OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
Food shortages worsen as GHF closes all but one distribution center
As was reported yesterday, the controversial Israeli-backed, U.S.-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation announced that it was shutting down all but one of its distribution sites, leaving only a center in Rafah, Gaza's southern-most city. Al Jazeera is reporting that the tightening of what was already wholly insufficient access to food is already being felt among Gazans.
The organization said it would start distributing boxes through "community representatives": 20,000 boxes for two million Palestinians.
The realities on the ground have already deteriorated sharply, Al Jazeera reports, following the closure of the sites where scores of Palestinians were being shot and killed daily.
Israeli drone crashes into pickup truck in Kfar Kila
A small Israeli drone carrying explosives crashed into a pickup truck in Kfar Kila, in Marjayoun district, according to information from our correspondent in southern Lebanon. The explosives detonated, damaging the vehicle but causing no injuries.
Kurdish PKK militants to hand over first weapons in ceremony in Iraq
Dozens of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants have begun handing over their weapons in a ceremony in northern Iraq, Reuters reports, marking a symbolic but significant first step toward ending a decades-long insurgency with Turkey.
The PKK, locked in conflict with the Turkish state and outlawed since 1984, decided in May to disband, disarm and end its armed struggle after a public call to do so from its long-imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan.
After a series of failed peace efforts, the new initiative could pave the way for Ankara to end an insurgency that has killed over 40,000 people, burdened the economy and wrought deep social and political divisions in Turkey and the wider region.
EU outlines options for political action against Israel on human rights
The European Union's diplomatic service presented 10 options for political action against Israel yesterday after it found "indications" last month that Israel breached human rights obligations under a pact governing its ties with the bloc.
In a document prepared for EU member countries and seen by Reuters, the options included major steps such as suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement — which includes trade relations — and more minor actions such as suspending technical projects.
Prior to last month's report, EU members had voiced increasing concern about Israel's treatment of Palestinians in its war against Hamas in Gaza, and expressed alarm about restrictions on aid entering the enclave. Israel has killed over 57,500 people in its relentless onslaught against the besieged enclave.
Israeli troops blow up a building in Blida, south Lebanon
An Israeli army patrol blew up a building in the Ghassouna neighborhood of Marjayoun district's Blida village at dawn after infiltrating Lebanese territory to a depth of 500 meters, according to residents of the area who spoke with our correspondent.
The Israeli army continues to occupy five positions on Lebanese territory along the Blue Line, from where it conducts incursions into nearby Lebanese villages, bulldozing roads, blowing up buildings, and continuing its disruption of Lebanese Army and UNIFIL attempts to deploy in the area.
Israeli bulldozers block a road south of the town of Odaisseh
Late last night, Israeli bulldozers, accompanied by tanks, crossed the border into Lebanon in the Wadi Hounine region and advanced to the area just south of the Marjayoun district village of Odaisseh. There, they blocked a road in the valley with mounds of earth, according to our correspondent in the South, Muntasser Abdallah.
This morning, Israeli drones were flying over several villages in southern Lebanon.
10 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza in 10 days
Another Israeli soldier was killed in combat on Thursday, Haaretz reports, bringing the total number of Israeli troops killed since the beginning of this month to 10.
Yesterday's fatality was Captain Reei Biran, aged 21, squad commander in the Golani Reconnaissance Unit of the Golani Brigade.
On Wednesday, a 25-year-old reservist was killed in an attempt by fighters in Gaza to take him hostage, having reportedly emerged from a tunnel in the ambush in Khan Younis.
On Monday, five Israeli soldiers were killed and 14 others were wounded when they were hit with an explosive device during an operation in Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.
UN report sees no active Syrian state links to al-Qaeda
United Nations sanctions monitors have seen no "active ties" this year between al-Qaeda and the Islamist group leading Syria's interim government, an unpublished U.N. report said, a finding that could strengthen an expected U.S. push for removing U.N. sanctions on Syria.
The report, seen by Reuters on Thursday, is likely to be published this month, the agency reports.
Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham is al-Qaeda's former branch in Syria but broke ties in 2016. The group, previously known as al-Nusra Front, led the rebellion that toppled President Bashar al-Assad in a lightning offensive in December, and HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa became Syria's interim president.
UN brings fuel into Gaza for the first time in 130 days
On Wednesday, the U.N. was able to bring approximately 75,000 liters of fuel into the Gaza Strip, “the first shipment of its kind in 130 days,” the secretary-general's spokesperson announced yesterday, noting that this amount was largely insufficient to address the shortages.
“We and our partners need hundreds of thousands of liters of fuel every day to maintain vital, life-saving operations, which means that the volume that entered yesterday is not even enough to cover one day's energy needs,” said Stéphane Dujarric, warning that crucial services would have to “close if larger volumes do not enter the Gaza Strip immediately.”
Israel killed 66 people in Gaza yesterday, including 17 at a clinic
Parallel to peace negotiations, Israel's relentless bombardment of Gaza continued unabated.
Gaza's civil defense reported at least 66 deaths across the territory yesterday. Seventeen of them, including at least eight children, were killed when Israel bombed in front of a clinic in Deir al-Balah, in centeral Gaza.
“There was no warning, just a direct strike in the middle of civilians,” Mohamed Abu Ouda, who was waiting in line outside the clinic, told AFP. “What have we done, and what have our children done, to deserve this?”
”There were dozens of us waiting,“ said another witness, Youssef al-Aydi. ”Suddenly, we heard the sound of a plane approaching, then the explosion rang out. The ground shook beneath our feet, and all around us was blood and heart-wrenching screams."
Netanyahu says he's hoping for Gaza truce 'in a few days'
During that same interview with Newsmax last night, Netanyahu said that he is hoping to complete a cease-fire deal with Hamas "in a few days," in which half of the living and half of the dead captives would be released from Gaza.
According to the latest assessments, Netanyahu said, there are 50 remaining hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom he said are "definitely alive" and "some 30 who are not." The deal currently on the table, according to Netanyahu, would see 10 alive hostages and 12 bodies released. "I hope we can complete in a few days."
He indicated that the agreement could include a permanent halt to fighting, a shift in tone from his usual rhetoric. "We'll probably have a 60-day ceasefire. Get the first batch out and then use the 60 days to try to negotiate an end to this," he stated, although he stood by his insistence that Hamas must disarm first.
Israel ready to negotiate permanent cease-fire during 60-day truce
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. media that he was ready to bring a permanent end to his military's onslaught against Gaza on condition that the Palestinian enclave be demilitarized.
Speaking at the tail end of his Washington trip, Netanyahu said that a potential 60-day cease-fire would launch "negotiations on the definitive end to the war,” listing several conditions: “Hamas must lay down its arms, Gaza must be demilitarized, Hamas must no longer have military capabilities or governance.”
"If this can be achieved through negotiations, great," he said. If not, "we will have to achieve it through other means, by using... the force of our heroic army."
Hamas has, multiple times, inserted its political surrender into the cease-fire proposals, which Israel has subsequently removed from its own drafts. Hamas has not, however, stepped down from its refusal to disarm.
Good morning and welcome to today's live coverage of events in the region, focusing especially on the possibilities of a cease-fire in Gaza where Israel's relentless bombardment continues and Palestinians are being killed by the dozens as they attempt to collect aid from an Israeli-backed U.S.-run organization.
This week, U.S. envoy Tom Barrack was in Lebanon to discuss U.S. 'roadmaps' for how the country should disarm Hezbollah, which has now become a prerequisite for U.S. and Gulf funding; while Netanyahu was in Washington, engaged in a series of reportedly intense meetings on his various wars in the region.
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