Four more Israeli hostages declared dead, and Palestinians seek to join genocide case

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, June 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Israel's military confirmed the deaths of four more hostages held by Hamas — including three men in their 80s who were seen in a Hamas video begging for their release. Around 80 hostages captured on Oct. 7 are believed to still be alive in Gaza, alongside the remains of 43 others.

Monday's announcement came days after U.S. President Joe Biden announced that Israel has offered Hamas a deal to release all the hostages in Gaza and potentially end the war. Biden says the militant group is sufficiently depleted, however Israeli leaders say destroying Hamas will require more military operations in Gaza, raising doubts about the cease-fire efforts.

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At the top U.N. court, Palestinian officials asked Monday to join South Africa’s case accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Israel faces growing international criticism over the huge cost in civilian lives and the widespread destruction caused by the nearly eight-month war. Israel strongly denies the accusations of genocide.

Israel's expanding offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah — once the main hub of humanitarian aid operations — has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians facing widespread hunger.

Israeli bombardments and ground operations in Gaza have killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.

Here's the latest:

UN gives grim update of conditions in Gaza

UNITED NATIONS – U.N. humanitarian officials are calling public health concerns in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah “beyond crisis levels,” where thousands of Palestinians have fled from Israeli attacks in Gaza's south, and local officials are calling several areas in northern Gaza “disaster zones.”

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported Monday that Israel is bombarding much of the Gaza Strip from the air, sea and land. It said aid operations are severely hindered by Israel's ground operations and fighting, especially in Rafah.

The office, known as OCHA, said about one million Palestinians who sought safety in Rafah have now fled the Israeli attacks. U.N. and other organizations operating there also had to take flight, OHCA said, including the SOS Children’s Village, the only shelter in Gaza for children without parents, which was forced to relocate to central Gaza with limited tents and no room for any more kids.

Andrea De Domenico, head of OCHA’s office for the Palestinian territories who returned Friday from three weeks in Gaza, told U.N. reporters from Jerusalem on Monday that destruction and hunger are rampant and the space for Palestinians to flee fighting is narrowing, stressing that nowhere in Gaza is safe. He said OCHA estimates that about 100,000 Palestinians are still in Rafah city.

For those who fled, he said, living conditions are “progressively eroding the social fabric of the community in Gaza,” as Palestinians struggle to survive without electricity, often without shelter, and very little food which they try to heat using plastic and garbage as fuel.

De Domenico said, “the rule of the strongest is becoming the only rule that is prevailing,” giving as an example two brothers fighting over a can of chickpeas, and now not talking to each other.

OCHA said the Emergency Committee for North Gaza municipalities has declared Jabaliya town, Jabaliya refugee camp, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun as “disaster zones.”

De Domenico pointed to the ongoing breakdown of law and order saying two days ago, 70 per cent of the goods picked up by a convoy of trucks on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing were looted, “I think by criminals but also by desperate people.”

A pro-Palestinian demonstrator stands at the entrance of a building housing the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco Monday, June 3, 2024. (Jeff Chiu / AP Photo)

San Francisco police arrest pro-Palestinian demonstrators

SAN FRANCISCO — Police in San Francisco arrested pro-Palestinian demonstrators who occupied the lobby of a building that houses the Israeli Consulate on Monday.

It was not immediately clear how many arrests were made but an Associated Press journalist saw police arresting at least a dozen people.

A group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators entered the building and occupied it for several hours Monday. The protesters posted signs on the front doors of the building calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.

Consul General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest Marco Sermoneta said the protesters arrived around 9 a.m. at the Financial District’s high-rise but didn’t enter the consulate’s offices. He said his office was telling people that they might need to change their appointments.

San Francisco police officers were standing guard outside the building and told an AP journalist that it was not open to the public.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, protesters said they planned to stay until they were “forcibly” removed. By 11:45 a.m, about six San Francisco police vehicles could be seen parked around the corner from the consulate, along with about six other officers and a San Francisco Fire Department ambulance waiting.

Photos and videos of the demonstrators posted on social media showed people sitting in a circle and chanting “Free, free Palestine!”

G7 countries endorse Biden's ceasefire plan

ROME — The Group of Seven industrialized nations has fully endorsed a cease-fire proposal announced by the United States to try to end Israel’s war in Gaza, and has called on Hamas to accept it.

In a statement released by the Italian presidency Monday, the G7 urged countries with influence over Hamas to ensure that it accepts the deal.

U.S. President Joe Biden detailed the three-phase deal on Friday, which calls for a full and complete cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from densely populated areas of Gaza, and the release of a number of hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

In the statement, the G7 said its leaders “fully endorse and will stand behind the comprehensive deal” that Biden outlined. They reaffirmed support for a credible pathway to peace and a two-state solution.

“We call on Hamas to accept this deal, that Israel is ready to move forward with, and we urge countries with influence over Hamas to help ensure that it does so,” the statement said. 

Israel says 4 hostages found dead

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli military on Monday confirmed the deaths of four more hostages held by Hamas -- including three older men seen in a Hamas video begging for their release.

The three men, Amiram Cooper, Yoram Metzger and Haim Peri, were all age 80 or older. Looking weak and wary, they appeared in a video in December released by Hamas under the title, "Don't let us grow old here."

The fourth hostage was identified as Nadav Popplewell.

Israel's military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the four men died together in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis when Israel was operating there. The cause of death was not immediately known.

"We are checking all of the options," Hagari said. "There are a lot of questions."

Israel carried out a major offensive in Khan Younis, a Hamas stronghold, early this year.

Hamas claimed in May that Popplewell had died after being wounded in an Israeli airstrike, but provided no evidence.

Palestinian officials apply for UN court accusing Israel of genocide

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Palestinian officials have applied at the top UN court for permission to join South Africa's case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

The request published Monday says that Israel's ongoing military operation is "part of a systematic effort to wipe Palestinian society and its culture and social institutions from the map."

The request to the International Court of Justice was made on behalf of the "State of Palestine" and signed by Palestinian Authority foreign ministry official Ammar Hijazi. South Africa filed its case with the International Court of Justice late last year accusing Israel of breaching the genocide convention in its military assault that has laid waste to large swaths of Gaza.

Israel denies it is committing genocide.

The court has issued three preliminary orders in the case calling on Israel to do all it can to prevent deaths in the enclave, ramp up humanitarian aid and, most recently, halt its offensive in Rafah.

It is unclear how long the court's judges will take to rule on the request. If granted, Palestinian officials will be able to address the court in writing and during public hearings.

Israeli raid in West Bank kills 2

JERUSALEM — Palestinian authorities said Israeli forces fatally shot two men during a raid in the northern occupied West Bank on Monday.

According to Israeli police, the raid was in the northern city of Nablus and an exchange of fire took place between security forces and militants near the Balata refugee camp.

The Palestinian General Authority for Civil Affairs said the two slain men were in their 20s. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant group active in the area, identified one of the slain men as one of its fighters.

Violence has flared in the Israeli-occupied territory since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza broke out in October. Israeli forces launched a multi-day raid into Jenin, another city in the West Bank has long been a bastion of armed struggle against Israel’s occupation.

Since the war in Gaza began, over 500 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, some in gun battles with Israeli forces, and others shot dead for posing no apparent threat.

Five Arab nations voice support for ceasefire talks

AMMAN, Jordan -- Five key Arab nations say they support efforts to negotiate a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that would lead to freeing hostages and detainees as well as bringing enough humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates held a virtual meeting Monday. In a statement from Jordan, they emphasized "dealing seriously and positively" with U.S. President Joe Biden's proposal. The deal offers the possibility of ending Israel's war against Hamas, returning scores of hostages held by the Islamic militant group, quieting the northern border with Lebanon and potentially advancing a historic agreement for Israel to normalize ties with Saudi Arabia.

The minsters called for the complete withdrawal of Israel's military from the Gaza Strip and starting reconstruction in war-ravaged Gaza, with a framework for reaching a two-state solution "with specific timings and binding guarantees."

Qatar and Egypt, along with the U.S., have been mediating the cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

Two members of Lebanon's Hezbollah killed

BEIRUT -- The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said Monday that two of its members were killed, announcing the names a few hours after a deadly Israeli drone strike on a car in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli military said its air force targeted an official with Hezbollah's air defence units identifying him as Ali Hussein Sabra. Hezbollah identified one of the two killed with the same name without giving any details about his work within the group.

The strike came two days after Hezbollah shot down an Israeli Hermes 900 Kochav, a medium-altitude and long-endurance drone that can carry four anti-tank guided missiles.

Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified in recent weeks, after Israel launched its offensive into the key southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Israeli drone strikes have killed dozens of Hezbollah members since exchanges of fire began on Oct. 8, a day after the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began.

Since then, more than 400 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah members. The dead also include more than 70 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, at least 15 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed.

Israeli embassy in Romania attacked

BUCHAREST, Romania — A foreign citizen has been detained in Romania’s capital after allegedly attacking the entrance of the Israeli Embassy with a Molotov cocktail. The attack caused a small fire but no casualties, local media and police reported.

A 34-year-old man was apprehended by antiterrorism officers from the Romanian Intelligence Service before police arrived at the scene, police in Bucharest said, adding that the suspect allegedly also tried to set himself on fire.

A police spokesperson told local news channel Digi24 that the incident was motivated by personal grievances and not by the international context of Israel’s ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. Police said that investigations are underway to establish the circumstances of the incident.

Israeli soldiers work on a tank in a staging area near the Israeli-Gaza border in southern Israel, Monday, June 3, 2024. (Leo Correa / AP Photo)

Ceasfire proposal would meet goal of eliminating Hamas: Netanyahu

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has not backed down from his goal of destroying Hamas and told his hard-line governing partners that a cease-fire proposal pushed by U.S. President Joe Biden would meet that goal, or else Israel would return to war, according to local media.

Netanyahu has faced a backlash from ultranationalists in his coalition who have threatened to bring down his government if he agrees to a deal that would end the war in Gaza without eliminating Hamas.

Biden last week announced what he called an Israeli offer that includes an “enduring cease-fire” and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza if Hamas releases all hostages it is holding. The outline released by the Biden administration does not explicitly talk of removing Hamas from governing Gaza or eliminating it. But in a speech Friday, Biden said Israel’s 8-month-old offensive had degraded the militants to a point where they could no longer carry out an Oct. 7 attack.

Netanyahu told the parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that there are certain “gaps” in Biden’s announcement. “Biden spoke about the outline but not all of the details,” he said during the closed-door session, according to Israeli media. He said that in the Biden plan, there are built-in measures to ensure all sides are upholding the deal before it progresses to the next stage.

“We reserve the right to return to war,” Netanyahu told the committee, according to the media reports.

In a video statement released by his office, Netanyahu said that in efforts to bring back hostages, “we have maintained the goals of the war, first of them the destruction of Hamas.”

“It is part of the proposal,” he said.

The text of the proposed cease-fire deal has not been made public. Hamas has said it views the proposal “positively.”

Talks on a deal ground to a halt last month. The main sticking point has been Hamas’ demand for a complete end to the war and full Israeli withdrawal from all of Gaza in return for all hostages’ release, which Israel has refused.

In its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war, Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people and abducted around 250 others. After a round of releases during a week-long cease-fire last year, Hamas is believed to hold around 100 hostages and the bodies of around 30 others.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 36,430 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. 

March will pass through Palestinian neighbourhood

JERUSALEM -- Israel police said Monday that an annual march that draws Israeli ultranationalists will pass through a dense Palestinian neighbourhood in Jerusalem's Old City.

The annual Flag March, planned for Wednesday, celebrates Israel's capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and its annexation shortly thereafter. Israel views all of Jerusalem as its unified capital.

The Palestinians want east Jerusalem, including the Old City with sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, to be the capital of their future state. They view the march as a provocation.

In past years, Israeli police have forcibly cleared out Palestinians from the parade route. The march has drawn thousands of mostly nationalist Israelis who waved flags and sang religious songs. Attendees have chanted racist slogans, such as "Death to Arabs" and "May your village burn," and fights have broken out.

In 2021, the flag march helped ignite an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This year, the parade comes nearly eight months into a far more devastating war, with tensions soaring across the Middle East.

Rights groups have called on Israeli authorities to reroute the parade away from dense Muslim neighbourhoods.

The police said in a statement that the route would be the same as previous years, entering the Damascus Gate and passing through the Muslim Quarter, a dense Palestinian neighbourhood, on the way to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray.

It says some 3,000 security forces will be deployed "to prevent any friction or violence of any kind." The police urged the public to "avoid any physical or verbal violence, and allow the event to proceed safely."

In previous years, coexistence organizations have held tolerance parades or a "Flower March," where hundreds of participants handed out flowers to Old City residents to show their opposition to the flag march.

Israeli strikes kill 11 in Gaza

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian health officials said Israeli strikes killed 11 people overnight into Monday, including a woman and three children, in central Gaza.

A strike on a home in the built-up Bureij refugee camp late Sunday killed four people, including three children. The second strike, early Monday, killed seven people, including a woman, in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Both camps date back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out of areas that became part of the new state. The refugees and their descendants make up most of Gaza’s population.

An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies as they arrived at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah on Monday and confirmed the details with hospital records.

Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because the militant group places fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in dense, residential areas. The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.

Iran leader says Israel 'melting down'

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Monday said Israel is melting down due to its war against Hamas in Gaza.

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Speaking in a ceremony marking 35th anniversary of late leader of the county Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khamenei said “Today, the Zionist regime gradually melts down before the eyes of the world’s people.” State television broadcast his speech live.

In a nearly 55-minute speech, the leader said that Israel's response to the Oct. 7th attack by Hamas that began the war placed it in a “dead-end corridor.”

Khamenei also said that the war had derailed Israel's U.S.-backed efforts to reach accommodations with regional neighbours, which he characterized as part of an Israeli plot to dominate the region.

Israeli military reports shooting down missile

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military says it shot down a surface-to-surface missile fired toward southern Israel from the Red Sea.

There were no reports of casualties or damage in Monday’s incident, which set off air raid sirens in the southernmost Israeli city of Eilat.

The military did not specify the missile’s origin, but it was likely fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have claimed several drone and missile strikes on Israel in recent months. Nearly all the projectiles have been intercepted.

The Iran-backed Houthis have also repeatedly attacked international shipping in the Red Sea, portraying their actions as a blockade of Israel in support of the Palestinians. But most of the ships that have been targeted have no known ties to Israel.

Israel finds body of man thought to be hostage

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military says the body of a presumed hostage was found in a community near the Gaza border that Hamas militants had attacked on Oct. 7.

Dolev Yehud, 35, was thought to be among scores of hostages held in Gaza until Monday, when the military announced the discovery of his body and said he had been killed in the initial attack.

His remains were found at Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he lived and worked as a paramedic. Dolev’s wife, Sigal, who was nine months pregnant on Oct. 7, gave birth to their fourth child nine days after the attack, according to Israeli media.

Medical professionals and scientists, including archaeologists, have spent months trying to identify remains found in communities attacked by Palestinian militants in the wide-ranging assault that ignited the war in Gaza.

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The surprise attack into Israel killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The militants abducted around 250 people, more than 100 of whom were released during a ceasefire last year.

The Israeli government says militants in Gaza are still holding around 85 hostages and the remains of 39 others.

Israel launched a massive offensive in response to the attack that has killed over 36,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their count.