Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
Israel killed at least 70 Palestinians in Gaza on Friday.
For detail on Israeli attacks in Gaza on Friday, go here.
GAZA NEWS & HEADLINES:
(To understand what’s going on right now between Gaza and Israel, go here. For a bit more critical background, skim this, this, and this. To read about a remarkable but underreported, 20-month-long peaceful protest in Gaza against Israel, go here.)
‘No other explanation’: children of Gaza doctor killed in airstrike believe he was deliberately targeted
The children of Dr Marwan al-Sultan, director of Gaza’s Indonesian hospital and one of the territory’s most senior doctors, said they believed their father was deliberately targeted in the Israeli airstrike that killed him on Wednesday.
Sultan died when an Israeli missile was fired into the apartment block in Gaza City where he and his extended family were staying after their displacement from northern Gaza. His wife, daughter, sister and son-in-law were also killed in the attack.
His surviving daughter Lobna said the airstrike specifically targeted the room her father was in. “All the rooms were fine except for his, the missile hit it precisely,” she said.
His son Ahmed said there was “no other explanation” other than that his father was deliberately targeted by the Israeli military. He also added that the floors where his father and their extended family were staying were the only parts of the block hit in the airstrike (continue reading here).
NOTE: This kind of precise attack is not new. Here is one particularly memorable example: while Gaza resident Mohammad Abu Al Qumsan was out, registering the births of his newborn twins, a rocket hit his apartment, killing his wife and the babies. Photos indicate that it was a targeted hit.
His wife had a presence on Facebook, where she announced the births of the twins – perhaps this was a fatal mistake. People have suggested that she was targeted because she had been posting on Facebook about how Israeli snipers have been targeting Palestinian children in the head and chest. She was also at risk simply by virtue of being a doctor – medical professionals and journalists are particular favorite targets for Israel. Read the story here.
Rehab, 8, was injured in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza that paralyzed half of her body.
“She always sees her siblings playing, running, and chasing each other, and she can’t join,” said Rehab’s mother. pic.twitter.com/7E6hxgDMPO
— Defense for Children (@DCIPalestine) July 4, 2025
Gaza’s hunger crisis is not a tragedy – it’s a war tactic
The catastrophe unfolding in Gaza cannot be understood solely through the lens of humanitarian crisis. What we are witnessing is not just a tragic consequence of war, but the deliberate use of starvation as a tool of political and demographic control. This strategy, designed to dismantle Palestinian society, amounts to a form of structural genocide.
The Israeli military and political leadership, in its pursuit of dominance and the erasure of Palestinian national aspirations, has moved beyond the tactics of bombardment and physical destruction. Today, its methods are more insidious: they target the core of Palestinian survival: food, water, and the means to endure (continue reading here).
31 Israeli soldiers killed by friendly fire in Gaza ground war: Report
At least 31 Israeli soldiers have been killed by friendly fire during the ongoing ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Army Radio reported Friday.
According to the broadcaster, 72 soldiers have died in total due to “operational incidents” since Israel launched its ground invasion of Gaza on Oct. 27, 2023, representing about 16% of the 440 Israeli soldiers killed in ground operations.
The breakdown of operational deaths includes 31 killed by friendly fire, 23 in ammunition-related incidents, seven run over by armored personnel carriers, and six in unspecified shooting incidents, the report said (continue reading here).
UBS, Goldman Sachs turn down banking ties with Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
NOTABLE QUOTE:
A staff member of Doctors Without Borders recounts horrific experience of going to a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution site:
Five trucks were parked to let people come in and take what they could. Then the [Israeli] tanks started advancing and we could see a lot of snipers in the area too. Suddenly, shots started coming from every direction. Whomever got a bag of flour, got shot in the head. The bags of flour were all over the ground. Covered in blood.
There were so many bodies on the ground. After that, a quadcopter came to where we were hiding under the rubble of one of the houses. [The quadcopter] told us to put our hands up and come out. It said ‘you are not allowed to take flour. Keep walking and don’t pick up any of the dead or wounded from the ground.’ Some people stayed, we could still hear the tanks firing. Young men, dying for a bag of flour.
CEASEFIRE NEWS:
(To get an idea about past ceasefires between Gaza and Israel and how they ended, check out this and this.)
Palestinian group Hamas says it has given a “positive” response to a United States-brokered proposal for a Gaza ceasefire, raising hopes of a possible breakthrough in halting Israel’s deadly offensive.
US President Donald Trump earlier announced a “final proposal” for a 60-day truce in the nearly 21-month-old war; Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to publicly endorse the plan.
Hamas said late on Friday that the group had submitted its reply to Qatar and Egypt, who are mediating the talks.
“The movement [Hamas] has delivered its response to the brotherly mediators, which was characterized by a positive spirit. Hamas is fully prepared, with all seriousness, to immediately enter a new round of negotiations on the mechanism for implementing this framework,” a statement by the group said (continue reading here).
Hamas Signals Green Light for Ceasefire, Netanyahu Warned: Gaza Not Controllable
WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM NEWS AND HEADLINES:
(For background on the West Bank, read this and this.)
A pizza box and a bullet hole
That was the only evidence left on al-Hardoub Street of the gruesome June 16 sniper attack on Uday Abu Juma’, 21, and Iyas Abu Mufreh, 12, in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of at-Tur, after authorities swept the scene the following day. According to family members, that night, all was quiet in the neighborhood.
Ten shots were fired, two of them hitting Uday and Iyas. Only when reviewing neighbors’ security camera footage of the street did they later realize that two Israeli snipers, positioned about 500 meters (550 yards) away on a rooftop, had opened fire on the family gathering without warning.
Israeli police stopped the ambulance, detaining Iyas’s father, Raed. The police accused Iyas and Uday of throwing Molotov cocktails and launching fireworks during the family gathering, and claimed that Israeli forces had opened fire in self-defense.
The day after the attacks, Israeli police reportedly came and removed the bullets and bullet casings left behind at the scene, took away broken glass, and cleaned away the blood left by the shootings. Only a single bullet hole on the car and the discarded pizza box remained. “They wiped the crime scene clean,” remarked their mother (continue reading here).
Netanyahu era sees 40% surge in Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank
Palestinian Detainees Endure Systematic Abuse, Hunger, And Disease
Colonizer Attacks Force Mass Displacement of Families Near Jericho
West Bank on Friday: Israeli Invasions, Land Theft, Abductions of Palestinians
OTHER NEWS AND HEADLINES:
Precedent-setting ruling on criticism of Israel in the Federal Court of Australia
In a landmark ruling, Justice Angus Stewart of the Federal Court of Australia rejected the adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, which conflates anti-Zionist or anti-Israel expression with anti-Jewish sentiment.
Justice Stewart explained: “Political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature criticism of Jews in general or based on Jewish racial or ethnic identity…
“The conclusion that it is not antisemitic to criticize Israel is the corollary of the conclusion that to blame Jews for the actions of Israel is antisemitic; the one flows from the other.”
Source: Federal Court of Australia Wertheim v Haddad [2025] FCA 720, 1 July 2025
‘Settlements in all but name’: Cyprus on alert over high influx of Israeli citizens
The opposition in Cyprus has recently warned that Israel is establishing a “backyard” in the EU island nation, in response to increasing property acquisitions in the country by Israeli investors.
The warning resulted in a diplomatic storm, with both Cypriot and Israeli officials condemning the opposition’s warning as “antisemitic.”
“Israeli buyers are purchasing significant land parcels and strategic economic assets,” spokesperson for the Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL), Stefanos Stefanou, said in June. “They are building Zionist schools, synagogues, gated enclaves … Israel is preparing a backyard in Cyprus, and this cannot but sound the alarm for us.”
“Israeli newspapers speak of a targeted policy of expansion of Israel in Cyprus,” he said. “We do not say that out of xenophobia or antisemitism,” he added, stressing that “Israel is occupying us” (continue reading here).
Cyprus: The new ‘Promised Land’?
Through golden visas and unchecked property deals, Israelis are swallowing up entire neighborhoods in Larnaca, Limassol, and Paphos. What appears to be real estate is now sounding alarms at the highest level. pic.twitter.com/cLFAM7V1dh
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) July 2, 2025
Israeli special forces launch massive raid in southern Syria
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – JULY 4, 2025:
- At least 58,338 Palestinians killed, 145,167 injured – including:
- at least 57,338 killed in Gaza (~16,500 children)
- at least 1,000 killed in the West Bank (~202 children)
- at least 135,937 injured in Gaza
- at least 9,230 injured in the West Bank
According to Palestinian authorities, during the ceasefire Jan. 19 – March 18 2025, Israeli attacks killed at least 170 Gazans, and Israel committed at least 962 ceasefire violations.
Since the Israeli army resumed its assaults on Gaza on March 18, it has killed at least 6,780 people. 33 Israeli soldiers (most recent July 2) have been killed during the same time period.
At least 652 Palestinians have been killed while trying to access aid parcels from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which started operating on May 26, 2025.
Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 14,000 more are still buried under rubble.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – July 4, 2025: ~1,622 – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 439 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel. (72 soldiers have reportedly died due to “operational incidents.”)
By one count, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 223 Palestinian journalists and media workers; Palestinians have killed 4 Israeli journalists (other groups have tallied between 185 and 291 Palestinian journalists killed – depending on the criteria used).
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
- 100 BBC Insiders Pen Letter Accusing UK Broadcaster Of Being “PR For Israel”
- US contractors say their colleagues are firing live ammo as Palestinians seek food in Gaza
- Israel has killed 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, 2023
- ‘Time for the Shabbos goy’: Andrew Cuomo announced new pro-Israel Democratic group
- UN report lists companies complicit in Israel’s ‘genocide’: Who are they?
- US approves $510 million arms deal for Israel
- No truce on horizon as Gaza’s children starve
- Priest warns: Christian town in Holy Land no longer safe amid settler attacks
- Leaked Chats Show Pro-Israel Extremist Group Betar Organizing Street Confrontations
- Israel kills nearly 600 Palestinians at aid centers: All you need to know
- The occupation has turned its prisons and camps into arenas for torturing detainees.
- Netanyahu Says It’s Antisemitic For Israeli Soldiers To Describe Their Own Atrocities
- ‘It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid
- Israeli forces fatally shoot 13-year-old Palestinian boy in the back near Ramallah
- The future of 12 Palestinian villages in the West Bank under threat
- Things Netanyahu Might Say if Injected With Truth Serum
- Trump to give $30m to Gaza Humanitarian Foundation despite violent and chaotic rollout of food distribution
- “Starving a Generation” report indicts Israel for weaponizing starvation as a tool of genocide
- Israel’s War in Gaza Has Killed Over 17,000 Children. These Are the Stories of 28 of Them
