News roundup for Tuesday, June 16, 2026, Day 984 since Israel began its 2023 genocide on the Palestinian people.
Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
NEWS & HEADLINES FROM GAZA:
For some basic info on the Palestine-Israel conflict, go here. For more critical context, skim this, this, and this. To read about a remarkable but underreported, 20-month-long peaceful protest in Gaza against Israel, go here.
As gastroenteritis (stomach flu) spreads in Gaza, parents fear for their children: “We are no longer afraid only of bombs or starvation. We are now afraid of the food we eat and the water we drink,” said one mother. A doctor explained, “Overcrowding in displacement camps and the lack of effective health and food safety monitoring have heightened the risk of foodborne and waterborne illnesses.”
Gaza children running out of time to treat blast-induced hearing loss: “It was an extremely shocking moment… Your child is healthy, just beginning to say her first words, and suddenly the doctor tells you she has lost her hearing,” Mariam says, her eyes filling with tears.
Israel court rejects Gaza doctor’s release based on ‘confidential materials*’: Dr Hussam Abu Safiya has been detained since December 2024, held in harsh conditions with inadequate medical care. He appealed for release, but it was denied based on “confidential materials” withheld from Abu Safiya and his legal team. The Israeli military accuses him of being a member of Hamas, though it has not presented evidence. Physicians for Human Rights-Israel called the ruling “a severe moral and legal failure”.
*NOTE: Thousands of the Palestinians currently in Israeli prisons are administrative detainees, being kept indefinitely behind bars without charge, trial, or in most cases, access to a lawyer, on the basis of “secret evidence.” A growing number of detainees are children. Administrative detention is intended to be used only in “exceptional” circumstances, but Israel uses it widely. (Read more here.)
RELATED: Son of jailed Gaza doctor Hussam Abu Safiya fears for father’s life after court ruling
Behind the Screen, Netanyahu Is Annexing Gaza ‘Step-by-Step’: Mladenov, director of Trump’s so-called Board of Peace, insists on Palestinian disarmament before the ceasefire agreement can advance – without a single guarantee of Israeli compliance. This conveniently flips the narrative, reframing systematic starvation and the blockade of medical and construction supplies as a Palestinian failure to honor commitments.
MUST-WATCH: Palestinian resistance never agreed to disarm:
DEATH TOLL – GAZA GENOCIDE (tentative):
- At least 997 since ceasefire began Oct. 11, 2025 (247 children, 191 women)
- 5 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire began – one by friendly fire, and four others incidents during the first three weeks of the ceasefire.
- 73,008 killed (~22,000 children, 33,000 women and girls) since October 2023
- More statistics below
NEWS & HEADLINES FROM THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM:
Every day, Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem endure dozens of incidents like the ones below, at the hands of Israeli soldiers and/or settlers. For background on the West Bank, read this and this. For information on the significance of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, read this and this.)
Family of baby shot dead by Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank speaks out: “I held him in the morning; He was laughing and warm. Then evening came and I held him but his body was cold,” Fahd Abu Haikal, father of 7-month-old Sam, told NBC News.
West Bank: Colonizers (i.e. Settlers) Damage Water and Electricity Networks, Vehicles
Army Shoots a Child Near Ramallah, Abducts One Near Tulkarem
DEATH TOLL – WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM (tentative):
NEWS & HEADLINES FROM ISRAEL:
Israel is a tiny country, about the size of New Jersey, with a population smaller than the US state of Georgia – about 10 million (of which about 20 percent are Palestinians), yet it is in the news constantly. As has been demonstrated again and again, however, mainstream media rarely covers Israel news accurately. IAK gets the facts – sometimes from Israeli media sites, where we can get a glimpse inside this country that is rife with turmoil and contradictions, and that receives $63 million a day from America.
The passage of another death penalty law shows the one issue Israelis can unite behind: death for Palestinians: After passing two death penalty laws in six weeks, Israel is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to try to execute Palestinians on live TV. Unanimous support for the laws shows that Israeli society can unite around “death to Palestinians.”
ISRAELI MEDIA: The Israeli State Armed Settlers With Thousands of Guns. Now It Can’t Control Them: After October 7, the IDF distributed thousands of guns to settlers and drafted thousands more into territorial defense units. The result has been a dangerous blurring of the line between armed settler vigilantes and the Israeli state – a process integral to the vision of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners.
ISRAELI MEDIA: Ambassador Huckabee claims US would not exist without Israel: “It is your heritage, without a doubt,” Huckabee said in a conference Tuesday, “but it is also the heritage of the United States. Without Israel, without the Jewish foundation, there would not be America. We owe our very existence to what happened in this land.”
Huckabee’s statements came following claims made by US President Donald Trump: “Without me, there would be no Israel – because no other president was willing to do what I did,” Trump said in a bilateral meeting with the Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
*NOTE: Huckabee’s overtly Christian Zionist rhetoric has been problematic for years. In 2008, Huckabee famously told a rabbi in Massachusetts that “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.” During a trip to the West Bank in 2017, Huckabee said: “There is no such thing as a West Bank… There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
A Ha’aretz article on the occasion of Huckabee’s first 100 days on the job describes him as “a norm-defying diplomat [who] has largely acted in the interests of the extremist government in the country where he serves, even when that clashes with the broader interests of the country he is meant to represent.”
ISRAELI MEDIA: Ben and Jerry’s Has a New Zionist Ice Cream: The new flavor, “Milk and Honey,” is only available in Israel and contains tiny fudge pieces in the shape of Stars of David. The famous ice cream brand is sold in Israeli settlements, against the wishes and political beliefs of the company’s Jewish founders. (Read the backstory here.)
IRAN & LEBANON – NEWS & HEADLINES:
It can not be overemphasized that Israel is the impetus behind US policies and actions vis-a-vis Iran. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing the US to attack Iran for decades, using lies and deception. Under President Trump, he got his wish.
Israel has invaded Lebanon seven times in the last half century. Between 1978 and 2000, Israel maintained an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon — Hezbollah was formed to fight that occupation.
The US has rejected an official Israeli request to “review” the newly announced Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Tehran and Washington, Israel’s Channel 12 and i24 reported on 16 June. Israeli leaders remain unaware of the full details of the framework.
Iran Says Key Clauses Missing from Bloomberg’s Iran-US MoU Report: Iranian media challenged Bloomberg’s reported version of the proposed Iran-US memorandum of understanding on Tuesday, saying key provisions were inaccurately presented and significant details had been omitted ahead of the agreement’s expected signing. (Find the Bloomberg version here; another version, distributed by Arab media, can be found here.)
Trump criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent handling of Hezbollah: “I didn’t like that he [Netanyahu] did an attack based on … a very minor little thing with some drones that were released,” Trump said. “I saw that [Israeli] attack, I saw where that bomb went. That was vicious, that was too much.”
What would happen if US actually cut off military aid to Israel? If the U.S. wants to get its way with Iran, it must force Israel to back down, finally leveraging the roughly $4 billion in military aid the U.S. gives Israel each year.
Switzerland confirms US-Iran memorandum signing set for Friday at Burgenstock
Trump says Strait of Hormuz to be fully reopened by Friday on permanent basis
Israeli Air Force Chief Says Major Attack on Iran Was Called Off Last Week: The head of the Israeli Air Force has said that a major strike on Iran using the “entire Air Force” was called off last week after Iran bombed northern Israel in response to Israel’s strikes. According to The Wall Street Journal, when Trump spoke with Netanyahu before the Israeli strikes, and it became clear the Israeli leader wouldn’t call off his plans to attack Iran, Trump asked him to keep it limited.
At least four people were killed and several others injured in a series of Israeli drone strikes in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, despite ceasefire and recent understanding between the US and Iran to end the war.
President Donald Trump criticized Israel’s occupation and bombing of Lebanon at the G7 Summit in France on Tuesday: “Israel is fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed… you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody. There are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they’re not all Hezbollah.”
Israel has violated the ceasefire in southern Lebanon 84 times since the US-Iran deal was announced on Sunday, according to the unified command of Iran’s army. The army warned that Israel “should expect a harsh response” if it “continues to commit crimes and massacre the oppressed people of Lebanon”.
DEATH TOLL – WARS ON IRAN & LEBANON (tentative):
- United States: 13 (or more) since Feb. 28, 2026
- Iran: at least 3,636 (1,701 civilians) since Feb. 28, 2026 (another source puts the number at 3,499)
- Lebanon: at least 3,826 people since March 2, 2026
- Arab states: at least 154 (including Palestine, excluding Lebanon)
- Israel: at least 54 people (Iran killed 20 civilians; Hezbollah killed 30 soldiers, 4 civilians)
🚨 BREAKING: Lebanon files UN Security Council complaint accusing I$rael of violating the Chemical Weapons Convention in the south
Lab tests from Aita al-Shaab, Naqoura, and Dhaira confirmed catastrophic levels of Glyphosate—a cancer-linked chemical—in agricultural soil.
Normal… https://t.co/07wlfVbaYE
— Steve Sweeney (@SweeneySteve) June 15, 2026
MORE NEWS & HEADLINES:
U.S. Casualties in Iran Are Still Rising: For months, The Intercept has reported that the Pentagon’s official tally of dead and wounded military personnel from the Iran War is a gross undercount, stemming from a “casualty cover-up.” The Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, which tracks is missing hundreds of known casualties. The true number exceeds 625, not 413 as recently reported.
Sanders Says ‘We Must’ Strip Section on US-Israeli Military Integration From Pentagon Budget: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza – has called the section his personal plan.
RELATED: US-Israel integration in NDAA is far from ‘America First’ – Joe Kent
Hind Rajab Foundation* calls on US to arrest Israeli soldier attending World Cup
*NOTE: Read about the Hind Rajab Foundation and its effort to hold Israeli soldiers accountable here; find out who Hind Rajab was here.
AIPAC seeks assurances Iran deal ‘preserves Israel’s right to respond’: “We look forward to learning the full details of the framework for these negotiations, including whether the deal preserves the sovereign right of our democratic ally Israel to respond to the security threats it confronts,” the group said.
*NOTE: Israel usually manages to work a loophole into ceasefire agreements. For example, the statement of agreement between Israel and Lebanon (Hezbollah was not part of the negotiations) included:
“Israel shall preserve its right to take all necessary measures in self-defense, at any time, against planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks.(emphasis added). This shall not be impeded by the cessation of hostilities. Besides this, it will not carry out any offensive military operations against Lebanese targets, including civilian, military, and other state targets, in the territory of Lebanon by land, air, and sea.”
This clause has enabled Israel to claim that it was maintaining the ceasefire even as it has attacked southern Lebanon and destroyed entire towns.
Rights groups, including Amnesty, call for a halt of AI tech use in the military: Systems have been used to identify targets for air strikes based on Israeli mass surveillance records of Palestinians in Gaza. This has been pointed to as one of the reasons for the scale of the death toll in Gaza, with targets chosen by AI software with little or no human oversight.
*NOTE: From the earliest days of the Gaza genocide, Israel has employed AI to systematically attack targeted people at home, while they were surrounded by family, instead of while they were engaged in military activity. One of the AI systems was called “Where’s Daddy?”
RELATED: ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
Elon Musk’s Grok AI tool helped guide US strikes on Iran, legal briefing shows
Maersk Still Shipping Weapons Components to Israel, Despite Claiming Otherwise: “Maersk facilitated the transport of bullets Israel used to snipe Palestinian children in the head,” said one activist.
Bari Weiss’ Latest Hire Is on Brand: The new senior global affairs correspondent at CBS, Trevor Phillips, is also a pal of ex-UK ambassador Peter Mandelson, who was fired over his ties to Epstein.
ICYMI, A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:
Israel’s Top Court Rejects Appeal to Release Gaza Hospital Head From Solitary Confinement
Smotrich cancels Hebron* Protocol, ending Palestinian control in occupied city
Israel’s former defense minister compares settler ideology to Nazism
(Read yesterday’s daily update here.)
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – June 16, 2026*:
- At least 74,177 Palestinians killed, 185,896 injured – including:
- Gaza: at least 73,008 killed (~22,000 children, 33,000 women and girls), 173,260 injured
- West Bank/East Jerusalem: at least 1,169 killed (~244 children), 12,666 injured
*NOTE: Thousands of remains in Gaza have yet to be identified, and thousands more are still buried under rubble; others are reportedly missing.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – June 16, 2026: ~1,663 – including ~1,139** on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 472 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, about 52 military and civilians (by one count, there have been 59 victims) in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel (these numbers do not include deaths from the conflicts with Lebanon or Iran).
**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)
- Pro-Israel Donors Power Last-Minute Surge of Espaillat Spending
- “They Stole Our Home and Our Life”: Israel Permanently Displaces Syrians in Quneitra
- Massie Recognizes USS Liberty Attack. Here’s Why That Matters
- The blatant racism and cruelty that define Israel’s settler movement
- Israeli army ‘murdered child’ in Gaza and then dumped body on a roadside
- The Forward’s Hit Piece on Thomas Massie and USS Liberty Veterans
- Israel’s former defense minister compares settler ideology to Nazism
- The Pro-Israel Lobby’s Quiet Cash Shuffle
- Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) Propagandizes for Israel’s Wars
- Jared Kushner’s Israel-linked island, and other dubious projects
- Why Are Crypto Billionaires and AIPAC Spending $8+ Million to Elect Adrian Boafo?
- Why the Mainstream Media Should Stop Using the ADL as Their Go-To Antisemitism Source
- Censorship and Thuggery Won’t Save Israel’s Reputation
- Israel Searches for a Red Sea Foothold in Somaliland
