Israeli strikes kill 25 people in Gaza as Supreme Court hears Shin Bet cases
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Israeli strikes kill 25 people in Gaza as Supreme Court hears Shin Bet cases
NEW YORK (AP) - Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight and into Tuesday killed at least 25 people, including eight children and five women, according to Palestinian medics. Gaza’s Health Ministry says the bodies of 58 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Supreme Court is hearing a group of eight cases challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s move to dismiss the head of the internal security agency.
Israel ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March and has cut off all food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza — a tactic that rights groups say is a war crime — while issuing displacement orders that have forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee Israeli bombardments and ground operations.
Israel’s war in Gaza, in its 18th month, has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel has vowed to escalate the war until Hamas returns dozens of remaining hostages, disarms and leaves the territory.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, and taking 251 others hostage. The group still holds 59 captives — 24 believed to be alive.
Military intervention is the only way to halt Iran’s nuclear program, insisted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“You go in, blow up the facilities, dismantle all the equipment, under American supervision, American execution,” he said in a video statement Tuesday, citing the U.S.-led intervention in Libya. Otherwise, he said, Iran will drag out talks for years.
Netanyahu repeated his support for U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial plan to force Palestinians to leave Gaza for other countries. He also said Israel would keep working against Turkey’s attempts to establish military bases in Syria, and would turn to Trump, who has a good relationship with the Turkish president.
Netanyahu said he told Trump that reducing Israel’s trade deficit with the U.S. to zero — per a request from Trump — was “the least we can do for the United States and its president who do so much for us.”
The U.S. had a $7.4 billion trade deficit in goods last year with Israel, according to the Census Bureau.
Iran’s foreign minister says he will have indirect talks with US envoy over Tehran’s nuclear program
Iran ’s foreign minister said Tuesday he’ll meet with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in Oman for the first negotiations under the Trump administration seeking to halt Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program as tensions remain high in the Middle East.
Speaking to Iranian state television from Algeria, Abbas Araghchi maintained the talks would be indirect, likely with Omani mediators shuttling between the parties. U.S. President Donald Trump, in announcing the negotiations on Monday, described them as direct talks.
There was no immediate acknowledgment from the U.S. that Witkoff would lead the American delegation.
Years of indirect talks under the Biden administration failed to reach any success, as Tehran now enriches uranium up to 60% purity — a technical step away from weapons-grade levels.
Both the U.S. and Israel have threatened Iran with military attack over the nuclear program, while officials in Tehran increasingly warn they could potentially pursue a nuclear bomb. Trump has imposed new sanctions on Iran as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign targeting the country.
