Trump reiterates calls for Gaza ceasefire after saying a truce could be secured within a week
We are continuing our live coverage of the latest developments in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Israel’s war on Gaza.
US president, Donald Trump, has reiterated calls for a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.
Posting to Truth Social on Sunday morning, he wrote: “MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!”
Trump said on Friday that he believed it is possible that a ceasefire could be reached within a week, despite intense bombardment of the strip by the Israeli military and continued deadly Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians.
Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, with less than half believed to still be alive.
They were among 251 hostages taken in the Hamas-led 7 October attack on southern Israel in 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed.
Indirect talks between the two sides have faltered since Israel shattered a previous ceasefire in March that had come into effect in January.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group had informed the mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks, but reaffirmed the group’s outstanding demands that any deal must end the war and secure an Israeli withdrawal from the coastal territory.
As efforts to bring about a truce continue, Israel’s military has issued an evacuation order for the northern Gaza Strip, warning Palestinian people in parts of Gaza City and nearby areas of imminent strikes there.
“The defense army is operating with extreme force in these areas, and these military operations will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city center to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations,” military spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on X.
Key events
Germany’s interior minister Alexander Dobrindt expressed support for Israel this morning during a visit to the site of an Iranian missile strike near Tel Aviv.
It was the first visit by a senior foreign official since Israel’s war with Iaran ended on Tuesday after a ceasefire was announced.
“We must deepen our support for Israel,” Dobrindt said, speaking amid the rubble in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, where an Iranian strike killed nine people, including three children.
The comments came after Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, reportedly told lawmakers in the Bundestag last week that his country’s “reason of state is to defend the state of Israel in its existence” as he backed Israel’s “right to defend” itself against Iran.
On the sidelines of a G7 summit in Canada on 17 June, he had said Israel was doing the “dirty work… for all of us” by targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Germany authorized €326.5m in arms exports to Israel in 2023 — a sharp increase from previous years, according to Reuters.
But approvals fell last year amid mounting legal and political pressure over Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has been increasingly described as a genocide against the Palestinian civilian population.
During the 12-day war, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 627 civilians and injured nearly 4,900 others in Iran, according to official figures.
The war on Iran – cast as a preemptive attack for self-defence – was launched by Israel and later joined in by the US.
Both countries struck Iranian nuclear facilities but did not destroy the Iranian nuclear programme, likely setting it back by a couple of months, according to an early Pentagon intelligence assessment of the attack.
Israel claimed the attacks were necessary before its adversary got any closer to building an atomic weapon, although experts and the US government had assessed that Iran was not actively working on such a weapon before the strikes.
Israel has acknowledged being hit by more than 50 missiles during its war with Iran, resulting in 28 deaths, but the true extent of the damage may never be known due to stringent media restrictions.
Israeli airstrike on Tehran’s Evin prison killed at least 71 people, Iran’s judiciary says
Iran’s judiciary has said that the Israeli airstrike on the notorious Tehran’s Evin prison killed at least 71 people.
Judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir posted on the office’s official Mizan news agency website that those killed on Monday included staff, soldiers, prisoners and members of visiting families.
We have not been able to independently verify these claims.
The 23 June attack, the day before the ceasefire between Israel and Iran took hold, hit several prison buildings and prompted concerns about the safety of the inmates, many of whom were detained for political reasons by the Iranian government
France’s foreign minister, for example, said the attack was “unacceptable” because it endangered the lives of two of its citizens held there.
Jahangir did not break down the casualty figures but said the attack had hit the prison’s infirmary, engineering building, judicial affairs and visitation hall, where visiting family members were killed and injured.
Donald Trump said on Saturday that the US was “not going to stand” for what he framed as the continued prosecution of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges.
“The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
An Israeli court on Friday rejected Netanyahu’s request to postpone giving testimony in his corruption trial, ruling that he had not provided adequate justification for his request.
Netanyahu is standing trial for three charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. He denies the accusations levelled against him and say they are politically motivated.
Israel relies heavily on the US, a vitally important strategic ally that provides diplomatic cover and weapons that allow it to continue its assault on Gaza.
Trump reiterates calls for Gaza ceasefire after saying a truce could be secured within a week
We are continuing our live coverage of the latest developments in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Israel’s war on Gaza.
US president, Donald Trump, has reiterated calls for a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.
Posting to Truth Social on Sunday morning, he wrote: “MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!”
Trump said on Friday that he believed it is possible that a ceasefire could be reached within a week, despite intense bombardment of the strip by the Israeli military and continued deadly Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians.
Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, with less than half believed to still be alive.
They were among 251 hostages taken in the Hamas-led 7 October attack on southern Israel in 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed.
Indirect talks between the two sides have faltered since Israel shattered a previous ceasefire in March that had come into effect in January.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group had informed the mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks, but reaffirmed the group’s outstanding demands that any deal must end the war and secure an Israeli withdrawal from the coastal territory.
As efforts to bring about a truce continue, Israel’s military has issued an evacuation order for the northern Gaza Strip, warning Palestinian people in parts of Gaza City and nearby areas of imminent strikes there.
“The defense army is operating with extreme force in these areas, and these military operations will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city center to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations,” military spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on X.
