Judges rule against human rights groups’ claim that the U.K. is illegally arming Israel.

Al-Haq alleged that the U.K. broke domestic and international law and was complicit in atrocities against Palestinians by allowing essential components for the warplanes to be supplied to Israel.

The government said the ruling showed it had rigorous export rules and it would continue to review its licensing agreements, a spokesperson said.

The government last year suspended about 30 of 350 existing export licenses for equipment deemed to be for use in the conflict in Gaza because of a “clear risk” the items could be used to violate international humanitarian law. Equipment included parts for helicopters and drones.

But an exemption was made for some licenses related to components of F-35 fighter jets, which are indirectly supplied to Israel through the global spare parts supply chain and have been linked to bombing the Gaza Strip.

While Al-Haq argued the U.K. shouldn’t continue to export parts through what they called a “deliberate loophole” given the government’s own assessment of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law, the government said the parts were distributed to a collaboration involving the U.S. and six other partners to produce the jets.

Components manufactured in the U.K. are sent to assembly lines in the U.S., Italy and Japan that supply partners -- including Israel -- with jets and spare parts, the court said.

Two High Court judges ruled that the issue was one of national security because the parts were considered vital to the defense collaboration and the U.K.’s security and international peace. They said it wasn’t up to the courts to tell the government to withdraw from the group because of the possibility the parts would be supplied to Israel and used to violate international humanitarian law in Gaza.

“Under our constitution that acutely sensitive and political issue is a matter for the executive, which is democratically accountable to Parliament and ultimately to the electorate, not for the courts,” Justices Stephen Males and Karen Steyn wrote in a 72-page judgment.

Al-Haq and the groups that supported it, including U.K.-based Global Legal Action Network, Amnesty International and Oxfam, described the ruling as a disappointing setback, but said they had already made significant gains in getting the government to suspend some arms exports to Israel and they vowed to continue pressing their case.

“Despite the outcome of today, this case has centered the voice of the Palestinian people and has rallied significant public support, and it is just the start,” said Shawan Jabarin, general director of Al-Haq. “We continue on all fronts in our work to defend our collective human values and work towards achieving justice for the Palestinians.”

Compared with major arms suppliers such as the U.S. and Germany, British firms sell a relatively small amount of weapons and components to Israel. The Campaign Against Arms Trade nonprofit group estimates that the U.K. supplies about 15 per cent of the components in the F-35 stealth combat aircraft, including its laser targeting system.

Brian Melley, The Associated Press

For the first time since the 1990s, #NATO did not include a reference to its commitment to the open-door policy in its final summit declaration, Izvestia writes. For over 30 years, this provision had consistently appeared in all of the alliance’s concluding documents. Experts believe the omission was a tactical decision aimed at avoiding provoking US President Donald Trump, who opposes Ukraine’s accession to the bloc. Nonetheless, NATO has not abandoned the open-door policy. The alliance continues to expand cooperation with post-Soviet states, including Armenia, Russia’s ally in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Russia is firmly opposed to NATO enlargement, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Galuzin told Izvestia.

"Everything at the NATO summit was done so as not to antagonize Trump. NATO has a long history. The alliance has outlasted many politicians and will outlast Trump. This is not a rejection of the open-door policy," Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and Governance at the Higher School of Economics Mikhail Mironyuk told Izvestia.

Thomas Graham, Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush for Russia and Eurasia, told the newspaper that the situation simply arises from the fact that the United States was opposed to including such a provision in the declaration, and this should not be interpreted as signalling a change in the other allies' position.

#Trump says he’s not planning to extend a pause on global tariffs beyond July 9.

Letters will start going out “pretty soon” before the approaching deadline, he said.

“We’ll look at how a country treats us — are they good, are they not so good — some countries we don’t care, we’ll just send a high number out,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” during a wide-ranging interview taped Friday and broadcast Sunday.

Those letters, he said, would say, “Congratulations, we’re allowing you to shop in the United States of America, you’re going to pay a 25 per cent tariff, or a 35 per cent or a 50 per cent or 10 per cent.”

Trump had played down the deadline at a White House news conference Friday by noting how difficult it would be to work out separate deals with each nation. The administration had set a goal of reaching 90 trade deals in 90 days.

Negotiations continue, but “there’s 200 countries, you can’t talk to all of them,” he said in the interview.

Trump also discussed a potential TikTok deal, relations with China, the strikes on Iran and his immigration crackdown.

Here are the key takeaways:
Few details on possible TikTok deal

A group of wealthy investors will make an offer to buy TikTok, Trump said, hinting at a deal that could safeguard the future of the popular social media platform, which is owned by China’s ByteDance.

“We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way. I think I’ll need, probably, China approval, and I think President Xi (Jinping) will probably do it,” Trump said.

Trump did not offer any details about the investors, calling them “a group of very wealthy people.”

“I’ll tell you in about two weeks,” he said when asked for specifics.

It’s a time frame Trump often cites, most recently about a decision on whether the U.S. military would get directly involved in the war between Israel and Iran. The U.S. struck Iranian nuclear sites just days later.

Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order to keep TikTok running in the U.S. for 90 more days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership.

It is the third time Trump extended the deadline. The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban — approved by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court — took effect.
Trump insists U.S. ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear facilities

U.S. strikes on Iran “obliterated” its nuclear facilities, Trump insisted, and he said whoever leaked a preliminary intelligence assessment suggesting Tehran’s nuclear program had been set back only a few months should be prosecuted.

Trump said Iran was “weeks away” from achieving a nuclear weapon before he ordered the strikes.

“It was obliterated like nobody’s ever seen before,” Trump said. “And that meant the end to their nuclear ambitions, at least for a period of time.”

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sunday on X that Trump “exaggerated to cover up and conceal the truth.” Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that his country’s nuclear program is peaceful and that uranium “enrichment is our right, and an inalienable right and we want to implement this right” under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. “I think that enrichment will not — never stop.”

Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on CBS that “it is clear that there has been severe damage, but it’s not total damage.”

Grossi also said the U.N. nuclear watchdog has faced pressure to report that Iran had a nuclear weapon or was close to one, but “we simply didn’t because this was not what we were seeing.”

Of the leak of the intelligence assessment, Trump said anyone found to be responsible should be prosecuted. Journalists who received it should be asked who their source was, he said: “You have to do that and I suspect we’ll be doing things like that.”

His press secretary said Thursday that the administration is investigating the matter.
A ‘temporary pass’ for immigration raids on farms and hotels?

As he played up his immigration crackdown, Trump offered a more nuanced view when it comes to farm and hotel workers.

“I’m the strongest immigration guy that there’s ever been, but I’m also the strongest farmer guy that there’s ever been,” the Republican president said.

He noted that he wants to deport criminals, but it’s a problem when farmers lose their laborers and it destroys their businesses.

Trump said his administration is working on “some kind of a temporary pass” that could give farmers and hotel owners control over immigration raids at their facilities.

Earlier this month, Trump had called for a pause on immigration raids disrupting the farming, hotel and restaurant industries, but a top Homeland Security official followed up with a seemingly contradictory statement. Tricia McLaughlin said there would be “no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine” immigration enforcement efforts.
Status of China trade talks

Trump praised a recent trade deal with Beijing over rare earth exports from China and said establishing a fairer relationship will require significant tariffs.

“I think getting along well with China is a very good thing,” Trump said. “China’s going to be paying a lot of tariffs, but we have a big (trade) deficit, they understand that.”

Trump said he would be open to removing sanctions on Iranian oil shipments to China if Iran can show “they can be peaceful and if they can show us they’re not going to do any more harm.”

But the president also indicated the U.S. isn’t afraid to retaliate against Beijing. When Fox News Channel host Maria Bartiromo noted that China has tried to hack U.S. systems and steal intellectual property, Trump replied, “You don’t think we do that to them?”

David Klepper and Ali Swenson, The Associated Press

Intercepted Iranian communications downplay damage from U.S. attack, Washington Post reports.

A source, who declined to be named, confirmed that account to Reuters but said there were serious questions about whether the Iranian officials were being truthful, and described the intercepts as unreliable indicators.

The report by the Post is the latest, however, to raise questions about the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear program. A leaked preliminary assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency cautioned the strikes may have only set back Iran by months.

President Donald Trump has said the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, but U.S. officials acknowledge it will take time to form a complete assessment of the damage caused by the U.S. military strikes last weekend.

The White House dismissed the report by the Post.

“The notion that unnamed Iranian officials know what happened under hundreds of feet of rubble is nonsense. Their nuclear weapons program is over,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was quoted as saying by the Post.

In an interview broadcast on Sunday on Fox News, Trump reiterated his confidence that the strikes had destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities. “It was obliterated like nobody’s ever seen before. And that meant the end to their nuclear ambitions, at least for a period of time,” he said on the “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” program.

Reporting by Phil Stewart and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Chris Reese

#Zelenskyy signs decree for Ukraine’s withdrawal from anti-landmine treaty. The Ottawa Convention bans signatories from acquiring, producing, stockpiling or using anti-personnel mines, which are designed to be buried or hidden on the ground.

They often leave victims mutilated if they are not immediately killed, and unexploded mines cause long-term risks for civilians.

Russia “is extremely cynical in its use of anti-personnel mines,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address.

“This is the trademark of Russian killers -– to destroy life by any means at their disposal,” he added.

More than 160 countries and territories are signatories to the Ottawa Convention, though neither the United States nor Russia have joined.

To enter into force, the decision still must be ratified by the Ukrainian parliament and notified to the United Nations.

The withdrawal would normally come into effect six months after the notification.

But according to the convention itself, if “on the expiry of that six-month period, the withdrawing state party is engaged in an armed conflict, the withdrawal shall not take effect before the end of the armed conflict.”

Zelenskyy said Ukraine -- more than three years into Moscow’s invasion -- was “aware of the complexities of the withdrawal procedure when it is carried out in wartime.”

“We are taking this political step and thus sending a signal to all our partners on what to focus on,” he added.

Confronted with the invasion, “Ukraine is compelled to give unconditional priority to the security of its citizens and the defence of the state,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

It said the decision to withdraw was “difficult but necessary” in order to “protect our land from occupation, and our people from horrific Russian atrocities.”.

The move follows similar decisions by Kyiv’s allies Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- all neighbours of Russia.

In March, human rights groups condemned their intention to pull out from the convention.

After decades in the U.S., #Iranians arrested in Trump’s deportation drive.

Mandonna “Donna” Kashanian lived in the United States for 47 years, married a U.S. citizen and raised their daughter. She was gardening in the yard of her New Orleans home when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers handcuffed and took her away, her family said.

Kashanian arrived in 1978 on a student visa and applied for asylum, fearing retaliation for her father’s support of the U.S.-backed shah. She lost her bid, but she was allowied to remain with her husband and child if she checked in regularly with immigration officials, her husband and daughter said. She complied, once checking in from South Carolina during Hurricane Katrina. She is now being held at an immigration detention center in Basile, Louisiana, while her family tries to get information.

Other Iranians are also getting arrested by immigration authorities after decades in the United States. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security won’t say how many people they’ve arrested, but U.S. military strikes on Iran have fueled fears that there is more to come.

“Some level of vigilance, of course, makes sense, but what it seems like ICE has done is basically give out an order to round up as many Iranians as you can, whether or not they’re linked to any threat and then arrest them and deport them, which is very concerning,” said Ryan Costello, policy director of the National Iranian American Council, an advocacy group.

Homeland Security did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment on Kashanian’s case but have been touting arrests of Iranians. The department announced the arrests of at least 11 Iranians on immigration violations during the weekend of the U.S. missile strikes. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said, without elaborating, that it arrested seven Iranians at a Los Angeles-area address that “has been repeatedly used to harbor illegal entrants linked to terrorism.”

The department “has been full throttle on identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and violent extremists that illegally entered this country, came in through Biden’s fraudulent parole programs or otherwise,” spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said of the 11 arrests. She didn’t offer any evidence of terrorist or extremist ties. Her comment on parole programs referred to President Joe Biden’s expanded legal pathways to entry, which his successor, Donald Trump, shut down.

Russell Milne, Kashanian’s husband, said his wife is not a threat. Her appeal for asylum was complicated because of “events in her early life,” he explained. A court found an earlier marriage of hers to be fraudulent.

But over four decades, Kashanian, 64, built a life in Louisiana. The couple met when she was bartending as a student in the late 1980s. They married and had a daughter. She volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, filmed Persian cooking tutorials on YouTube and was a grandmother figure to the children next door.

The fear of deportation always hung over the family, Milne said, but he said his wife did everything that was being asked of her.

“She’s meeting her obligations,” Milne said. ”She’s retirement age. She’s not a threat. Who picks up a grandmother?”

While Iranians have been crossing the border illegally for years, especially since 2021, they have faced little risk of being deported to their home countries due to severed diplomatic relations with the U.S. That seems to no longer be the case.

The Trump administration has deported hundreds of people, including Iranians, to countries other than their own in an attempt to circumvent diplomatic hurdles with governments that won’t take their people back. During Trump’s second term, countries including El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama have taken back noncitizens from the U.S.

The administration has asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for several deportations to South Sudan, a war-ravaged country with which it has no ties, after the justices allowed deportations to countries other than those noncitizens came from.

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested Iranians 1,700 times at the Mexican border from October 2021 through November 2024, according to the most recent public data available. The Homeland Security Department reported that about 600 Iranians overstayed visas as business or exchange visitors, tourists and students in the 12-month period through September 2023, the most recent data reports.

Iran was one of 12 countries subject to a U.S. travel ban that took effect this month. Some fear ICE’s growing deportation arrests will be another blow.

In Oregon, an Iranian man was detained by immigration agents this past week while driving to the gym. He was picked up roughly two weeks before he was scheduled for a check-in at ICE offices in Portland, according to court documents filed by his attorney, Michael Purcell.

The man, identified in court filings as S.F., has lived in the U.S. for over 20 years, and his wife and two children are U.S. citizens.

S.F. applied for asylum in the U.S. in the early 2000s, but his application was denied in 2002. His appeal failed but the government did not deport him and he continued to live in the country for decades, according to court documents.

Due to “changed conditions” in Iran, S.F. would face “a vastly increased danger of persecution” if he were to be deported, Purcell wrote in his petition. “These circumstances relate to the recent bombing by the United States of Iranian nuclear facilities, thus creating a de facto state of war between the United States and Iran.”

S.F.’s long residency in the U.S., his conversion to Christianity and the fact that his wife and children are U.S. citizens “sharply increase the possibility of his imprisonment in Iran, or torture or execution,” he said.

Similarly, Kashanian’s daughter said she is worried what will happen to her mother.

“She tried to do everything right,” Kaitlynn Milne said.

Kim Chandler, Claire Rush And Elliot Spagat, The Associated Press

#China’s humanoid robots generate more soccer excitement than their human counterparts.

Four teams of humanoid robots faced off in fully autonomous 3-on-3 soccer matches powered entirely by artificial intelligence on Saturday night in China’s capital in what was touted as a first in China and a preview for the upcoming World Humanoid Robot Games, set to take place in Beijing.

According to the organizers, a key aspect of the match was that all the participating robots operated fully autonomously using AI-driven strategies without any human intervention or supervision.

Equipped with advanced visual sensors, the robots were able to identify the ball and navigate the field with agility

They were also designed to stand up on their own after falling. However, during the match several still had to be carried off the field on stretchers by staff, adding to the realism of the experience.

China is stepping up efforts to develop AI-powered humanoid robots, using sports competitions like marathons, boxing, and football as a real-world proving ground.

Cheng Hao, founder and CEO of Booster Robotics, the company that supplied the robot players, said sports competitions offer the ideal testing ground for humanoid robots, helping to accelerate the development of both algorithms and integrated hardware-software systems.

He also emphasized safety as a core concern in the application of humanoid robots.

“In the future, we may arrange for robots to play football with humans. That means we must ensure the robots are completely safe,” Cheng said. “For example, a robot and a human could play a match where winning doesn’t matter, but real offensive and defensive interactions take place. That would help audiences build trust and understand that robots are safe.”

Booster Robotics provided the hardware for all four university teams, while each school’s research team developed and embedded their own algorithms for perception, decision-making, player formations, and passing strategies—including variables such as speed, force, and direction, according to Cheng.

In the final match, Tsinghua University’s THU Robotics defeated the China Agricultural University’s Mountain Sea team with a score of 5–3 to win the championship.

Mr. Wu, a supporter of Tsinghua, celebrated their victory while also praising the competition.

“They (THU) did really well,” he said. “But the Mountain Sea team (of Agricultural University) was also impressive. They brought a lot of surprises.”

China’s men have made only one World Cup appearance and have already been knocked out of next years’ competition in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Serbian riot police fire tear gas at anti-government protesters demanding an early election.

The protest by tens of thousands of demonstrators was held after nearly eight months of persistent dissent led by Serbia’s university students that have rattled Vucic’s firm grip on power in the Balkan country.

The huge crowd chanted: “We want elections!” as they filled the capital’s central Slavija Square and several blocks around it, with many unable to reach the venue.
Dozens of detained protesters handcuffed

Police handcuffed detained protesters, and an officer was seen injured on the ground during street battles in central Belgrade that lasted several hours. Six police officers and an unknown number of citizens were injured, police said.

“Serbia always wins in the end,” President Vucic said in an Instagram post.

Vucic, a former extreme nationalist, has become increasingly authoritarian since coming to power more than a decade ago. Though he formally says he wants Serbia to join the European Union, critics say Vucic has stifled democratic freedoms as he strengthened ties with Russia and China.

As the protest formally ended, the demonstrators threw eggs, plastic bottles and other objects at riot police who were preventing the crowd from approaching a downtown park. At the park, hundreds of Vucic’s loyalists have been camping for months to form a human shield in front of his headquarters in the capital.

Serbia’s Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said participants in the protest attacked the police. He said police used their powers to restore public order and “arrest all those who attacked the police.”

Police later said dozens of “hooligans” were detained but did not provide the exact number.

Some demonstrators wore scarfs and masks over their faces as they clashed with law enforcement, using garbage cans as protection against baton wielding police. Police used pepper spray before pushing protesters with their shields.

Tensions were high before and during the gathering as riot police deployed around government buildings.

“Elections are a clear way out of the social crisis caused by the deeds of the government, which is undoubtedly against the interests of their own people,” said a student who didn’t give her name while addressing the crowd from a stage. “Today, on June 28, 2025, we declare the current authorities illegitimate.”
University students playing a key role

At the end of the official part of the rally, students told the crowd to “take freedom into your own hands.”

University students have been a key force behind nationwide anti-corruption demonstrations that started after a renovated rail station canopy collapsed, killing 16 people on Nov. 1.

Many blamed the concrete roof crash on rampant government corruption and negligence in state infrastructure projects, leading to recurring mass protests.

“We are here today because we cannot take it any more,” student Darko Kovacevic said. “This has been going on for too long. We are mired in corruption.”

Vucic and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party have repeatedly refused the demand for an early vote and accused protesters of planning to spur violence on orders from abroad, which they didn’t specify or provide evidence of.

Vucic’s authorities have launched a crackdown on Serbia’s striking universities and other opponents, while increasing pressure on independent media as they tried to curb the demonstrations.

While numbers have shrunk in recent weeks, the massive showing for Saturday’s anti-Vucic rally suggested that the resolve persists, despite relentless pressure and after nearly eight months of almost daily protests.

Serbian police, who are firmly controlled by Vucic’s government, said 36,000 people were present at the start of the protest Saturday. An independent monitoring group that records public gatherings said around 140,000 people attended the student-led rally.

Saturday marks St. Vitus Day, a religious holiday and the date when Serbs mark a 14th-century battle against Ottoman Turks in Kosovo that was the start of hundreds of years of Turkish rule, holding symbolic importance.

In their speeches, some of the speakers at the student rally Saturday evoked the theme, which was also used to fuel Serbian nationalism in the 1990s that later led to the incitement of ethnic wars following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
Vucic supporters bused in to Belgrade

Hours before the student-led rally, Vucic’s party bused in scores of its own supporters to Belgrade from other parts of the country, many wearing T-shirts reading: “We won’t give up Serbia.” They were joining a camp of Vucic’s loyalists in central Belgrade where they have been staying in tents since mid-March.

In a show of business as usual, Vucic handed out presidential awards in the capital to people he deemed worthy, including artists and journalists. “People need not worry -- the state will be defended and thugs brought to justice,” he told reporters Saturday.

Serbian presidential and parliamentary elections are due in 2027.

Earlier this week, police arrested several people accused of allegedly plotting to overthrow the government and banned entry into the country, without explanation, to several people from Croatia and a theater director from Montenegro.

Serbia’s railway company halted train service over an alleged bomb threat in what critics said was an apparent bid to prevent people from traveling to Belgrade for the rally.

Authorities made similar moves in March, before the biggest ever anti-government protest in the Balkan country, which drew hundreds of thousands of people.

By Jovana Gec.

Dusan Stojanovic contributed to this report.

Russian drones struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa overnight, killing two people and injuring at least 17, Ukrainian authorities said on Saturday. Meanwhile, three attack helicopters and an anti-aircraft missile system were destroyed in the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula.

Ukraine’s Security Service agency deployed special drones to attack the Kirovske military airfield, a Ukrainian security official said on Saturday.

“Available data indicate the destruction of multi-purpose and attack helicopters Mi-8, Mi-26 and Mi-28, as well as the self-propelled anti-aircraft missile and gun complex Pantsir-S1,” according to the official, who spoke about the operation on condition of anonymity.

In Odesa, a drone slammed into a residential tower block in the city, causing damage to three floors and trapping residents, emergency services said. The two killed in the attack were a married couple, according to regional Gov. Oleh Kiper, who added that three children were among the injured.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, over 40 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight and on Saturday morning over western Russia and Kremlin-occupied Crimea.

Long-range drone strikes have been a hallmark of the war, now in its fourth year. The race by both sides to develop increasingly sophisticated and deadlier drones has turned the war into a testing ground for new weaponry.

Ukrainian drones have pulled off some stunning feats. At the start of June, nearly a third of Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet was destroyed or damaged in a covert Ukrainian operation using cheaply made drones sneaked into Russian territory.

Smaller, short-range drones are used by both sides on the battlefield and in areas close to the roughly 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a report published Thursday that short-range drone attacks killed at least 395 civilians and injured 2,635 between the start of the war in February 2022 and April 2025. Almost 90 per cent of the attacks were by the Russian armed forces, it reported.

More than 13,300 civilians have died and over 34,700 have been injured in the war, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said a June 11 report.

The Associated Press

At least 34 people killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as ceasefire prospects inch closer.

Israeli strikes killed at least 72 people across Gaza overnight and into Saturday, health workers said, as ceasefire prospects were said to be improving after 21 months of war.

Three children and their parents were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent camp in Muwasi near the southern city of Khan Younis. They were struck while sleeping, relatives said.

“What did these children do to them? What is their fault?” said the children’s grandmother, Suad Abu Teima, as others knelt to kiss their bloodied faces and wept. Some placed red flowers into the body bags.

Also among the dead were 12 people near the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City, which was sheltering displaced people, and eight more in apartments, according to staff at Shifa Hospital. More than 20 bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital, according to health officials.

A midday strike killed 11 people on a street in eastern Gaza City, and their bodies were taken to Al-Ahli Hospital. Another strike on a gathering in eastern Gaza City killed eight including five children, the hospital said. A strike on a gathering at the entrance to the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed two, according to Al-Awda Hospital.
Hopes for a ceasefire agreement in the coming week

U.S. President Donald Trump says there could be a ceasefire agreement within the next week. Taking questions from reporters on Friday, he said, “We’re working on Gaza and trying to get it taken care of.”

An official with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer will arrive in Washington next week for talks on a Gaza ceasefire, Iran and other subjects. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas have been on again, off again since Israel broke the latest ceasefire in March, continuing its military campaign in Gaza and furthering the territory’s dire humanitarian crisis. Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, fewer than half believed to still be alive. They were among 251 hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparking the war.

“What more is left to do in Gaza that has not already been done? Who else is left to eliminate?” Yotam Cohen, brother of hostage Nimrod Cohen, said Saturday evening as weekly rallies by families and supporters resumed following Israel’s ceasefire with Iran.
Over 6,000 killed since latest ceasefire ended

The war has killed over 56,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It says more than half of the dead were women and children. It said the dead include 6,089 killed since the end of the latest ceasefire.

Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of hiding among civilians because they operate in populated areas.

There is hope among families of hostages that Trump’s involvement in securing the recent ceasefire between Israel and Iran might lead to more pressure for a deal in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is riding a wave of public support for the Iran war and its achievements, and he could feel he has more space to move toward ending the war in Gaza, something his far-right governing partners oppose.

Hamas has repeatedly said it is prepared to free all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war in Gaza. Netanyahu says he will end the war only once Hamas is disarmed and exiled, something the group has rejected.
Hundreds have been killed while seeking food

Meanwhile, hungry Palestinians are enduring a catastrophic situation in Gaza. After blocking all food for 2 1/2 months, Israel has allowed only a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May.

More than 500 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded while seeking food since the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began distributing aid in the territory about a month ago, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Palestinian witnesses say Israeli troops have opened fire at crowds on roads heading toward the sites. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots and that it was investigating incidents in which civilians had been harmed while approaching the sites.

Thousands of Palestinians walk for hours to reach the sites, moving through Israeli military zones.

Separate efforts by the United Nations to distribute limited food have been plagued by armed gangs looting trucks and by crowds of desperate people offloading supplies from convoys.

Saturday’s death toll included two people killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting to receive aid near the Netzarim corridor, a road that separates northern and southern Gaza, according to Al-Shifa and Al-Awda hospitals, which each received one body.

There was no immediate Israeli military comment.

___

Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press journalist Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.

By Wafaa Shurafa and Sam Mednick.