By Guardian-Yohannes Lowe /Joe Coughlan - Mon 30 Jun 2025 14.05 BST

Israel continues deadly attacks on Gaza ahead of potential White House talks on ceasefire. At least 38 people have been killed on Monday as Israeli officials are due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by the US.

As we mentioned in a previous post, Israel is continuing its relentless bombardment of Gaza after tens of thousands of Palestinians fled eastern parts of Gaza City in the north of the territory on Sunday after Israel warned of a major new offensive.

At least 25 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Monday, health authorities said in an updated toll, including 10 people killed in Zeitoun in southern Gaza City.

Two people seeking aid were also killed by Israeli fire near an aid distribution centre in southern Rafah, sources at the Nasser medical complex told Al Jazeera.

The attacks come as Israeli officials are due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by the US, which is fuelling the war by providing weapons to the Israeli military.

Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer is expected at the White House later today for talks on Iran and Gaza, an Israeli official said.

In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet is expected to convene to discuss the next steps in its widening assault on Gaza.

The Israeli prime minister has been accused of deliberately prolonging ceasefire negotiations – and blocking their progress – to ensure his own political survival by having the war continue.

Summary of the day so far

At least 38 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Monday, according to updated figures from health authorities.

Included in the casualties were 10 people killed in Zeitoun and at least 13 killed southwest of Gaza City. Medics said most of the 13 were hit by gunfire, but residents also reported an airstrike.

Palestinians in northern Gaza reported one of the worst nights of Israeli bombardment in weeks after the military issued mass evacuation orders on Monday, while Israeli officials were due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by the Trump administration.

Ron Dermer, a senior adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is set to travel to Washington this week for talks on a ceasefire, and plans are being made for Netanyahu to travel there in the coming weeks, a sign there may be movement on a deal.

Egypt, the US and Qatar are continuing efforts to try to negotiate a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, with mediators hoping that pressure from the Trump administration could help to achieve a deal.

In other developments:

• Britain’s decision to allow the export of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel, despite accepting they could be used in breach of international humanitarian law in Gaza, was lawful, London’s high court ruled on Monday. Al-Haq, a human rights group based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, took legal action against Britain’s Department for Business and Trade over its decision to exempt F-35 parts when it suspended some arms export licences last year.
• At least 935 people were killed in Iran during its 12-day war with Israel, Iranian state media reported on Monday, nearly a week since a ceasefire took hold. The death toll included 132 women and 38 children. Israeli authorities have reported 28 deaths in Israel as a result of retaliatory strikes from Iran over the war.
• The Iranian judiciary has revised the number of people killed in an Israeli strike on Tehran’s Evin prison, increasing the figure to 79 people. 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.
• US president Donald Trump has said he is not speaking to Iran and was not offering the country “anything”, as he claimed that America “totally obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear facilities when it struck them earlier this month. Trump’s comments, posted to Truth Social this morning, followed reports that his administration had discussed possibly helping Iran access as much as $30bn to build a civilian-energy-producing nuclear program.
• The US must rule out any further airstrikes on Iran if it wants to resume negotiations, Tehran’s deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, has told BBC News. Takht-Ravanchi said Iranian officials are hearing from Washington that the US wants to talk. He said no date has been agreed yet.

Iran's judiciary says Israeli airstrike on Evin prison killed 79 people

The Iranian judiciary has revised the number of people killed in an Israeli strike on Tehran’s Evin prison, increasing the figure to 79 people, Reuters reports.

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

Judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir previously said that the attack had hit the prison’s infirmary, engineering building, judicial affairs and visitation hall, where visiting family members were killed and injured.

He said staff, soldiers and prisoners were also killed in the attack.

We have not been able to independently verify these claims.

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Iran criticised on Monday US president Donald Trump’s shifting stance on whether to lift economic sanctions against Tehran as “games” that were not aimed at solving the problems between the two countries, Reuters reports.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told a press conference:

These [statements by Trump] should be viewed more in the context of psychological and media games than as a serious expression in favour of dialogue or problem-solving.

The comments came after the US president posted to Truth Social this morning, saying he is not speaking to Iran and was not offering the country “anything”. He claimed that America “totally obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear facilities when it struck them earlier this month.

At least 38 killed by Israeli strikes on Monday

At least 38 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Monday, according to updated figures from health authorities, Reuters reports.

Included in the casualties were 10 people killed in Zeitoun and at least 13 killed southwest of Gaza City. Medics said most of the 13 were hit by gunfire, but residents also reported an airstrike.

Palestinians in northern Gaza reported one of the worst nights of Israeli bombardment in weeks after the military issued mass evacuation orders on Monday, while Israeli officials were due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by the Trump administration.

The Israeli military said it struck militant targets in northern Gaza, including command and control centres, after taking steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.

There was no immediate word from Israel on the reported casualties southwest of Gaza City.

Israeli tanks pushed into the eastern areas of Zeitoun suburb in Gaza City and shelled several areas in the north, while aircraft bombed at least four schools after ordering hundreds of families sheltering inside to leave, residents said.

Salah, 60, a father of five children, from Gaza City, told Reuters:

Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like earthquakes.

In the news we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground we see death and we hear explosions.

Iran reports at least 935 killed in country over 12-day war

At least 935 people were killed in Iran during its 12-day war with Israel, Iranian state media reported on Monday, nearly a week since a ceasefire took hold, Reuters reports.

The official IRNA news agency quoted judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir as saying.

During the 12-day war waged by the Zionist regime against our country, 935 martyrs have been identified so far.

The death toll included 132 women and 38 children.

Israeli authorities have reported 28 deaths in Israel as a result of retaliatory strikes from Iran over the war.

Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that Tehran halted cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog due to what he called the agency chief’s “destructive” behaviour towards the Islamic republic, his office said on Monday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

Pezeshkian told Macron in a phone call late on Sunday, according to a presidency statement:

The action taken by parliament members... is a natural response to the unjustified, unconstructive, and destructive conduct of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Tehran has accused Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), of “betrayal of his duties” for not condemning the attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites, and Iranian lawmakers this week voted to suspend cooperation with the agency.

Israel said on Monday it is “interested” in striking peace agreements with neighbouring Lebanon and Syria, a potentially historic shift in the region after decades of war and animosity, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

With Syria under a new leadership after the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement weakened, Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar told journalists his government wanted more normalisation agreements with Arab countries.

“Israel is interested in expanding the Abraham Accords circle of peace and normalisation,” Saar said of the US-brokered deals that Israel signed in 2020 with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

Alongside his Austrian counterpart Beate Meinl-Reisinger, Saar told a news conference in Jerusalem:

We have an interest in adding countries - Syria and Lebanon, our neighbours - to the circle of peace and normalisation while safeguarding Israel’s essential and security interests.

Saar insisted that the Golan Heights, which Israel seized in 1967 and later annexed in a move not recognised by the UN, “will remain part of the State of Israel” under any future peace agreement.

Following Assad’s overthrow in December, Israel moved forces into the UN-patrolled demilitarised zone in the Golan, and has carried out hundreds of strikes against military targets in Syria.

There was no immediate response from Lebanese or Syrian officials to Saar’s remarks.

ActionAid UK has expressed “disappointment” at the high court dismissing Al-Haq’s challenge over the British government’s decision to continue exporting parts of fighter jets to Israel.

The F-35 programme is an international defence programme which produces and maintains the fighter jets, with the UK contributing components for both assembly lines and an international pool.

Israel has used the jets to devastating effect in its deadly bombardment of Gaza, killing many civilians.

Hannah Bond, co-CEO at ActionAid UK, said the arms sales to Israel violate the British government’s “international legal obligations”.

Reacting to the ruling, she said:

By allowing arms sales to continue, the Court’s decision means UK weapons will keep fuelling death and destruction in Gaza, showing yet again that to this Government, human suffering is just the price of doing business.

This verdict ignores the devastating reality on the ground as people are being killed, starved, and forced to live under intense siege. We implore the government to do what the courts would not: end all arms sales to Israel and act now to help lift the blockade that is starving people in Gaza.

Israel has been accused of committing genocide in Gaza, including by the former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, the Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez and Amnesty International.

UK’s sale of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel is lawful, high court rules

Britain’s decision to allow the export of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel, despite accepting they could be used in breach of international humanitarian law in Gaza, was lawful, London’s high court ruled on Monday.

Al-Haq, a human rights group based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, took legal action against Britain’s Department for Business and Trade over its decision to exempt F-35 parts when it suspended some arms export licences last year.

The UK had assessed that Israel was not committed to complying with international humanitarian law, in relation to humanitarian access and the treatment of detainees, as the basis for its decision.

But Britain decided to “carve out” F-35 licences, with the government saying suspending those licences would disrupt a global programme that supplies parts for the aircraft, with a knock-on impact on international security.

Any such disruption would “undermine US confidence in the UK and Nato”, the Ministry of Defence said.

Al-Haq argued at a hearing last month that the decision was unlawful as it was in breach of Britain’s obligations under international law, including the Geneva conventions.

But the high court dismissed the group’s challenge in a written ruling.

Here are some of the latest images being sent to us over the newswires from Gaza:

Israel continues deadly attacks on Gaza ahead of potential White House talks on ceasefire

As we mentioned in a previous post, Israel is continuing its relentless bombardment of Gaza after tens of thousands of Palestinians fled eastern parts of Gaza City in the north of the territory on Sunday after Israel warned of a major new offensive.

At least 25 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Monday, health authorities said in an updated toll, including 10 people killed in Zeitoun in southern Gaza City.

Two people seeking aid were also killed by Israeli fire near an aid distribution centre in southern Rafah, sources at the Nasser medical complex told Al Jazeera.

The attacks come as Israeli officials are due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by the US, which is fuelling the war by providing weapons to the Israeli military.

Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer is expected at the White House later today for talks on Iran and Gaza, an Israeli official said.

In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet is expected to convene to discuss the next steps in its widening assault on Gaza.

The Israeli prime minister has been accused of deliberately prolonging ceasefire negotiations – and blocking their progress – to ensure his own political survival by having the war continue.

France, Germany and the UK have condemned “threats” against the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, after Iran rejected its request to visit nuclear facilities bombed by Israel and the US.

Tehran has accused Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), of “betrayal of his duties” for not condemning the attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites, and Iranian lawmakers this week voted to suspend cooperation with the agency.

In a joint statement, foreign ministers Jean-Noel Barrot, Johann Wadephul and David Lammy said:

France, Germany and the United Kingdom condemn threats against the director general of the IAEA Rafael Grossi and reiterate our full support to the agency.

We call on Iranian authorities to refrain from any steps to cease cooperation with the IAEA.

We urge Iran to immediately resume full cooperation in line with its legally binding obligations, and to take all necessary steps to ensure the safety and security of IAEA personnel.

Edward Helmore is a reporter for the Guardian who frequently covers US news

Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that the Islamic republic’s nuclear enrichment “will never stop” because it is permitted for “peaceful energy” purposes under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

“The enrichment is our right, an inalienable right, and we want to implement this right,” Iravani told CBS News, adding that Iran was ready for negotiations but “unconditional surrender is not negotiation. It is dictating the policy toward us.”

But Iravani said Tehran is “ready for the negotiation, but after this aggression, it is not proper condition for a new round of the negotiation, and there is no request for negotiation and meeting with the president”.

The Iranian UN envoy also denied that there are any threats from his government to the safety of Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or against the agency’s inspectors, who are accused by some Iranian officials of helping Israel justify its attacks.

IAEA inspectors are in Iran but do not have access to Iran’s nuclear facilities.

US must rule out more airstrikes before talks resume, Iranian deputy foreign minister says

The US must rule out any further airstrikes on Iran if it wants to resume negotiations, Tehran’s deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, has told BBC News.

Takht-Ravanchi said Iranian officials are hearing from Washington that the US wants to talk. He said no date has been agreed yet.

The deputy foreign minister told the BBC’s chief international correspondent, Lyse Doucet:

Right now we are seeking an answer to this question: are we going to see a repetition of an act of aggression while we are engaging in dialogue. They have not made their position clear yet.

The US and Iran were in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme when Israel hit Iranian nuclear sites earlier this month, upending any diplomatic progress that had been made through talks.

The US took the risky move of directly joining Israel’s bombing campaign on 21 June, with Donald Trump subsequently announcing it had “totally oblitareated” three Iranian uranium enrichment sites – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said diplomacy was not an option after the US attack.

Takht-Ravanchi told BBC News that Iran’s programme, including enriching uranium to 60%, was being carried out “for peaceful purposes”. Once purity levels reach 60%, it is not a lengthy process to proceed to the 90% required for a nuclear weapon.

“To say that you should not have enrichment, you should have zero enrichment and if you do not agree we will bomb you – that is the law of the jungle,” Takht-Ravanchi added.

Al Jazeera has been told by sources in Gaza hospitals that at least 16 Palestinian people have been killed in Israeli attacks since dawn after being targeted in areas including the southern city of Khan Younis and Gaza City and Jabalia in the north.

What is the latest on the efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza?

Ron Dermer, a senior adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is set to travel to Washington this week for talks on a ceasefire, and plans are being made for Netanyahu to travel there in the coming weeks, a sign there may be movement on a deal, an Israeli official has told the Associated Press.

Egypt, the US and Qatar are continuing efforts to try to negotiate a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, with mediators hoping that pressure from the Trump administration could help to achieve a deal.

Egypt’s foreign minister has reportedly said Cairo is working on a new proposal that includes a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of some Israeli hostages.

Hamas official Mahmoud Merdawi has accused Netanyahu of stalling progress on a deal, saying the Israeli leader insists on a temporary agreement that would free just 10 of the hostages. About 50 hostages remain, with less than half believed to be alive.

Netanyahu spokesperson Omer Dostri said that “Hamas was the only obstacle to ending the war,” without addressing Merdawi’s claim.

Hamas says it is willing to free all the hostages in exchange for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops and an end to the war. Israel rejects that offer, saying it will agree to end its assault if Hamas surrenders, disarms and goes into exile, something the Palestinian militant group refuses to do.

The 12 day war on Iran – framed by Israel as a preemptive attack for self-defence – was launched by Benjamin Netanyahu 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 attacks.

In an interview Sunday with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Donald Trump repeated his disputed claim that the 21 June airstrikes aimed at certain Iranian facilities successfully crippled Iran’s nuclear program.

As my colleague Marina Dunbar notes in this story, he insisted the attacks destroyed key enriched uranium stockpiles, despite Iranian assertions that the material had been relocated before the strikes.

Trump says he is not 'offering Iran anything' or speaking to the country since the US 'obliterated their nuclear facilities'

US president Donald Trump has said he is not speaking to Iran and was not offering the country “anything”, as he claimed that America “totally obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear facilities when it struck them earlier this month.

Trump’s comments, posted to Truth Social this morning, followed reports that his administration had discussed possibly helping Iran access as much as $30bn to build a civilian-energy-producing nuclear program.

The reported proposal would mark a major reversal in policy for Trump, who exited Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran in 2018, claiming the sanction relief and unfreezing of assets provided Tehran with “a lifeline of cash”.

Trump wrote:

Tell phony Democrat Senator Chris Coons that I am not offering Iran ANYTHING, unlike Obama, who paid them $Billions under the stupid “road to a Nuclear Weapon JCPOA (which would now be expired!), nor am I even talking to them since we totally OBLITERATED their Nuclear Facilities.

For context: Chris Coons, a senior Democratic member of the Senate foreign relations committee, said last week that it was too early to reach a “conclusive estimate” of how much damage was done by American airstrikes to Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme.

Coons told MSNBC:

It is important that we do not politicise the career professionals in our intelligence community. So whether it is President Trump immediately declaring that the entire programme was obliterated, which to me seems entirely premature.

Or whether it is a characterisation of specific sites and capabilities and how much they were harmed – that is a matter of being more precise.

Opening summary

Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed 23 people in Gaza on Sunday, the territory’s civil defence agency said, as tens of thousands of Palestinian people were fleeing eastern parts of Gaza City after Israel warned of a major assault on the north.

Agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said at least three children were among those killed in airstrikes at five locations around Gaza and another person died from Israeli fire near an aid distribution centre.

On Gaza City in the north, messages on social media from the Israel Defense Forces warned of “military operations [that] will escalate, intensify and extend westward to the city centre” and directed those living in several crowded neighbourhoods to al-Mawasi, a coastal area much farther south that is already overcrowded and has very limited facilities.

Witnesses described scenes of chaos as entire families tried to pack their remaining belongings, tents and meagre stocks of foods on to donkey carts, bicycles, improvised pickup trucks and cars, my colleague Jason Burke reports.

In other developments:

• Mahmud Bassal said two children were killed in an airstrike on their home in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood early on Sunday and “the house was completely destroyed”. A member of the family, Abdel Rahman Azzam, 45, told AFP he was at home and “heard a huge explosion at my relative’s house”. “I rushed out in panic and saw the house destroyed and on fire.”
• Bassal said a drone strike on a tent housing displaced people near the southern city of Khan Younis killed five people including a child. Other casualties included a young man killed “by Israeli fire this morning while waiting for aid” near a humanitarian distribution centre in the southern city of Rafah, the Gaza civil defence spokesperson said.
• Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Sunday his country’s “victory” over Iran in their 12-day war had created “opportunities”, including for freeing hostages held in Gaza. The main group representing hostages’ families welcomed “the fact that after 20 months, the return of the hostages has finally been designated as the top priority by the prime minister”.
• Donald Trump reiterated calls for a swift end to Israel’s war on Gaza. “Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back,” the US president posted on his Truth Social platform.
• Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, brokered by Qatar and Egypt, are continuing but without clear sign of a breakthrough.

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Editors Comments.

We must ALL help stop this massacre

ENOUGH !! - HERE IS A REPORT TO THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (ICC.)

You can do the same, just change the signature to your own.