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Israel’s military said Tuesday that it had expanded its operations in Gaza, where residents reported fierce gunfire and shelling days before a planned trip to Washington by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.The intensified operations came after days of mounting calls for a ceasefire, with US President Donald Trump — whom Netanyahu is scheduled to meet next week — among those urging Israel to strike a new deal to halt the war and bring home the hostages still held in Gaza.Israel’s campaign to destroy the Palestinian militant group Hamas has raged on unabated, however, with Gaza’s civil defence agency reporting Israeli forces killed at least 26 people on Tuesday.In response to reports of deadly strikes in the north and south of the territory, the Israeli army told AFP it was “operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities”.Separately, it said Tuesday morning that in recent days it had “expanded its operations to additional areas within the Gaza Strip, eliminating dozens of terrorists and dismantling hundreds of terror infrastructure sites both above and below ground”.Raafat Halles, 39, from the Shujaiya district of Gaza City, said “air strikes and shelling have intensified over the past week”, and tanks have been advancing.”I believe that every time negotiations or a potential ceasefire are mentioned, the army escalates crimes and massacres on the ground,” he said. “I don’t know why.”Amer Daloul, a 44-year-old resident of Gaza City, also reported fiercer clashes between Israeli forces and militants in recent days, telling AFP that he and his family were forced to flee the tent they were living in at dawn on Tuesday “due to heavy and random gunfire and shelling”.AFP photographers saw Israeli tanks deploying at the Gaza border in southern Israel and children picking through the rubble of a destroyed home in Gaza City.Others photographed Palestinians mourning over the bodies of relatives in the city’s Al-Shifa hospital and the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza.- Aid seekers killed -The Red Cross warned that Gaza’s few functioning medical facilities were overwhelmed, with nearly all public hospitals “shut down or gutted by months of hostilities and restrictions” on supplies.”The International Committee of the Red Cross is deeply alarmed by the intensifying hostilities in Gaza City and Jabaliya, which have reportedly caused dozens of deaths and injuries among civilians over the past 36 hours,” the ICRC said in a statement.Gaza’s civil defence service said 16 people were killed near aid distribution sites in central and southern Gaza on Tuesday, in the latest in a spate of deadly attacks on those seeking food, with 10 others killed in other Israeli operations.Commenting on the incidents, the Israeli military told AFP its forces “fired warning shots to distance suspects who approached the troops”, adding it was not aware of any injuries but would review the incidents.Referring to an incident in Rafah, it said the shots were fired “hundreds of metres (yards) away from the aid distribution site”, which was “not operating”.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers.- Aid reform call -A group of 169 aid organisations called Monday for an end to Gaza’s “deadly” new US- and Israeli-backed aid distribution scheme which they said was leading to civilian deaths.They said the system forced starving civilians to “trek for hours through dangerous terrain and active conflict zones, only to face a violent, chaotic race” for food.They urged a return to the UN-led aid mechanism that existed until March, when Israel imposed a full blockade on humanitarian assistance entering Gaza during an impasse in truce talks with Hamas.The new scheme’s administrator, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), has distanced itself from reports of aid seekers being killed near its centres.- PM’s US visit -Netanyahu announced he would visit Trump and senior US security officials next week, amid mounting pressure to end more than 20 months of devastating fighting in Gaza.Trump vowed Tuesday to be “very firm” in his stance on ending the war when he meets the Israeli premier on July 7.”But he (Netanyahu) wants it too… He wants to end it too,” the US president added.Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP the group is “ready to agree to any proposal if it will lead to an end to the war and a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of occupation forces”.”So far, there has been no breakthrough.”

Once a bustling seafront spot where young people could hope for a rare respite from war, Gaza City’s al-Baqa cafe lay in ruins after an Israeli strike killed 24 people including a journalist and an artist.Blood stains dotted the debris-strewn floor in the aftermath of the strike on Monday, AFP footage showed. Upturned plastic chairs lay alongside wooden planks blown apart in the blast, as tattered fabric gently blew in the sea breeze.The strike triggered a fresh outpouring of grief in the Palestinian territory already devastated by more than 20 months of war, with social media flooded with posts paying tribute to the dead.”Gaza lost a rare talent. The world lost beauty and hope,” wrote two friends of the artist Amina al-Salmi, nicknamed Frans, in an Instagram post after the young woman’s death in the cafe.”The occupation killed her, but it will never erase her voice,” they added. One of the friends, journalist Noor Harazeen, drew parallels between one of Salmi’s last drawings and a photo of the attack showing her face covered in blood.Tributes have also poured in for Ismail Abu Hatab, described by friends as a journalist and videographer.During the final prayer before his body was laid to rest, his press vest was placed on his chest, as Gazans have often done for the numerous Palestinian journalists killed during the war triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.Salmi and Abu Hatab were among 24 people killed in the strike, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.Images of the bombed cafe showing several lifeless bodies flooded social media.Journalist and rights activist Bayan Abusultan was also seen in photos posted online, half covered in blood in the aftermath of the blast.”We survived to curse the occupation for one more day,” she wrote on Facebook.- ‘Sea the only refuge’ – The Israeli military told AFP it had “struck several Hamas terrorists” and that “steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”, adding that the incident was under review.The cafe was known before the war for welcoming young professionals and the few foreigners who were able to visit the Gaza Strip under Israeli blockade.Built in several sections, part of which was on stilts above the water, al-Baqa was damaged and then repaired several times in recent months, particularly during the two-month truce that ended in March.A few weeks ago, the cafe was once again able to offer an internet connection, attracting its pre-war clientele back.With food only trickling into Gaza, the kitchens were closed, but customers could still get a cup of tea to drink against a backdrop of destruction.Maher al-Baqa, who co-owns the establishment, told AFP that it is “one of the most well-known cafes on the Gaza coast, frequented by educated youth, journalists, artists, doctors, engineers and hardworking people”.”Young people are fleeing the tragedies and difficult conditions in Gaza. They come here for work meetings or just to relax a little.”Israel “has betrayed these people and bombed the place without any justification”, he added.Journalist Shrouq Aila, who shared photos of the cafe on Instagram, said: “The sea has become our only refuge”.Another journalist, Wassim Saleh, wrote on Facebook that “the sea continues to wash up pieces of bodies, which we bury.”Still in shock but moved by the messages of support, cafe owner Baqa said he lost four employees and three family members in the strike.”I felt, through the great solidarity of the people with this place, that they were defending what remained of their dreams in Gaza.”

The US foreign aid agency formally closed down Tuesday, with President Donald Trump’s administration trumpeting the end of the “charity-based model” despite predictions that millions of lives will be lost.Founded in 1961 as John F. Kennedy sought to leverage aid to win over the developing world in the Cold War, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has now been incorporated into the State Department — after Secretary of State Marco Rubio slashed 85 percent of its programming.In a farewell to remaining staff on Monday, former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama — as well as U2 frontman Bono — saluted their work and said it was still needed.Bush pointed to PEPFAR, the massive US effort to fight HIV/AIDS that he considers one of the top achievements of his 2001-2009 Republican presidency.”This program shows a fundamental question facing our country — is it in our nation’s interest that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is,” Bush said in a video message seen by AFP.Obama, who like Bush has been sparing in openly criticizing Trump, said that ending USAID was “inexplicable” and “will go down as a colossal mistake.””Gutting USAID is a travesty and it is a tragedy because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world,” the Democrat said.A study published in the medical journal The Lancet predicted that more than 14 million people would die, a third of them small children, by 2030 due to the foreign aid cuts.- ‘Little to show’ -Rubio painted a drastically different picture of USAID, which was an early target of a sweeping government cost-cutting drive led for Trump by billionaire Elon Musk.Rubio said that USAID’s “charity-based model” fueled “addiction” by developing nations’ leaders and that trade was more effective.”Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War,” Rubio wrote in an essay.He also complained that many recipients of US aid do not vote with the United States at the United Nations and that rival China often enjoys higher favorability among the public.A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that The Lancet study relied on “incorrect assumptions” and said the United States will continue aid but in a “more efficient” way.He said that PEPFAR will remain, with a priority on stopping HIV transmission from mothers to children.But he acknowledged the United States was no longer funding PrEP medication, which significantly reduces the rate of HIV transmission and has been encouraged by high-risk communities.”No one is saying that gay men in Africa shouldn’t be on PrEP. That’s wonderful. It doesn’t mean that the United States has to pay for every single thing,” the official said.He said the Trump administration was looking at “new and innovative solutions” and pointed to food deliveries in war-battered Gaza staffed by US military contractors and surrounded by Israeli troops.Witnesses, the United Nations and local Gaza officials have reported that Israeli troops have repeatedly opened fire and killed Palestinians waiting for aid — although the US-backed initiative, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, denies any deadly incidents.- ‘No line of defense’ -Bob Kitchen, the vice president for emergencies at the International Rescue Committee, said that the 14 million death prediction was consistent with what the humanitarian group was seeing.Among the group’s programming that was funded through USAID, he said that nearly 400,000 refugees who fled the war in Sudan have now been deprived of acute aid and that more than 500,000 Afghans, mostly women and girls, have been cut off from education and healthcare.European Union nations and Britain, rather than filling the gap, have also stepped back as they ramp up defense spending with encouragement from Trump.Kitchen warned that cuts will not only worsen frontline emergencies but weaken more stable countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya, which will have no back-up if rains fail again.Kitchen said that, beyond moral considerations, the cuts will aggravate migration, a top consideration for Trump.”It’s self-interest. If insecurity spreads, outbreaks spread, there’s no line of defense anymore.”

More than 14 million of the world’s most vulnerable people, a third of them small children, could die by 2030 because of the Trump administration’s dismantling of US foreign aid, research projected on Tuesday.The study in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet was published as world and business leaders met at a United Nations conference in Spain to try to bolster the reeling aid sector.The US Agency for International Development (USAID) had provided over 40 percent of global humanitarian funding until Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. Two weeks later, Trump’s then-close advisor — and the world’s richest man — Elon Musk boasted of having put the agency “through the woodchipper”.The funding cuts “risk abruptly halting — and even reversing — two decades of progress in health among vulnerable populations”, warned study co-author Davide Rasella, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).”For many low- and middle-income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict,” he said in a statement.Looking back over data from 133 nations, the international team of researchers estimated that USAID funding had prevented 91.8 million deaths in developing countries between 2001 and 2021. That is more than the estimated number of deaths during World War II — history’s deadliest conflict.- Children already dying -The researchers also used modelling to project how funding being slashed by 83 percent — the figure announced by the US government earlier this year — could affect death rates.The cuts could lead to more than 14 million avoidable deaths by 2030, the projections found.That number included over 4.5 million children under the age of five — or around 700,000 child deaths a year.For comparison, around 10 million soldiers are estimated to have been killed during World War I. USAID funding was found to be particularly effective at staving off preventable deaths from disease. There were 65 percent fewer deaths from HIV/AIDS in countries receiving a high level of support compared to those with little or no USAID funding, the study found. Deaths from malaria and neglected tropical diseases were similarly cut in half. Winnie Byanyima, head of the UN’s HIV programme UNAIDS, said the funding cuts could lead to an additional 6.6 million people becoming infected with HIV in the next four years. “We could see 4.2 million more AIDS-related deaths — that includes 300,000 children,” she told a press conference on Tuesday.South Sudan is already feeling the effect of the US cuts, said Denish Ogen Rwot of the NGO Action Against Hunger.”Already we are having children die,” he told AFP.A recently updated tracker run by disease modeller Brooke Nichols at Boston University estimates that nearly 108,000 adults and more than 224,000 children have already died as a result of the US aid cuts. That works out to 88 deaths every hour, according to the tracker.- More deaths from Europe, UK cuts -After USAID was gutted, several other major donors, including France, Germany and the UK, followed suit in announcing plans to slash their foreign aid budgets. These aid reductions, particularly in the European Union, could lead to “even more additional deaths in the coming years,” study co-author Caterina Monti of ISGlobal said.But the grim projections are based on the current amount of pledged aid, so could rapidly come down if the situation changes, the researchers emphasised.Dozens of world leaders — though no one from the United States — attended an aid conference in the Spanish city of Seville this week. A declaration was adopted reaffirming previous goals but it is not legally binding.This year’s aid cuts spearheaded by the United States could also nearly double the number of people forced to flee their homes this year, the Danish Refugee Council warned Tuesday.Before its funding was slashed, USAID represented 0.3 percent of all US federal spending.”US citizens contribute about 17 cents per day to USAID, around $64 per year,” said study co-author James Macinko of the University of California, Los Angeles.”I think most people would support continued USAID funding if they knew just how effective such a small contribution can be to saving millions of lives.”

K-pop supergroup BTS on Tuesday announced their comeback in the spring of 2026 with an album and world tour, prompting a fan frenzy as millions eagerly await their return.South Korea’s most lucrative musical act has been on a self-described hiatus since 2022 as its members undertook the mandatory service required of all South Korean men …

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Israel’s military said Tuesday that it had expanded its operations in Gaza, where residents reported fierce gunfire and shelling days ahead of a planned trip to Washington by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.The intensified operations came after days of mounting calls for a ceasefire, with US President Donald Trump — whom Netanyahu is slated to meet with next week — among those urging Israel to strike a new deal to halt the war and bring home the hostages still held in Gaza.Israel’s campaign to destroy the Palestinian militant group Hamas has continued unabated, however, with Gaza’s civil defence agency reporting Israeli forces killed 17 people on Tuesday.In response to reports of deadly strikes in the north and south of the territory, the Israeli army told AFP it was “operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities”.Separately, it said Tuesday morning that in recent days it had “expanded its operations to additional areas within the Gaza Strip, eliminating dozens of terrorists, and dismantling hundreds of terror infrastructure sites both above and below ground”.Raafat Halles, 39, from the Shujaiya district of Gaza City district, said “air strikes and shelling have intensified over the past week”, and tanks have been advancing.”I believe that every time negotiations or a potential ceasefire are mentioned, the army escalates crimes and massacres on the ground,” he said. “I don’t know why.”Amer Daloul, a 44-year-old resident of Gaza City, also reported fiercer clashes between Israeli forces and militants in recent days, telling AFP that he and his family were forced to flee the tent they were living in at dawn on Tuesday “due to heavy and random gunfire and shelling”.In the southern city of Rafah, resident Mohammed Abdel Aal, 41, said “tanks are present” in most parts of town.- Aid seekers killed -Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that eight people were killed near aid distribution sites in central and southern Gaza Tuesday, in the latest in a long-running spate of deadly attacks on those seeking food.One person was killed and 50 wounded when tanks and drones opened fire as crowds were waiting to collect aid near the Wadi Gaza Bridge in the middle of the territory, Bassal said.The civil defence said another six people were killed nearby while trying to reach the same aid centre.Asked for comment, the Israeli military told AFP its forces “fired warning shots to distance suspects who approached the troops”, adding it was not aware of any injuries but would review the incident.At least one more person was killed near another aid centre in Rafah, the civil defence said.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers.A group of 169 aid organisations called Monday for an end to Gaza’s “deadly” new US- and Israeli-backed aid distribution scheme, which they said forced starving civilians to “trek for hours through dangerous terrain and active conflict zones, only to face a violent, chaotic race” for food.They urged a return to the UN-led aid mechanism that existed until March, when Israel imposed a full blockade on humanitarian assistance entering Gaza during an impasse in truce talks with Hamas.The new scheme’s administrator, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), has distanced itself from reports of aid seekers being killed near its centres.The Israeli army said it had also opened a review into a strike on a seafront Gaza cafe on Monday that it said had targeted militants.The civil defence agency reported that the attack killed 24 people.Maher Al-Baqa, 40, the brother of the owner of the cafe, told AFP that several of his relatives including two nephews were killed in the strike.”It’s one of the most well-known cafes on the Gaza coast, frequented by educated youth, journalists, artists, doctors, engineers and hardworking people,” he said.”They used to feel free and safe there — it was like a second home to them.”The military maintained it had taken steps “to mitigate the risk of harming civilians using aerial surveillance”.- PM’s US visit -Netanyahu announced he would visit Trump and senior US security officials next week, after previously saying Israel’s campaign against Iran had created “opportunities”, including for freeing hostages held in Gaza.Israel’s declaration of victory in the recent 12-day war has raised pressure on it to put a similar end to more than 20 months of devastating fighting in Gaza.”Taking advantage of the success is no less important than achieving the success,” Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP the group is “ready to agree to any proposal if it will lead to an end to the war and a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of occupation forces”.”So far, there has been no breakthrough.”