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Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to bring home all the hostages still held by militants in war-stricken Gaza, where the civil defence agency said 73 people were killed Thursday in his country’s ongoing offensive.Netanyahu has come under strong pressure to get the hostages back after US President Donald Trump said Israel had agreed to a 60-day ceasefire with Palestinian militant group Hamas that could lead to their release.”I feel a deep commitment, first and foremost, to ensure the return of all our abductees, all of them,” Netanyahu told inhabitants of the Nir Oz kibbutz, the community that saw the most hostages seized in the 2023 Hamas attacks that sparked the war.”We will bring them all back,” he added, in filmed comments released by his office.Netanyahu is due to meet Trump in Washington DC next week, with the US president expected to push for a ceasefire.   “I want the people of Gaza to be safe more importantly,” Trump told reporters Thursday when asked if he still wanted the US to take over the Palestinian territory, as he announced in February. “They’ve gone through hell.”Israel’s leaders have held firm to their aim of crushing Hamas, even as the group said Tuesday it was discussing new proposals for a ceasefire from mediators.- Israeli offensive expands -Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where its war on Hamas militants has created dire humanitarian conditions and displaced nearly all of the territory’s population of more than two million.Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have repeatedly come under Israeli attacks that the military often says target Hamas militants hiding among civilians.Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said those killed Thursday included 15 in a strike on a school sheltering Palestinians displaced by the war.In an updated toll on Thursday evening, he told AFP that 73 people were killed across the territory by Israeli strikes, artillery or gunfire.They included 38 people he said were waiting for humanitarian aid at three separate locations in central and southern Gaza, and a child killed by a drone in Jabalia in the north.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency.- Israel says targeted ‘terrorist’ -Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said regarding the Gaza city school incident that it “struck a key Hamas terrorist who was operating in a Hamas command and control centre in Gaza City”.”Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence,” it added.Regarding numerous other strikes across the territory on Thursday, it said it could not comment in detail without precise coordinates and times.”In response to Hamas’ barbaric attacks, the IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities,” it told AFP.It said it “follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.Bassal said later in a message that the army was refusing to let the civil defence into three neighbourhoods of the city where he said people were trapped under rubble, some of them still alive.The Israeli military did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on the claim.- Strike hits school: civil defence -At the Gaza City school compound hit on Thursday, AFP footage showed young children wandering through the charred, bombed out building, as piles of burnt debris smouldered.Groups of Palestinians picked through the rubble and damaged furniture that littered the floor.Umm Yassin Abu Awda, among mourners who gathered at the city’s Al-Shifa hospital after the strike, said: “This isn’t a life. We’ve suffered enough.””Either you (Israel) strike us with a nuclear bomb and end it all, or people’s conscience needs to finally wake up.”Bassal of the civil defence agency reported 25 people killed while seeking aid near the Netzarim area in central Gaza, six others at another location nearby and seven in Rafah, southern Gaza, with scores of people injured.They were the latest in a string of deadly incidents that have hit people trying to receive scarce supplies.The US- and Israeli-backed aid distribution group Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has distanced itself from reports of people being killed while seeking food from its sites.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that prompted the Israeli offensive resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,130 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.

Wall Street stock indices finished at fresh records Thursday following solid US jobs data as President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget bill successfully reached the congressional finish line.The US economy added 147,000 jobs in June while unemployment dipped to 4.1 percent from 4.2 percent, a sign of US labor market resilience despite the White House’s wave …

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UN rights expert Francesca Albanese on Thursday denounced companies she said “profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide”, in a report that provoked a furious response from Israel.Some of the companies named in her report also raised objections.Albanese presented her report, investigating “the corporate machinery sustaining the Israeli settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians”, to the UN Human Rights Council.Companies should stop all business activities and relationships that caused or contributed to rights violations and international crimes, she argued.In response, Israel’s mission in Geneva said Albanese’s report was motivated by her “obsessive, hate-driven agenda to delegitimise the state of Israel”.It was “legally groundless, defamatory and a flagrant abuse of office”, it added.Swiss mining and commodity trading giant Glencore, named in the report, also denounced her allegations as “unfounded”.- Machinery of erasure’ -Albanese is the UN’s special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.She described the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as “apocalyptic” as she presented the report.”In Gaza, Palestinians continue to endure suffering beyond imagination,” she added.Businesses from arms makers to supermarkets and universities had facilitated “this machinery of erasure”, Albanese told the UN’s top rights body.Some had supplied the financial and general infrastructure for Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories, she said.”All have helped entrench apartheid and enable the slow, inexorable destruction of Palestinian life.”Her presentation Thursday was received with applause in the chamber.But Albanese has faced harsh criticism, allegations of anti-Semitism and demands for her removal, from Israel and some of its allies, over her relentless criticism and long-standing accusations of “genocide”.While appointed by the Human Rights Council she does not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself.- ‘Profited from the violence’ -Albanese told journalists she had contacted all 48 companies named in her report, entitled “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide”.Eighteen had responded and “only a small number engaged with me in good faith”, most of them saying “there was absolutely nothing wrong”.”There have been people and organisations who have profited from the violence, the killing,” she said.”My report exposes a system, something that is so structural and so widespread and so systemic that there is no possibility to fix it and redress it: it needs to be dismantled.”Albanese said the first responsibility to take action was on countries, then on companies, then their consumers.However, “we are part of a system where we are all entangled and choices that we make… have an impact elsewhere”, she said.”There is a possibility for consumers to hold these companies accountable, because somewhat we vote through our wallets.”- ‘Unsubstantiated’ -AFP sought a comment from several companies named in the report. Some did not respond. Travel platform Booking.com said: “Our mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world and as such we believe it’s not our place to decide where someone can or cannot travel.” A communications firm representing Microsoft said the tech giant “doesn’t have anything to share”.Danish shipping giant Maersk said it disagreed with many of Albanese’s assertions.Maersk “remains committed to following international standards for responsible business conduct”, it said.Since the war between Israel and Hamas began, “we have maintained a strict policy of not shipping weapons or ammunition to Israel”, it added.A Volvo Group spokesman told AFP: “We obviously respect human rights in accordance with the United Nations framework.”We have no operations of our own, either in Palestine or in Israel, but rather sell through resellers,” he added.Glencore, in its response, said: “We categorically reject all the allegations appearing in this report and consider them unsubstantiated and devoid of any legal basis.”Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that prompted the Israeli offensive resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,130 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and violence has surged in the territory since October 2023.rjm-burs/vog/jj

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday outlined plans for deeper ties between his country and Africa, as New Delhi increasingly vies for a stronger economic presence on the continent along with China and Russia.In a speech to Ghana’s parliament, Modi highlighted a major rail project that opened in the west African nation last year, …

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US President Donald Trump this week urged the Palestinian militant group Hamas to seize the opportunity for a 60-day truce in Gaza, saying Israel had agreed to the proposal.After almost 21 months of devastating fighting in the Palestinian territory and following a speedy resolution to Israel’s 12-day war with Iran, Trump’s exhortations have reignited hopes for a third ceasefire in the Gaza war.But, with familiar obstacles to a truce still in place and an upcoming meeting between Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu critical to the outcome, the likelihood of a deal remains in the balance, analysts say.- What’s holding up a Hamas response? -Efforts to strike a deal in numerous rounds of indirect talks have repeatedly failed, with the primary point of contention centred on Hamas’s calls for an enduring ceasefire in Gaza.In a Wednesday statement, Hamas said it was weighing its response to the new proposal and sought “an agreement that guarantees ending the aggression” as well as the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the entry of aid into the territory.Hugh Lovatt, a Middle East analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), said there could be flexibility in Hamas’s position if they adopt a “pragmatic understanding that this is as good as they’ll get for the foreseeable future”.He nonetheless noted that there were “still extremely sizable gaps” on Hamas’s demands, including the path to a permanent end to the war, the re-opening of Gaza to humanitarian aid and Israel’s withdrawal.”Those will be ultimately the most critical matters in deciding whether that initial 60-day period is put on,” he added.Andreas Krieg, a Middle East analyst at King’s College London, said Hamas’s “deep mistrust of Israel’s intentions — given past ceasefires that collapsed under renewed strikes — means Hamas would need firm guarantees before agreeing” to a deal.In January, Hamas and Israel agreed to a truce which broke down in March, with the two sides unable to agree on the next steps and Israel resuming air and ground attacks.- What are Israel’s demands? -Netanyahu on Wednesday vowed to “destroy” Hamas “down to their very foundation”, restating Israel’s war aim of eradicating the Palestinian group after its unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.Israel has consistently called for the dismantling of Hamas’s military structures and the return of remaining hostages in Gaza captured in 2023.It has moreover sought a path to resuming the war during the two previous ceasefires.Israel’s hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called on Wednesday to push the offensive in Gaza harder.”Let’s finish the job in Gaza. We must bring down Hamas, occupy the Gaza Strip, encourage the transfer” of Palestinians out of the territory, Ben Gvir said in a televised interview.Krieg however said there were “domestic factors” that could allow Netanyahu “to make concessions”, despite the far-right voices in his coalition urging the continuation of the war.”He is seen as having ‘won’ the war against Iran, his popularity is on the rise again across Israel, there is growing pressure from the military leadership to find an off-ramp in Gaza,” Krieg said.Lovatt said a key question was whether there had been a “shift in Netanyahu’s political calculations… which to date have seen the continuation of the war in Gaza and the maintenance of his far-right coalition as being most in his political interest”.- How important is US pressure? -Trump is due to host Netanyahu at the White House next Monday, with the US president vowing on Tuesday to be “very firm” in his stance on ending the war in Gaza.Earlier on Tuesday, Trump said he hoped a Gaza ceasefire could be in place “sometime next week”.Lovatt said it was “quite clear it is Trump and the Americans that have the key to this”.Last week, Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire mediated by the United States and Qatar, after Washington bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. “We’ve seen when Trump puts his foot down… Trump is able to leverage his relationship with Netanyahu and his support for Israel when he wants,” Lovatt said.Krieg said Washington has the “weight and security levers” to influence Israel either through aid, arms support or the withdrawal of its international diplomatic cover. “Israel will do only what it sees as serving its core interests. Without sustained, carefully calibrated US pressure… a durable agreement remains unlikely,” Krieg added.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 69 people on Thursday, including 15 in a strike on a school sheltering Palestinians displaced by the war nearing its 22nd month.Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where its war on Hamas militants has created dire humanitarian conditions and displaced nearly all of the territory’s population of more than two million.Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have repeatedly come under Israeli attacks that the military often says target Hamas militants hiding among civilians.In an updated toll on Thursday afternoon, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 69 people were killed by Israeli strikes, artillery or gunfire across the territory.They included 38 people waiting for humanitarian aid at three separate locations in central and southern Gaza and a child killed by a drone in Jabalia in the north.Bassal said 15 people, “the majority of them children and women”, were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.- Ceasefire pressure -Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military (IDF) said regarding that incident that it “struck a key Hamas terrorist who was operating in a Hamas command and control center in Gaza City”.”Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence,” it added.Regarding numerous other strikes across the territory on Thursday, it said it could not comment in detail without precise coordinates and times.”In response to Hamas’ barbaric attacks, the IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities,” it told AFP.It said it “follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.Pressure has risen for a ceasefire to allow sorely needed humanitarian aid into Gaza at scale and permit the release of hostages seized by Palestinian militants during Hamas’s October 2023 attack that sparked the war.US President Donald Trump earlier this week declared a new ceasefire push, aiming for an initial 60-day truce, which he said had Israel’s backing.But Israel’s leaders held firm to their aim of crushing Hamas, even as the group said Tuesday it was discussing new proposals for a ceasefire from mediators.- Strike hits school -At the Gaza City school compound hit on Thursday, AFP footage showed young children wandering through the charred, bombed out building, as piles of burnt debris smouldered.Groups of Palestinians picked through the rubble and damaged furniture that littered the floor.Umm Yassin Abu Awda, who was among mourners who gathered at the city’s Al-Shifa hospital after the strike, said: “This isn’t a life. We’ve suffered enough.””For two years, we’ve been fighting just to get a piece of bread,” she told AFP.”Either you (Israel) strike us with a nuclear bomb and end it all, or people’s conscience needs to finally wake up.”Bassal of the civil defence agency reported 25 people killed while seeking aid near the Netzarim area in central Gaza, six others at another location nearby and seven in Rafah, southern Gaza, with scores of people injured.They were the latest in a string of deadly incidents that have hit people trying to receive scarce supplies.Across Gaza on Thursday, Bassal said artillery shelling in the northern town of Beit Lahia killed three people.Further south, he said three people were killed in a strike that hit tents housing displaced people in the coastal Al-Mawasi area.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency.- ‘Finish the job’ -Despite mounting calls at home and globally for a ceasefire, Israel’s hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called on Wednesday to push the offensive harder.”Let’s finish the job in Gaza. We must bring down Hamas, occupy the Gaza Strip, encourage the transfer” of Palestinians out of the territory, Ben Gvir said in a television interview.To the minister, Israel was now “in a position to achieve” victory over Hamas, which he said would help free the remaining hostages still held in Gaza from the 2023 attacks.”We must bring them back, but the way to bring them back is to bring down Hamas,” he said.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that prompted the Israeli offensive resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,130 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.

Young children wandered through the charred shell of what had been a school sheltering displaced Palestinians on Thursday, after a pre-dawn Israeli strike killed 15 people there according to the civil defence agency.Tattered clothes hung from the blackened exterior of the building in western Gaza City, as rubble still smouldered below in the morning light.Bloodstains dotted the ground strewn with the remnants of daily life. Clothing, metal chairs, tins of food and part of an electric fan lay amongst the wreckage, AFP footage showed.”This is not a life,” said Umm Yassin Abu Awda, a Gaza City resident who stood amongst mourners at the city’s Al-Shifa Hospital following the strike.”Either you strike us with a nuclear bomb and end it all, or people’s conscience needs to finally wake up.”Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it “struck a key Hamas terrorist who was operating in a Hamas command and control center in Gaza City”.”Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians,” it added.Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency, told AFP that most of the 15 killed in Thursday’s strike were women and children.He also reported a large number of injuries in the “Israeli air strike on the Mustafa Hafez School, which shelters displaced persons, in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood”.They were among 69 people that the agency reported killed by Israeli forces on Thursday in the Palestinian territory, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations.Nearly all of Gaza’s population has been displaced at least once during the nearly 21-month war, which has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people living there.Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have repeatedly come under Israeli attacks that the military often says target Hamas militants hiding among civilians.- ‘Annihilate us’ -Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence.At Mustafa Hafez School, a colourful mural on a wall next to the wreckage showed a smiling boy walking past a tree and a woman next to a Palestinian flag.A small group sat on chairs in what was once the playground of the school.Inside the building, a group of young boys surveyed the damage and climbed on upturned furniture while others sifted through the debris.Crowds of mourners gathered at Al-Shifa Hospital, where men and women wept over the bodies of the dead.”We have no life left. Let them just annihilate us so we can finally rest,” said one woman who lost relatives in the strike and did not give her name.”There’s nothing left for us. My two daughters are gone — and now my niece, along with her six children and her husband, were burned to death,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion.At least 57,130 people have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.The war was triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.