The Times of Israel is liveblogging Monday’s events as they unfold.
UN chief calls for independent probe after Palestinians reported killed near Gaza aid site
GENEVA, Switzerland — The United Nations Secretary General says he was appalled by reports of Palestinians killed and injured while seeking aid in Gaza yesterday, and calls for an independent investigation.
“It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food,” Antonio Guterres says in a statement.
Suspect in Colorado firebomb attack on hostage rally held on $10 million bail
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the suspect in the attack on an Israeli hostages rally in Colorado yesterday, is being held on a $10 million bail.
Soliman allegedly used a “makeshift flamethrower” and threw Molotov cocktails at the rally, wounding eight.
He was booked into the Boulder County Jail last night, shortly before midnight, according to a booking report from the local sheriff’s office.
The charges listed for Soliman include two murder charges, but the charges are preliminary, have not been filed, and are subject to change. There have not been any confirmed deaths in the attack, although one victim was in critical condition last night.
Some of the other preliminary charges include using explosive or incendiary devices during a felony, assault with a weapon, and crimes against at-risk elderly.
French lawmakers set to back bill promoting Alfred Dreyfus, 130 years after antisemitic affair
The French parliament is set to back a bill that would promote Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army captain wrongly convicted of treason in 1894, to the rank of brigadier general, in an act of historical reparation for one of the most notorious acts of antisemitism in the country’s history.
The lower house National Assembly, is expected to unanimously approve the legislation, which was put forward by former prime minister Gabriel Attal, who leads President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party.
The bill will then head to the upper house Senate, for debate on a date yet to be fixed.
The symbolic promotion of Dreyfus, whose condemnation came against a backdrop of the late 19th century’s rampant antisemitism in the French army and wider society, comes at a time of growing alarm over hate crimes targeting Jews in the country.
Dreyfus, a 36-year-old army captain from the Alsace region of eastern France, was accused in October 1894 of passing secret information on new artillery equipment to the German military attache.
The accusation was based on a comparison of handwriting on a document found in the Germans’ waste paper basket in Paris.
Dreyfus was put on trial amid a virulent antisemitic press campaign. But novelist Emile Zola then penned the famous “J’accuse” (“I accuse…”) pamphlet in favor of the captain.
Despite a lack of evidence, Dreyfus was convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment in the infamous Devil’s Island penal colony in French Guiana, and publicly stripped of his rank.
But Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, head of the intelligence services, reinvestigated the case in secret and discovered the handwriting on the incriminating message was that of another officer, Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy.
When Picquart presented the evidence to the general staff of the French army, he was driven out of the military and jailed for a year, while Esterhazy was acquitted.
In June 1899, Dreyfus was brought back to France for a second trial. He was initially found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison, before being officially pardoned — though not cleared of the charges.
Only in 1906, after many twists, did the High Court of Appeal overturn the original verdict, exonerating Dreyfus.
He was reinstated with the rank of major. He served during World War I and died in 1935, aged 76.
But the backers of the new bill believe that in a society without discrimination, he would have risen to the top of the French army.
IDF strike on Jabalia home kills 14, including 6 children, says Hamas-run rescue agency
Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency says an Israeli strike on a home in the northern town of Jabalia killed 14 people.
“The number of martyrs from the targeting of the Al-Bursh family home has risen to 14, including six children and three women, in addition to more than 20 missing individuals still under the rubble,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal says.
There is no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
On Thursday, the IDF ordered the Jabalia area, along with other nearby towns in the Strip’s north and several Gaza City neighborhoods, to evacuate westward.
Hamas-given death tolls cannot be verified and routinely do not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.
IDF denies reports troops operating within European Hospital in south Gaza’s Khan Younis
The IDF denies reports that troops are operating within the compound of the European Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.
“Contrary to the reports, the IDF is not operating within the European Hospital compound,” the military says.
Palestinian media said earlier that troops were demolishing the rear wall of the hospital.
Iranian diplomat says Tehran poised to reject ‘completely one-sided’ US proposal for nuclear deal
Iran is poised to reject a US proposal to end a decades-long nuclear dispute, an Iranian diplomat says, slamming it as a “non-starter” that fails to address Tehran’s interests and leaves Washington’s stance on uranium enrichment unchanged.
“Iran is drafting a negative response to the US proposal, which could be interpreted as a rejection of the US offer,” the senior diplomat, who is close to Iran’s negotiating team, tells Reuters.
The US proposal for a new nuclear deal was presented to Iran on Saturday by Oman’s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi, who was on a short visit to Tehran and has been mediating nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington.
But after five rounds of talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to resolve the nuclear standoff, many issues remain unresolved.
Among clashing red lines is Iran’s rejection of a US demand that Tehran commit to scrapping uranium enrichment, viewed as a potential pathway to developing nuclear bombs.
Tehran says it wants to master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and has long denied accusations by Western powers that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
“In this proposal, the US stance on enrichment on Iranian soil remains unchanged, and there is no clear explanation regarding the lifting of sanctions,” says the diplomat, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Tehran demands the immediate removal of all US-imposed curbs that impair its oil-based economy. But for the US, the removal of nuclear-related sanctions should be done in phases.
Dozens of Iranian institutions vital to Iran’s economy, including its central bank and national oil company, have been sanctioned since 2018 for, according to Washington, “supporting terrorism or weapons proliferation.”
Trump’s revival of a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran since his return to the White House in January has included tightened sanctions and threats to bomb Iran if current negotiations yield no deal.
During his first term, Trump in 2018 ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. In return, Tehran has rapidly violated the 2015 nuclear pact’s curbs on its nuclear program.
The 2015 deal required Iran to take steps to restrict its nuclear program in return for relief from US, EU and UN economic sanctions.
The diplomat says the assessment of “Iran’s nuclear negotiations committee,” under the supervision of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was that the US proposal is “completely one-sided” and cannot serve Tehran’s interests.
Therefore, the diplomat says, Tehran considers this proposal a “non-starter” and believes it unilaterally attempts to impose a “bad deal” on Iran through excessive demands.
Two Iranian officials told Reuters last week that Iran may pause uranium enrichment if the US releases frozen Iranian funds and recognizes Tehran’s right to refine uranium for civilian use under a “political deal” that could lead to a broader nuclear accord.
Hamas: 3 killed by Israeli fire near Gaza aid center; IDF: Troops fired on ‘suspects who approached them in threatening way’
Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinian “suspects who approached forces” overnight, around a kilometer away from an aid distribution site in southern Gaza’s Rafah and hours before it was set to open to hand out food to Gazans, the military says.
According to Hamas’s government media office, the Israeli gunfire killed three and wounded a further 35. The tolls could not immediately be verified.
The IDF says that it is aware of the reports of casualties and is investigating the incident.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the US- and Israel-backed body in charge of the aid distribution, has repeatedly warned Palestinians in its announcements that the aid sites are only open from 5 a.m., and approaching the area beforehand poses a risk due to ongoing Israeli military activity.
GHF also insists that the aid was handed out today without any incident.
The IDF says that it is allowing GHF to operate “independently to distribute aid to Gaza residents and prevent it from reaching the Hamas terror organization.”
“IDF troops do not prevent the arrival of Gaza residents to the distribution sites. The shooting was carried out about a kilometer from the distribution site, toward individual suspects approaching the forces in a way that threatened them,” the military says.
The IDF says Hamas is doing “everything it can to prevent the success” of the new aid distribution system, adding that “Hamas is a brutal terror organization that starves the population and puts it in danger to preserve its rule in the Gaza Strip.”
GHF has denied previous accounts of chaos and gunfire around its sites, which are in Israeli military zones. “Despite several inaccurate and in some cases, blatantly false, news reports, there have been no injuries nor fatalities during the first full week of GHF operations,” it said this morning.
The IDF has acknowledged firing warning shots on previous occasions outside the distribution centers, including yesterday, when troops fired at Palestinians around a kilometer away from an aid site, hours before it was set to open, killing 31 according to Hamas.
One of the wounded in Colorado attack is Holocaust survivor, friend says
One of the eight people wounded in the attack on a Colorado rally for the hostages held in Gaza is a Holocaust survivor, her friend says.
The victim is not named by the outlet.
“She is an amazing person. Not because she is hurt. She always is an amazing person,” the victim’s friend Chany Scheiner, tells 9NEWS.
“She speaks — she has spoken at our synagogues as well as other synagogues and schools just about her background and the Holocaust and from her own perspective. She is passionate about standing up for good things, and she is an extremely exceptional person,” Scheiner says.
“Always a smile on her face. Her life wasn’t easy, but she is just a bright light. And anybody who is her friend is a friend for life,” she says.
At least eight people were wounded yesterday in Boulder, Colorado — including one person in critical condition — when activists rallying for the release of the hostages held by terrorists in Gaza were attacked by a man shouting “end Zionists,” who fired a makeshift flamethrower and threw firebombs at them.
IDF announces it has expanded Gaza Strip ground offensive
The IDF announces that it has expanded its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip over the past day.
The announcement comes after yesterday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir instructed the army to operate in new areas in Gaza.
“In the past day, troops expanded the ground maneuver, eliminated terrorists and destroyed many weapon depots and terror infrastructure, above and below ground,” the statement says.
Additionally, the IDF says the Israeli Air Force hit dozens of targets across Gaza in the past day, including cells of terror operatives, buildings used by terror groups, tunnels, weapon depots, and other infrastructure.
UK’s Starmer: ‘Situation is intolerable in Gaza, and getting worse by the day’
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says that the situation in Gaza is getting “worse by the day” and that it is important to ensure the Palestinian enclave receives more humanitarian aid urgently.
“The situation is intolerable in Gaza, and getting worse by the day,” Starmer tells reporters in Scotland, when asked whether the UK would take any action over the issue.
“Which is why we are working with allies… to be absolutely clear that humanitarian aid needs to get in at speed and at volumes that it is not getting in at the moment, causing absolute devastation,” he adds.