24/06/2026

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Israel targeted Gaza children, says UN inquiry o Tel Aviv calls report libellous sham protection” and asserting that the report ignored “the brutal tactics of Hamas”.

‘STARLINK RECEIVERS SMUGGLED INTO IRAN’ TEL AVIV: A former Israeli prime minister acknowledged yesterday that Israel had smuggled Starlink internet receivers into Iran to help protesters. Naftali Bennett, who served as prime minister in 2021 to 2022, told the JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem that he had initiated a “process of acquiring and smuggling into Iran Starlink receptors”. Iran has previously accused Israel and the United States of smuggling in the devicesy. Starlink is not licensed to operate in Iran but Elon Musk has previously said the service is active there. Bennett said the devices were to help protesters coordinate. “Unfortunately, the incompetent Israeli government stopped doing that. And when the protest happened, that infrastructure was not there.” – Reuters BEIRUT: Israeli gunfire killed two people in southern Lebanon yesterday, the first reported fatalities resulting from Israeli fire in Lebanon in three days. Israeli soldiers opened fire at a group of people near a bulldozer clearing a road in the al Deir neighbourhood of Nabatieh al Fawqa, National News Agency reported. Iran insisted Israel cease fire in Lebanon as part of an interim agreement with the United States signed last week. A joint statement issued on Monday at the end of talks in Switzerland said the parties had agreed to create “a de-confliction cell” to ensure adherence to the termination of hostilities in Lebanon. Since March 2, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 4,100 people. – Reuters FRANCE REPORTS 40 DROWNINGS PARIS: France experienced its hottest night from Monday to Tuesday as Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said 40 people, many of them young, had drowned since June 18. A deadly heatwave has battered France since last week, disrupting daily life and forcing school closures and train cancellations. The country recorded its hottest night from Monday to Tuesday since measurements began in 1947, the Meteo-France weather agency said. The national temperature indicator – an average of readings from 30 stations across France – reached 21.6ºC, according to preliminary figures taken yesterday morning. The previous record was 21.4ºC, set on July 25, 2019. – AFP LIMA: Peruvian left-wing presidential candidate Roberto Sanchez called on Monday for the annulment of overseas votes in the runoff election. With almost all the ballots counted, right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori held 50.11% of the vote, versus Sanchez’s 49.88%. Fujimori is ahead of Sanchez by just over 40,000 votes. But before declaring a winner, election officials need to review contested tally sheets of around 82,000 votes. “We have filed a request for annulment so that the National Jury of Elections may declare null and void the elections held by the 119 consular offices. The process has been seriously affected by the changes introduced at the request of the executive branch), specifically in the presidential runoff,” he said, without providing evidence. – AFP TWO SHOT DEAD IN SOUTHERN LEBANON CONCERN OVER PERU OVERSEAS BALLOTS

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proportion of children killed was higher than in previous conflicts. Between Oct 7, 2023 and Oct 7, 2025, at least 20,179 children were killed, around 30% of the overall death toll. By comparison, in hostilities in Gaza in 2008-2009 and 2014, children made up approximately 24% of conflict-related fatalities, the report said. Israeli forces continued to use high-payload munitions and weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated residential areas despite mounting child casualties, the commission said. “This indicates that such attacks, which killed children in such high numbers, were intentional,” it said. It said it believed children were targeted collectively because the Israeli security forces considered the civilian population as a whole to be associated with armed groups. A rebuttal shared by Israel’s mission in Geneva said Israel “consistently strives to minimise harm to children even in situations of conflict” and that Israel rejected the suggestion it deliberately targets children. Muralidhar said by targeting children, Israel was undermining the capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future. Conditions imposed by Israel in Gaza, including attacks, repeated displacement and starvation caused by the blockade of aid, food and medicine, severely harmed children’s health and development, resulting in preventable deaths and trauma, the report said. The inquiry also found that attacks on healthcare and reproductive facilities impacted the survival of newborns and reported increases in miscarriages. – Reuters The negotiations are aimed at producing a final document within a renewable 60-day deadline. Diplomacy toward a deal continued yesterday, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to travel to Pakistan, state media reported, following the talks in Switzerland. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was due to start a trip to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain to discuss the deal and “efforts to secure full and free safe transit through the strait”, his spokesman Tommy Pigott said. Vance said Iran would allow UN nuclear inspectors to return to the country, but Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said for his part that “a very brief discussion took place regarding the nuclear issue, but there was no discussion of details”. – AFP

The UN commission said children were deliberately targeted and killed during the war, including after a ceasefire came into effect in October 2025. It said this was a key element establishing genocidal intent by Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza. “The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, the commission’s chair, in a statement accompanying the report. The report found that the

GENEVA: Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the occupied West Bank, an independent UN inquiry said. The report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on Oct 7, 2023.

Around 30% of those killed in the Gaza war were children, the report found. A previous report by the commission in September found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu incited these acts. Israel’s mission in Geneva said Israel rejected what it called the commission’s “second defamatory advocacy report”. “Israel dismisses this libellous sham,” it said in a statement, adding that “every child deserves

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, planting an olive tree, after attending an inter-religious dialogue at Al-Azhar University, in Gaza City, on Monday. – REUTERSPIC Tehran says to oversee Hormuz

BURGENSTOCK: Tehran voiced its intent to maintain control over the vital Strait of Hormuz, a crucial question in the Middle East war talks with Washington that wrapped up in Switzerland. Vice-President JD Vance called the negotiations a “very good foundation” for a final deal to end the conflict, noting on Monday that Washington suspended sanctions on Iranian oil. But critical questions like Iran’s nuclear programme and Hormuz have not been resolved despite an initial deal between Washington and Teheran. Technical talks that followed higher level negotiations in Switzerland have concluded, with working groups to be set up on nuclear issues and sanctions. US President Donald Trump has demanded an unconditional

As part of their deal, Washington agreed to release US$12 billion (RM49.7 billion) in frozen funds to Iran, Iranian state media reported, and temporarily suspend sanctions on oil from the Islamic republic. The US Treasury said the decision involved temporarily lifting sanctions on Iran to allow it to produce, sell and deliver crude and related products through Aug 21. Vance said Iranian assets had not yet been unfrozen as part of the deal and that, if they were, they would be used to buy US goods and would not fund terrorism. Iran has been subject to asset freezes and sweeping sanctions by the United States and other Western countries since its 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

reopening of Hormuz to marine traffic, however Iran again pushed back fiercely. “The Strait of Hormuz will never return to its pre-war conditions and will be administered by the Islamic Republic of Iran, in accordance with international law,” Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said. The strait had reopened last week, after Washington and Tehran reached an agreement, but Tehran announced on Saturday it had closed it again in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon. Tehran and Washington have agreed to establish a line of communication “to avoid incidents and miscommunication with the aim of safe passage for commercial vessel” through the waterway, according to Qatari and Pakistani mediators.