UN expert asks states to cut trade ties with Israel over Gaza atrocity

Hamas seeks ceasefire guarantees as more are killed in attacks

FE Team | Published: July 04, 2025 00:28:38

NEW YORK, July 03 (Reuters/AFP): A UN expert on Thursday called on states to impose an arms embargo and cut off trade and financial ties with Israel, which she alleged is waging a "genocidal campaign" in Gaza.
In a speech to the UN Human Rights Council presenting her latest report, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese accused Israel of being responsible for "one of the cruellest genocides in modern history".
Israel has rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to self-defence following the deadly Oct 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
Hamas is seeking guarantees that a new US ceasefire proposal for Gaza would lead to the war's end, a source close to the militant group said on Thursday, as medics said Israeli strikes across the territory had killed scores more people.
Israeli officials said prospects for reaching a ceasefire deal and hostage deal appeared high, nearly 21 months since the war between Israel and Hamas began.
Efforts for a Gaza truce have gathered steam after the US secured a ceasefire to end a 12-day aerial conflict between Israel and Iran, but on the ground in Gaza intensified Israeli strikes continued unabated, killing at least 59 people on Thursday, according to health authorities in the territory.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said that Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war.
Hamas is seeking clear guarantees that the ceasefire will eventually lead to the war's end, the source close to the group said. Two Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out.
Ending the war has been the main sticking point in repeated rounds of failed negotiations.
Egyptian security sources said Egyptian and Qatari mediators were working to secure US and international guarantees that talks on ending the war would continue as a way of convincing Hamas to accept the two-month truce proposal.
A separate source familiar with the matter said that Israel was expecting Hamas' response by Friday and that if it was positive, an Israeli delegation would join indirect talks to cement the deal.
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 25 people on Thursday, including 12 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 Gaza City on Thursday, civil defence official Mohammad al-Mughayyir told AFP that 12 people, "the majority of them children and women", were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter, which the Israeli military did not confirm.