At least 34 people killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as ceasefire prospects inch closer.

Israeli strikes killed at least 72 people across Gaza overnight and into Saturday, health workers said, as ceasefire prospects were said to be improving after 21 months of war.

Three children and their parents were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent camp in Muwasi near the southern city of Khan Younis. They were struck while sleeping, relatives said.

“What did these children do to them? What is their fault?” said the children’s grandmother, Suad Abu Teima, as others knelt to kiss their bloodied faces and wept. Some placed red flowers into the body bags.

Also among the dead were 12 people near the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City, which was sheltering displaced people, and eight more in apartments, according to staff at Shifa Hospital. More than 20 bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital, according to health officials.

A midday strike killed 11 people on a street in eastern Gaza City, and their bodies were taken to Al-Ahli Hospital. Another strike on a gathering in eastern Gaza City killed eight including five children, the hospital said. A strike on a gathering at the entrance to the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed two, according to Al-Awda Hospital.
Hopes for a ceasefire agreement in the coming week

U.S. President Donald Trump says there could be a ceasefire agreement within the next week. Taking questions from reporters on Friday, he said, “We’re working on Gaza and trying to get it taken care of.”

An official with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer will arrive in Washington next week for talks on a Gaza ceasefire, Iran and other subjects. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas have been on again, off again since Israel broke the latest ceasefire in March, continuing its military campaign in Gaza and furthering the territory’s dire humanitarian crisis. Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, fewer than half believed to still be alive. They were among 251 hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparking the war.

“What more is left to do in Gaza that has not already been done? Who else is left to eliminate?” Yotam Cohen, brother of hostage Nimrod Cohen, said Saturday evening as weekly rallies by families and supporters resumed following Israel’s ceasefire with Iran.
Over 6,000 killed since latest ceasefire ended

The war has killed over 56,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It says more than half of the dead were women and children. It said the dead include 6,089 killed since the end of the latest ceasefire.

Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of hiding among civilians because they operate in populated areas.

There is hope among families of hostages that Trump’s involvement in securing the recent ceasefire between Israel and Iran might lead to more pressure for a deal in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is riding a wave of public support for the Iran war and its achievements, and he could feel he has more space to move toward ending the war in Gaza, something his far-right governing partners oppose.

Hamas has repeatedly said it is prepared to free all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war in Gaza. Netanyahu says he will end the war only once Hamas is disarmed and exiled, something the group has rejected.
Hundreds have been killed while seeking food

Meanwhile, hungry Palestinians are enduring a catastrophic situation in Gaza. After blocking all food for 2 1/2 months, Israel has allowed only a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May.

More than 500 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded while seeking food since the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began distributing aid in the territory about a month ago, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Palestinian witnesses say Israeli troops have opened fire at crowds on roads heading toward the sites. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots and that it was investigating incidents in which civilians had been harmed while approaching the sites.

Thousands of Palestinians walk for hours to reach the sites, moving through Israeli military zones.

Separate efforts by the United Nations to distribute limited food have been plagued by armed gangs looting trucks and by crowds of desperate people offloading supplies from convoys.

Saturday’s death toll included two people killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting to receive aid near the Netzarim corridor, a road that separates northern and southern Gaza, according to Al-Shifa and Al-Awda hospitals, which each received one body.

There was no immediate Israeli military comment.

___

Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press journalist Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.

By Wafaa Shurafa and Sam Mednick.

Trump tells Iran’s supreme leader: ‘You got beat to hell’, Trump, in remarks to reporters and later in an extended statement on social media, said the ayatollah’s comments defied reality after 12 days of Israeli strikes and the U.S. bombardment of three key nuclear sites inflicted severe damage on the country’s nuclear program. The president suggested Khamenei’s comments were unbecoming of Iran’s most powerful political and religious figure.

“Look, you’re a man of great faith. A man who’s highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth,” Trump said of Khamenei. ”You got beat to hell.”

The U.S. president spoke out a day after Khamenei insisted Tehran had delivered a “slap to America’s face” by striking a U.S. air base in Qatar and warned against further attacks by the U.S. or Israel on Iran. Khamenei’s pre-recorded statement, which aired on Iranian state television, was the first time that Iranians had heard directly from the supreme leader in days.

The heated rhetoric from Trump and Khamenei continued as both leaders face difficult questions about the impact of the strikes.

Trump and his aides have pushed back vociferously after an early damage assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency became public and indicated that the U.S. bombardment likely only set back Tehran’s nuclear program by months. The 86-year-old Khamenei, the most powerful figure in Iran’s theocracy, meanwhile, has appeared intent on demonstrating his authority and vigor amid speculation about his health and how involved he was in making Iran’s wartime decisions through the 12-day conflict.

In a social media post Friday, Trump also appeared to refer to a plan presented to the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in the first days of the Israel-Iran conflict to try to kill Khamenei. Trump vetoed that plan, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“His Country was decimated, his three evil Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED, and I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH, and he does not have to say, “THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!”

Trump, after the U.S. airstrikes, sent chilling warnings via social media to Khamenei that the U.S. knew where he was but had no plans to kill him, “at least for now.”

After launching the U.S. strikes — including with U.S.-made bunker-buster bombs — Trump has been insistent that Iran’s nuclear sites have been “obliterated.” Administration officials have not disputed the contents of the DIA report but have sought to focus on a CIA statement and other intelligence assessments, including those out of Iran and Israel, that said the strikes severely damaged the nuclear sites and rendered an enrichment facility inoperable.

Trump also said that he expects Iran to open itself to international inspection to verify it doesn’t restart its nuclear program.

Asked if he would demand during expected talks with Iran that the International Atomic Energy Agency or some other organization be authorized to conduct inspections, Trump told reporters the Islamic Republic would have to cooperate with the IAEA “or somebody that we respect, including ourselves.”

White House officials have said they expect to restart talks soon with Iran, though nothing has been scheduled.

U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff earlier this week said there has been direct and indirect communication between the countries. A sixth round of U.S.-Iran negotiations was scheduled for earlier this month in Oman but was canceled after Israel attacked Iran.

Trump expressed confidence that Iran’s nuclear ambition has faded.

“Can I tell you, they’re exhausted. And Israel’s exhausted, too,” Trump said. He added, “The last thing they’re thinking right now is nuclear.”

Here’s what we know about the Canadian who died in ICE custody, Johnny Noviello’s former lawyer describes the 49-year-old, who died while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Monday, as quiet, polite and respectful.

“Just always appreciative, respectful, excellent with communication, not the type of guy you would see wrapped up in the mess as Johnny did,” said Dan Leising, a defence lawyer who represented Noviello. “Johnny was a very quiet, polite, unassuming guy.”

Leising said his only known family member is his father, Angelo, who was “distraught” to hear about his son’s death.

“Just complete disbelief. Devastation, just complete devastation,” added Leising. “Angelo is 80 years old. To be 80 and to have your kid die when he’s 49, it’s unimaginable.”

According to ICE, Noviello was “found unresponsive” on June 23 just before 1 p.m. at a federal detention centre in Miami. The government agency said medical staff tried to resuscitate him and used a defibrillator -- but was pronounced dead by the Miami Fire Rescue Department.

“This is the first time I’ve ever had a client die in any sort of custody,” said Leising.

Noviello became a permanent resident in 1991, but, according to ICE, in October of 2023, he was convicted of racketeering and drug trafficking and sentenced to 12 months in prison.

“He did around four months of jail from October of 2023 to February of 2024,” said Leising, adding that Noviello did another year after that of “community control,” which is a form of intensive supervision of offenders within the community.

Leising said Noviello worked as a cashier at a store and worked in janitorial services.

According to ICE, agents arrested Noviello on May 15 because of his previous conviction, which violated the conditions of his permanent residency.

The press release says Noviello was detained pending removal proceedings, which means a person has been notified they are subject to a process that could lead to their deportation from the country.

“We were also in touch with him from a consular standpoint as soon as he was detained,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand during a Zoom interview with CTV News, adding that Canada has also reached out to seek additional information.

ICE says the cause of death is still under investigation and that they notified the Consulate of Canada of Noviello’s death.

Anand says there are approximately 55 Canadians who are still detained by #ICE. According to ICE data, seven other people have died in 2025 while in ICE’s custody.

Global cocaine boom keeps setting new records, #UN report says. The global cocaine trade keeps setting new records, with cocaine the world’s fastest-growing illicit drug market as Colombia production surges along with users in Europe and North and South America, a United Nations report published on Thursday said.

The annual UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) World Drug Report showed that in 2023, the latest year for which comprehensive data was available, the cocaine trade went from strength to strength.

“Production, seizures, and use of cocaine all hit new highs in 2023, making cocaine the world’s fastest-growing illicit drug market,” the Vienna-based UNODC said in a statement.

On the supply side, global estimated illegal production of cocaine rose by around a third to a record of more than 3,708 tons, mainly because of an increase in the area devoted to illicit coca bush cultivation in Colombia and updated data that showed the yield there was roughly 50% higher than in 2022.

The estimated number of cocaine users globally also kept growing, reaching 25 million people in 2023, up from 17 million 10 years earlier, the UNODC said.

“North America, Western and Central Europe and South America continue to constitute the largest markets for cocaine, on the basis of the number of people who used drugs in the past year and on data derived from wastewater analysis,” it said.

The synthetic drug market also continues to expand, helped by low operational costs and reduced risk of detection for those making or smuggling the drugs, the UNODC said.

The leading drugs there were amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) like methamphetamine and amphetamine.

“Seizures of ATS reached a record high in 2023 and accounted for almost half of all global seizures of synthetic drugs, followed by synthetic opioids, including fentanyl,” the UNODC said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Israel’s ambassador to France said the killings will make it “almost” impossible for Iran to build weapons from whatever nuclear infrastructure and material may have survived nearly two weeks of Israeli airstrikes and massive bunker-busting bombs dropped by U.S. stealth bombers.

“The fact that the whole group disappeared is basically throwing back the program by a number of years, by quite a number of years,” Ambassador Joshua Zarka said.

But nuclear analysts say Iran has other scientists who can take their place. European governments say that military force alone cannot eradicate Iran’s nuclear know-how, which is why they want a negotiated solution to put concerns about the Iranian program to rest.

“Strikes cannot destroy the knowledge Iran has acquired over several decades, nor any regime ambition to deploy that knowledge to build a nuclear weapon,” U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy told lawmakers in the House of Commons.

Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program was peaceful, and U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb. However, Israeli leaders have argued that Iran could quickly assemble a nuclear weapon.

Here’s a closer look at the killings:
Chemists, physicists, engineers among those killed

Zarka told AP that Israeli strikes killed at least 14 physicists and nuclear engineers, top Iranian scientific leaders who “basically had everything in their mind.”

They were killed “not because of the fact that they knew physics, but because of the fight that they were personally involved in, the creation and the fabrication and the production of (a) nuclear weapon,” he said.

Nine of them were killed in Israel’s opening wave of attacks on June 13, the Israeli military said. It said they “possessed decades of accumulated experience in the development of nuclear weapons” and included specialists in chemistry, materials and explosives as well as physicists.

Zarka spoke Monday to the AP. On Tuesday, Iran state TV reported the death of another Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohammad Reza Sedighi Saber, in an Israeli strike, after he’d survived an earlier attack that killed his 17-year-old son on June 13.
Targeted killings meant to discourage would-be successors

Experts say that decades of Iranian work on nuclear energy — and, Western powers allege, nuclear weapons — has given the country reserves of know-how and scientists who could continue any work toward building warheads to fit on Iran’s ballistic missiles.

“Blueprints will be around and, you know, the next generation of Ph.D. students will be able to figure it out,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, who specialized in nuclear non-proliferation as a former U.S. diplomat. Bombing nuclear facilities ”or killing the people will set it back some period of time. Doing both will set it back further, but it will be reconstituted.”

“They have substitutes in maybe the next league down, and they’re not as highly qualified, but they will get the job done eventually,” said Fitzpatrick, now an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London think tank.

How quickly nuclear work could resume will in part depend on whether Israeli and U.S. strikes destroyed Iran’s stock of enriched uranium and equipment needed to make it sufficiently potent for possible weapons use.

“The key element is the material. So once you have the material, then the rest is reasonably well-known,” said Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based analyst who specializes in Russia’s nuclear arsenal. He said killing scientists may have been intended “to scare people so they don’t go work on these programs.”

“Then the questions are, ‘Where do you stop?’ I mean you start killing, like, students who study physics?” he asked. “This is a very slippery slope.”

The Israeli ambassador said: “I do think that people that will be asked to be part of a future nuclear weapon program in Iran will think twice about it.”

Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle Eastern country with nuclear weapons, which it has never acknowledged.
Previous attacks on scientists

Israel has long been suspected of killing Iranian nuclear scientists but previously didn’t claim responsibility as it did this time.

In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for killing its top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, with a remote-controlled machine gun.

“It delayed the program but they still have a program. So it doesn’t work,” said Paris-based analyst Lova Rinel, with the Foundation for Strategic Research think tank. “It’s more symbolic than strategic.”

Without saying that Israel killed Fakhrizadeh, the Israeli ambassador said “Iran would have had a bomb a long time ago” were it not for repeated setbacks to its nuclear program — some of which Iran attributed to Israeli sabotage.

“They have not reached the bomb yet,” Zarka said. “Every one of these accidents has postponed a little bit the program.”
A legally grey area

International humanitarian law bans the intentional killing of civilians and non-combatants. But legal scholars say those restrictions might not apply to nuclear scientists if they were part of the Iranian armed forces or directly participating in hostilities.

“My own take: These scientists were working for a rogue regime that has consistently called for the elimination of Israel, helping it to develop weapons that will allow that threat to take place. As such, they are legitimate targets,” said Steven R. David, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University.

He said Nazi German and Japanese leaders who fought Allied nations during World War II “would not have hesitated to kill the scientists working on the Manhattan Project” that fathered the world’s first atomic weapons.

Laurie Blank, a specialist in humanitarian law at Emory Law School, said it’s too early to say whether Israel’s decapitation campaign was legal.

“As external observers, we don’t have all the relevant facts about the nature of the scientists’ role and activities or the intelligence that Israel has,” she said by email to AP. “As a result, it is not possible to make any definitive conclusions.”

Zarka, the ambassador, distinguished between civilian nuclear research and the scientists targeted by Israel.

“It’s one thing to learn physics and to know exactly how a nucleus of an atom works and what is uranium,” he said.

But turning uranium into warheads that fit onto missiles is “not that simple,” he said. ”These people had the know-how of doing it, and were developing the know-how of doing it further. And this is why they were eliminated.”

Japan conducts first missile test on its own territory as part of military buildup to deter China

#BREAKING U.S. strikes only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months: AP sources.

The intelligence report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicts statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to the people, the report found that while the Saturday strikes at the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites did significant damage, they were not totally destroyed.

The assessment found that at least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium was moved out of multiple sites before the U.S. strikes and survived, according to the people, and it also found that Iran’s centrifuges are largely intact.

At the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant, the entrance collapsed and infrastructure was damaged, so that will take time to fix, but the underground infrastructure was not destroyed, according to one of the people. The person also said that previous assessments had warned of this outcome at Fordo.

The White House strongly pushed back on the assessment, calling it “flat-out wrong.”

“The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”

Trump has said in comments and posts on social media in recent days, including Tuesday, that the strikes left the sites in Iran “totally destroyed” and that Iran will never rebuild its nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu said in a televised statement on Tuesday that, “For dozens of years I promised you that Iran would not have nuclear weapons and indeed ... we brought to ruin Iran’s nuclear program.”

He said the U.S. joining Israel was “historic” and thanked Trump.

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the DIA assessment. ODNI coordinates the work of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA, which is the intelligence arm of the Defense Department, responsible for producing intelligence on foreign militaries and the capabilities of adversaries.

Michelle L. Price And Mary Clare Jalonick, The Associated Press

#Alberta Next panel announced with legislature members, academics and business leaders, She says Ottawa is to blame for decades of lost investment and resource revenue and that Alberta can’t be held back any longer.

The premier is to lead the Alberta Next panel, which also includes three United Conservative Party legislature members, Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz, a retired judge and a physician.

Smith says following a summer of town halls across the province, the panel is to recommend ideas and policy proposals that would be put to Albertans in a referendum next year.

Smith has said a referendum on Alberta separation could happen, though she wouldn’t initiate one herself.

Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi says the premier is wasting time and money by rehashing former premier Jason Kenney’s Fair Deal panel, which toured the province six years ago in search of ways Alberta could gain leverage over Ottawa.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 24, 2025.

— With files from Jack Farrell in Edmonton

TEL AVIV, June 24. At least three people were killed when a missile launched from Iranian territory struck a seven-story building in the Israeli city of Be’er Sheva, according to a report by Israel’s N12 television channel.

The broadcaster also noted that several other individuals sustained injuries in the attack.

According to N12, rescue operations are currently underway at the site, as authorities search for people possibly trapped beneath the rubble. There are also concerns regarding a potential gas leak in the aftermath of the strike.

Iran could ‘target’ U.S. officials if Tehran believes regime’s survival at risk, DHS says.

Other scenarios for potential Iranian targeting of U.S. officials include if Tehran considers them to be involved in the deaths of senior Iranian leaders or believes U.S. airstrikes will continue, according to the bulletin from DHS’ Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which was sent to state and local law enforcement and is dated June 22.

CNN has requested comment from the Iranian government’s mission to the United Nations.

On Monday, Iran fired missiles towards a U.S. military base in Qatar in retaliation for the U.S. strikes on Iran, according to two officials familiar with the matter.

But the DHS bulletin is one of the clearest connections yet drawn by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement analysis about the potential violent backlash against civilian government officials for President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iranian nuclear sites.

“It is our duty to keep the nation safe and informed, especially during times of conflict,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to CNN when CNN asked DHS for comment on the bulletin. “The ongoing Israel-Iran conflict brings the possibility of increased threat to the homeland in the form of possible cyberattacks, acts of violence, and antisemitic hate crimes.”

The bulletin does not specify what the “targeting” of U.S. officials might look like but the Justice Department has previously alleged that Iran has tried to kill Trump and his former national security adviser, John Bolton, in retaliation for a 2020 U.S. military strike that killed senior Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

“We have not yet observed Tehran threaten this kind of retaliatory action in response to the U.S. airstrikes, and recent law enforcement action could challenge Iran’s ability to execute a plot against U.S. officials in the short-term,” the bulletin said.

Trump raised the topic of regime change in Iran in a social media post on Sunday evening.

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” Trump wrote.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said that Trump was “simply raising a question” when he brought up the topic.

CNN reported last year that intelligence about a threat from Iran to Trump led the Secret Service to step up security around the then-presidential candidate. Ultimately, those protections did not prevent a security lapse that allowed a 20-year-old lone gunman unaffiliated with Iran to nearly kill Trump at a July 2024 rally in Pennsylvania.

Several top former Trump aides who continued to have security details due to the threat from Iran have since faced retribution from their former boss and had those details pulled. In the years since the U.S. killing of Soleimani, multiple former Trump administration officials have beefed up their personal security details.

The new DHS bulletin, labeled “For Official Use Only,” adds more context to the department’s public warning on Sunday of a “heightened threat environment” in the U.S., citing the possibility of “low-level cyberattacks” and continued potential of lone-wolf attacks.

Days before the U.S. strikes on Iran, law enforcement officials told CNN that they were reexamining known or suspected Hezbollah associates in the US, looking for possible threats that could arise as tensions with Iran increase. There’s no indication of credible threats at this time, the sources said.

Iran’s security services often use hacking to gather intelligence on targets of assassination or surveillance, Iran-focused cybersecurity experts have told CNN. A former Trump official and onetime confidant of Bolton was hacked in 2022, in a possible effort to track Bolton’s movements as part of the assassination plot, CNN previously reported, not naming the ex-official.

“In the short-term, we are most concerned that Iran-aligned hacktivists will conduct low-level cyberattacks against U.S. networks, including distributed denial-of-service attacks,” the new DHS bulletin obtained by CNN said. “We are also concerned about cyber or physical attacks against critical infrastructure in the Homeland.”