Live Updates: Jordan to host emergency aid summit for Gaza

Tuesday, June 11, 2024

0208 GMT — Jordan is hosting a summit on the urgent humanitarian response for Palestinians enduring more than eight months of devastating Israeli carnage in besieged Gaza, where Israeli imposed starvation and famine is taking innocent lives.

The summit seeks to bring together leaders and aid officials to "determine means for enhancing the international community's response to the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip", according to the Jordanian royal court.

The conference, jointly organised by the UN, Jordan, and Egypt on the Dead Sea coast, will be attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.

Jordan's Foreign Ministry said the conference would discuss "preparations for early recovery, and seek commitments for a collective and coordinated response to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza".

"The main purpose of this summit is to reach consensus over practical measures to meet the immediate needs" in Gaza, the ministry added in a statement.

0126 GMT — US claims its partners destroyed Houthi drone

The US Central Command [CENTCOM] has claimed that in the past 24 hours, its partner forces destroyed one un-crewed aerial system [UAS] launched by Yemen's Houthi group over the Gulf of Aden.

"There were no injuries reported by US, coalition or merchant vessels," CENTCOM said, adding the UAS presented an "imminent threat" to vessels in the region.

0116 GMT — US claims Israel did not use floating aid pier off Gaza

The Pentagon has rejected claims that Israel used the US's floating aid pier off besieged Gaza during its hostage rescue operation but said there was some type of activity "nearby."

"I don't have a proximate location...It was near, but I think it's incidental," spokesperson Major General Pat Ryder told reporters when asked how close the rescue operation got to the pier.

"Again, the pier, the equipment, the personnel — all supporting a humanitarian effort — had nothing to do with the IDF rescue operation," he added.

"We've acknowledged that there was some type of helicopter activity nearby, but that was completely separate and not associated with the JLOTS operation."

2300 GMT — Hamas seeks public pledge from Israel before talks on Gaza truce

Mediators must obtain public pledge from Israel for ceasefire in Gaza "so that we can enter into negotiations," a senior Hamas official has told TRT World.

"And US must be a guarantor of everything that is agreed upon," the official said.

It comes after the UN Security Council overwhelmingly approved its first resolution endorsing a ceasefire plan aimed at ending the brutal eight-month war waged by Israel in Gaza.

The US-sponsored resolution welcomes a ceasefire proposal announced by President Joe Biden that the United States claims Israel has accepted. It calls on the Palestinian resistance group Hamas to accept the three-phase plan. Ever since the plan was announced Israeli officials including hawkish premier Benjamin Netanyahu had been rejecting its contents on one pretext or the other.

Hamas is skeptical that Israel will honour the agreement and is thus seeking guarantees from Israel's staunch ally, the US.

The resolution — which was approved with 14 of the 15 Security Council members voting in favoUr and Russia abstaining — calls on Israel and Hamas "to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition."

Whether Israel and Hamas agree to go forward with the plan remains in question, but the resolution's strong support in the UN's most powerful body puts added pressure on both parties to approve the proposal.

2027 GMT — Palestine hails UNSC's Gaza truce vote

Hamas has welcomed a UN Security Council resolution backing a proposal for a ceasefire in besieged Gaza, saying it is ready to cooperate with mediators over implementing the principles of the plan.

"Hamas welcomes what is included in the Security Council resolution that affirmed the permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the complete withdrawal, the prisoners' exchange, the reconstruction, the return of the displaced to their areas of residence, the rejection of any demographic change or reduction in the area of the Gaza Strip, and the delivery of needed aid to our people in the Strip," the resistance group said in a statement.

Hamas also said it was willing to engage in indirect negotiations over implementing the principles "that are consistent with the demands of our people and resistance."

Palestinian Presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh also welcomed the resolution backing, saying that the presidency is with any resolution that calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and preserves Palestinian land unity.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas also "welcomed" the vote adopting a US-drafted resolution supporting a ceasefire plan in Gaza.

"The Palestinian president considers the adoption of this resolution a step in the right direction to end the war of genocide against our people in the Gaza Strip," Abbas's office said in a statement.

2032 GMT — Israeli military kills 4 Palestinians in West Bank

Israeli military have killed four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

The latest murders take the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli military and illegal Zionist settlers since October 7 in the area to 536, including at least 132 children.

2004 GMT — US university fires professor over Gaza genocide assignment

Illinois-based DePaul University has fired a now-former adjunct Biology professor for offering students an optional lesson on the health impacts of the Gaza genocide.

Protesters have been demonstrating Dr. Anne d'Aquino's dismissal on campus in Chicago, and an appeals board unanimously ruled that her firing was a violation of her academic freedom, according to CBS News.

DePaul Provost Salma Ghanem will issue a final decision.

The firing stems from d'Aquino's teaching of Health 194, Human Pathogens and Defense, in May. The class syllabus said instruction would seek to explore the real-world applications of microbiology research, specifically with an eye toward current events.

She offered students an optional assignment to explore what she called "the impacts of genocide on human biology."

Speaking at a student rally last Thursday, d'Aquino said her case is a reminder "that if faculty and staff are not protected from the swift and severe reprimand of this university, students most certainly are not either."

Administrators had sought to argue that the assignment was unrelated to the course, a claim disputed by d'Aquino, according to CBS.

"For months, scientists and physicians have been warning about the spread of infectious diseases in Gaza due to starvation, malnutrition, overcrowding, destruction of critical water and sanitation infrastructure," she said at last week's rally.

A petition with over 1,500 student signatures demanding her reinstatement was hand-delivered to the administration last week.

For our live updates from Monday, June 10, 2024, click here.