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GAZA: An injured Palestinian child cries following a Zionist strike that targeted the Shaheen family home in the Saftawi neighbourhood west of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on June 9, 2025. - AFP
GAZA: An injured Palestinian child cries following a Zionist strike that targeted the Shaheen family home in the Saftawi neighbourhood west of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on June 9, 2025. - AFP

Palestine state no longer US goal

UK, allies sanction Zionist ministers • More Gazans killed seeking aid • Zionists storm Nablus

WASHINGTON/LONDON/GAZA/NABLUS: US Ambassador to the Zionist entity Mike Huckabee said he did not think that an independent Palestinian state remains a goal of US foreign policy, according to an interview with Bloomberg News released on Tuesday. “I don’t think so,” Huckabee said when asked if a Palestinian state remains a goal of US policy, Bloomberg reported.

Meanwhile, Britain and other allies imposed sanctions on two far-right Zionist ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, on Tuesday over “their repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities”, the UK’s foreign ministry said. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway joined Britain in freezing the assets and imposing travel bans on the Zionist national security minister Ben-Gvir – a West Bank settler – and finance minister Smotrich.

Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is staunch pro-Zionist conservative picked by President Donald Trump to be his envoy to the Zionist entity. “Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” Huckabee was quoted as saying. Those probably won’t happen “in our lifetime”, he told the news agency.

Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy, and he has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term. Huckabee suggested a piece of land could be carved out of a Muslim country rather than asking the Zionist entity to make room. “Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?” Huckabee said, using the biblical name the Zionist government favors for the West Bank, where some 3 million Palestinians live under occupation.

“Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. These actions are not acceptable,” British foreign minister David Lammy, along with the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway said in a joint statement. “This is why we have taken action now to hold those responsible to account.” Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said that the sanctions included targeted financial restrictions and travel bans.

The joint statement said Tuesday’s action was focused on curbing violence by Zionist settlers in the West Bank and was aimed solely at individuals who “undermine (the Zionist entity’s) own security”. But it added the measures could not be seen in isolation of events in Gaza. “We continue to be appalled by the immense suffering of civilians, including the denial of essential aid,” it said. “There must be no unlawful transfer of Palestinians from Gaza or within the West Bank, nor any reduction in the territory of the Gaza Strip.”

Zionist foreign minister Gideon Saar said the move was “outrageous” and the government would hold a special meeting early next week to decide how to respond to the “unacceptable decision”. Smotrich, speaking at the inauguration of a new settlement in the Hebron Hills, spoke of “contempt” for Britain’s move. “Britain has already tried once to prevent us from settling the cradle of our homeland, and we cannot do it again. We are determined God willing to continue building.”

Zionist gunfire killed at least 17 Palestinians and wounded dozens as thousands of displaced people approached an aid distribution site of a US-backed humanitarian group in central Gaza on Tuesday, local health authorities said. Medics said the casualties were rushed to two hospitals, the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, and the Al-Quds in Gaza City, in the north.

Last week the Zionist army warned Palestinians not to approach routes leading to sites of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) between 6 pm and 6 am local time, describing these roads as closed military zones. The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral.

“Day after day, casualties & scores of injured are reported at distribution points manned by (the Zionist entity) & private security companies,” Philippe Lazzarini, the chief of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), wrote on X. “This humiliating system continues to force thousands of hungry & desperate people to walk for tens of miles excluding the most vulnerable & those living too far,” he said.

“I went there at 2 am hoping to get some food, on my way there, I saw people returning empty-handed, they said aid packages had run out in five minutes. This is insane and isn’t enough,” said Mohammad Abu Amr, 40, a father of two. “Dozens of thousands arrive from the central areas and from the northern areas too, some of them walked for over 20 km, only to come back home with disappointment,” he told Reuters.

Lazzarini said food aid should be overseen by the United Nations. “Aid deliveries & distribution must be at scale & safe. In Gaza, this can be done only through the United Nations ... We have the expertise, the knowledge & community trust,” he said.

Separately, local health authorities said a Zionist strike on a house in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza Strip killed eight people, taking Tuesday’s death toll to at least 25. The Zionist military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and flattened much of the coastal enclave.

Meanwhile, the Zionist entity launched a large-scale military operation on Tuesday in the old city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, AFP journalists reported, with two Palestinians killed. Dozens of military vehicles entered the city shortly after midnight, an AFP journalist reported, after a curfew had been announced over loudspeakers the day before.

Military operations are focused on the old city, a densely populated area bordering a large downtown square where young men and boys gathered to burn tyres and throw stones at armored vehicles. AFPTV footage showed Zionist soldiers standing in one of the old city’s narrow streets, next to the bodies of two civilians.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Tuesday that three people were injured from bullet shrapnel, four from “physical assaults”, and dozens more from tear gas inhalation. It added that many injuries had to be handled within the old city after its ambulances were blocked from entering. Nablus is located in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by the Zionist entity since 1967.

On Tuesday, Zionist soldiers entered shops to search them and arrested several people for questioning, according to an AFP correspondent at the scene. The correspondent added Zionist flags were raised over the roofs of buildings in the Old City that had been turned into temporary bases for Zionist troops. Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war. At least 938 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Zionist soldiers or settlers. – Agencies

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