Gaza war: Israel announces daily military pause along road to let in aid - BBC

Reuters

Kathryn Armstrong

BBC News

33 minutes ago

The Israeli military says it will hold a daily "tactical pause of military activity" along a road in southern Gaza to enable more humanitarian aid to enter.

The pauses, which are said to have begun on Saturday, will last from 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT) until 19:00 local time until further notice.

They will only affect a route that leads northwards from the key Kerem Shalom crossing, which Gaza shares with Israel.

Israel has been under continuous pressure from its allies, including the US, to prevent the humanitarian crisis in Gaza from worsening.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Sunday's announcement follows "additional related discussions with the UN and international organizations".

The route of the humanitarian pause leads from the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south of Gaza to the Salah al-Din Road - a main highway - and then northwards to the European Hospital near the city of Khan Younis.

In a post on X, the IDF clarified that there is no ceasefire in the southern Gaza Strip, and combat will continue in Rafah.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Rafah since Israeli troops entered it more than a month ago, seizing control of the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt and ordering many people to evacuate.

The crossing - once the main point of entry for aid - has been closed since then.

Israel says its operation in Rafah is necessary to oust Hamas from what it calls the group's “last major stronghold”.

International agencies have warned of a dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and made repeated calls for more aid to be let in.

On Wednesday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a significant proportion of Gaza's population was facing "catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions".

The IDF said eight Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion in Rafah on Saturday - the deadliest incident for the army in the war since January.

It happened during an operation in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah, which has been a key target for Israeli forces in recent weeks.

The armed wing of Hamas said it fired a rocket towards an armoured vehicle after setting up an ambush.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war against Hamas, urging Israelis not to let anyone "divert" them from the "clear and simple fact – despite the heavy and shocking price we must stick to the goals of war".

"Elimination of Hamas' governmental and military capabilities, returning all of our hostages, making sure that Gaza will not pose threat to Israel and returning our residents safely both in the north and in the south," he said.

Aid agencies have repeatedly reported difficulties in distributing aid around Gaza. The UN children's agency Unicef told the BBC on Friday that a convoy carrying aid was denied entry to northern Gaza, despite having all the necessary documents.

Unicef spokesman James Elder, who was travelling with the convoy, said that this had become a common occurrence.

The IDF said paperwork had not been filled out properly and accused Mr Elder of presenting a "partial picture" of the situation.

The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.

The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, and many hundreds of thousands more have been injured or displaced.

Negotiations over a potential ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas are continuing, with the US announcing on Saturday that Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant will visit Washington soon for talks.

Earlier this week, Hamas stopped short of accepting a US-backed plan, making counter-proposals on several points.

The plan - which the US says is an Israeli proposal although Israel has not publicly endorsed it - would see a "surge" in humanitarian assistance for Gaza.

Related Topics

• Middle East
• Israel-Gaza war
• Israel
• Gaza

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Israeli military announces daily ‘tactical pause’ in southern Gaza to allow in aid - The Guardian

The Israeli army has announced a daily “tactical pause in military activity” in part of the southern Gaza Strip to allow delivery of increased quantities of humanitarian aid, amid growing international criticism of its offensive there.

The army said the pause would begin in the Rafah area at 8 am (0500 GMT) and remain in effect until 7 pm (1600 GMT). It said the pause would take place every day until further notice.

The pause is aimed at allowing aid trucks to reach the nearby Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point for incoming aid, and travel safely to the Salah a-Din highway, a main north-south road, to deliver supplies to other parts of Gaza, the military said.

It said the pause was being coordinated with the UN and international aid agencies.

The crossing has suffered from a bottleneck since Israeli ground troops moved into Rafah in early May.

The announcement came shortly after the military said that another two Israeli soldiers had been killed in northern Gaza on Saturday, in addition to eight killed in a blast that engulfed their armoured vehicle in Rafah on the same day.

The losses, among the heaviest for the military since it began its ground offensive in Gaza on October 27, will probably fuel mounting calls for a ceasefire and heighten Israeli public anger over ultra-Orthodox exemptions from the military.

At least 19 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza on Saturday. At least 37,296 have been killed since the Israeli offensive on the territory began, with thousands more believed to be buried under the rubble and tens of thousands wounded.

Israel’s eight-month military offensive against the Hamas militant group has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, with the UN reporting widespread hunger and hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine as Israel blocked the delivery of aid and cut off water supplies. The international community has urged Israel to allow more aid in.

From 6 May until 6 June, the UN received an average of 68 trucks of aid a day, according to figures from the UN humanitarian office, known as OCHA. That was down from 168 a day in April and far below the 500 trucks a day that aid groups say are needed.

The flow of aid in southern Gaza declined just as the humanitarian need grew. More than 1 million Palestinians, many of whom had already been displaced, fled Rafah after the invasion, crowding into other parts of southern and central Gaza. Most now languish in ramshackle tent camps, using trenches as latrines, with open sewage in the streets.

Cogat, the Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, claims there are no restrictions on the entry of trucks. It says more than 8,600 trucks of all kinds, both aid and commercial, entered Gaza from all crossings from 2 May to 13 June, an average of 201 a day. But much of that aid has piled up at the crossings and not reached its final destination.

A spokesperson for Cogat, Shimon Freedman, said it was the UN’s fault that its cargos stacked up on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom. He said the agencies have “fundamental logistical problems that they have not fixed,” especially a lack of trucks.

The UN denies such allegations. It says the fighting between Israel and Hamas often makes it too dangerous for UN trucks inside Gaza to travel to Kerem Shalom, which is right next to Israel’s border.

It also says the pace of deliveries has been slowed because the Israeli military must authorise drivers to travel to the site, a system Israel says was designed for the drivers’ safety. Due to a lack of security, aid trucks in some cases have also been looted by crowds as they moved along Gaza’s roads.

The new arrangement aims to reduce the need for coordinating deliveries by providing an 11-hour uninterrupted window each day for trucks to move in and out of the crossing.

It was not immediately clear whether the army would provide security to protect the aid trucks as they move along the highway.

Associated Press contributed to this report

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Ukraine war briefing: Russian proposals not discussed at Swiss peace summit, Germany says - The Guardian

• World leaders gathered at a Swiss mountain resort above Lake Lucerne on Saturday to try to build support for Ukraine’s peace proposals on the first of the two-day international summit. More than 90 countries are taking part in the event, where Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy predicted the world would see “history being made”. But expectations of significant progress are low with key players, notably China, absent. Russia was not invited.

• The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz said that G7 leaders did not discuss Vladimir Putin’s proposals for peace in Ukraine since everyone knew they were not “meant seriously”. Scholz said the Russian president’s proposals – for Ukraine to abandon four provinces Russia claims, stop fighting and drop its ambition of Nato membership – were aimed only at distracting from the conference. Countries including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kenya noted Russia’s absence as a hurdle. The Kremlin said on Saturday that the west had reacted unconstructively to Putin’s proposals for a new security architecture and peace talks with Ukraine.

• A draft of a final summit declaration, seen by Reuters, blames Russia’s “war” in Ukraine for causing “large-scale human suffering and destruction” and urges Ukraine’s territorial integrity to be respected. The document, dated 13 June, also calls for Kyiv to regain control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and access to its seaports. The draft had deleted an earlier reference to Russian “aggression” where “war” is cited. On Sunday, three topics will be discussed in detail in working groups at the summit: nuclear safety, freedom of navigation and food security, and humanitarian aspects. These will look at Black Sea shipping, prisoners of war, civilian detainees and deported children.

• The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, who attended the summit in place of the US president, Joe Biden, announced more than $1.5bn (£1.2bn) in aid for Ukraine. The $1.5bn includes $500m (£395m) in new funding for energy assistance and the redirecting of $324m (£256m) in previously announced funds toward emergency energy infrastructure repair and other needs in Ukraine, the vice-president’s office said. She also announced more than $379m (£300m) in humanitarian assistance from the state department and the US agency for international development to help refugees and other people affected by the war.

• The Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has stated that the EU will not directly contribute to a $50bn loan to Ukraine agreed by the G7 leaders. At a press conference closing the G7 summit in Bari, she gave fresh details about the $50bn (£39bn) loan to Ukraine to be funded out of the interest accrued from the $230bn frozen Russian state assets, saying the cash will be provided by the US, Canada, UK and probably Japan. “Currently, European nations are not involved”, she said.

• Finland’s president Alexander Stubb said on Saturday the conference needed a follow-up as soon as possible. “Because peace is … always a process,” he told the more than 50 leaders gathered at a hotel overlooking Lake Lucerne. “We have 1,300 kilometres of border with Russia … Russia invaded Finland in World War Two, we lost 10% of our territory, including the land where my grandparents were born and where my father was born.”

• Three people were killed and five wounded by Russian shelling in Ulakly village in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, local governor Vadym Filashkin said on Saturday. The village was hit by cluster munitions, he said on the Telegram messaging app. Filashkin said administrative buildings, a private house, a shop and eight cars were damaged.

• Ukrainian shelling on the Russian border town of Shebekino killed five people and wounded several, the governor of the region of Belgorod said on Saturday. Belgorod has faced waves of attacks since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which Kyiv say are retaliation for Moscow’s large-scale assault. The reports of shellings could not be confirmed.

• Swedish fighter jets intercepted a Russian military aircraft after it briefly violated Sweden’s airspace on Friday east of the Baltic island of Gotland, the Nordic country’s armed forces said. Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billstrom, called the airspace violation “unacceptable” and said officials from the Russian embassy in Stockholm would be summoned to his ministry over the incident.

• Peter Pellegrini, an ally of Ukraine-sceptic prime minister Robert Fico, was sworn in as Slovakia’s new president. His victory cemented Fico’s grip on power by giving him and his allies control of major strategic posts. Fico did not attend the ceremony as he is still recovering after being shot in the abdomen while greeting supporters on 15 May in the town of Handlova.

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Knifeman on Euros party rampage killing one and wounding more after Germany win - The Mirror

Police have shot dead a man armed with a knife - who killed one man before stabbing three others at an event in east Germany.

The male attacker, 27, launched his attack at a private party in the city of Magdeburg while watching a Euro 2024 game which saw Germany win 5-1 against Scotland.

A police spokeswoman said the attacker then went for police officers as they arrived in Genossenschaftsweg in Wolmirstedt, Saxony-Anhalt. One officer drew his pistol and fatally shot the man. A spokesperson said on Saturday morning: "Firearms were used. The perpetrator died in hospital.”

A police officer drew his pistol and fatally shot the man ( Ying Tang/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock)

The attack, which broke out at around 9:30pm on Friday night, left at least three people injured, while two others - a 50-year-old woman and a 75-year-old man - suffered severe wounds. A second man, 56, suffered minor injuries. Police are yet to provide an update on the condition of these victims.

According to local media reports, the attacker was an Afghan national. The same man is also suspected of murdering another male, aged 23 and also from Afghanistan, earlier in a tower block near where the private party took place.

Police were called to the scene following reports that the attacker had threatened people on an allotment while on his way to the venue, according to the Magdeburger Volksstimme newspaper.

Germany won 5-1 against Scotland during the Euro 2024 game ( Action Press/REX/Shutterstock)

Nancy Faeser, the German interior minister, said: “We are arming ourselves against all conceivable dangers with the maximum commitment of the security authorities. Our focus ranges from the threat of Islamist terror to hooligans and cyber attacks. The Federal Police will protect Germany’s borders, airports and rail traffic.”

A command centre has been set up in the city of Neuss in the Rhine region as counter-terror police assembled in a bid to keep members of the public safe at Euro 2024 events.

It comes shortly after police arrested a man at Cologne Airport after he reportedly transferred crypto currency to an alleged Islamic state cell in Afghanistan. The suspect identified as 'Soufian T' due to German privacy laws, is believed to have applied to work as a security guard at various Euro 2024 watch events. A tip off to a German security agency meant his applications were rejected.

Security personnel pushes back visitors at a public screening of the Euros ( CLEMENS BILAN/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

A seperate incident in Mannheim last month saw knifeman Sulaiman Ataee, 25, stab anti-Islam activist Michael Stuerzenberger, a police officer and bystanders as horrifying footage of the scene unfolding was live streamed on YouTube.

A 29-year-old police officer, who was named as Rouven L, succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead while Ataee was shot and wounded by police. Locals described Ataee as a 'well integrated' refugee who ‘became noticeably colder’ before the attack, sources say.

German police are reportedly on high alert following recent attacks ( Getty Images)

According to Ataee’s friends, neighbours and even the authorities, the father-of-two was known to be a helpful, kind and agreeable citizen who had worked hard to integrate into society by becoming fluent in German.

Ataee, who was born in Herat, Afghanistan, arrived in Germany aged 14, where he settled in a youth residential group in the state of Hesse. His application for asylum was rejected, but due to his young age, authorities chose not to deport him. The case is now being taken over by federal prosecutors responsible for terrorism and national security cases.

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Russia, China absent as world leaders meet for Ukraine peace conference - Al Jazeera English

China’s non-participation in Switzerland summit raises questions over point of event, which Russia dismissed as ‘futile’.

World leaders are gathering in Switzerland for a summit aimed at pressuring Russia to end its war in Ukraine, but the absence of powerful allies of Moscow such as China is expected to blunt its potential impact.

United States Vice President Kamala Harris and the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan are among those who joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the summit starting on Saturday.

India, Turkey and Hungary, which maintain friendlier relations with Russia, are also expected to join.

But China is staying away after Russia was frozen out of proceedings on the grounds it had dismissed the event as “futile” and had expressed no interest in attending.

Without China, Western hopes of isolating Russia have faded, while recent military reverses on the battlefield have put Ukrainian forces on the back foot.

“The summit risks showing the limits of Ukrainian diplomacy,” said Richard Gowan, United Nations director at the International Crisis Group.

“Nonetheless, it is also a chance for Ukraine to remind the world that it is defending the principles of the UN Charter.”

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Zelenskyy predicted “history being made” at the conference.

Speaking alongside Swiss President Viola Amherd, Zelenskyy said the gathering itself was already a positive development.

“We have succeeded in bringing back to the world the idea that joint efforts can stop war and establish a just peace,” he said.

During a meeting with Zelenskyy, US Vice President Harris, who attended in the stead of President Joe Biden, announced more than $1.5bn in energy and humanitarian aid to restore Ukraine’s devastated infrastructure.

“This war remains an utter failure for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” Harris said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, meanwhile, called the gathering an important step towards progress.

“Many questions of peace and security will be discussed, but not the very biggest. That was always the plan,” he said, speaking to Welt TV before travelling to Switzerland. “This is a small plant that needs to be watered, but of course also with the perspective that more can then come out of it.”

For his part, Polish President Andrzej Duda said the summit aimed to bring home to more geographically distant countries the scale of the threat to the world posed by Russia.

Moscow’s demands

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country would end the war if Ukraine agreed to drop its NATO ambitions and hand over the entirety of four provinces claimed by Moscow – demands Kyiv swiftly rejected as tantamount to surrender.

Ukraine and the US swiftly dismissed Putin’s demands, but his statement apparently reflected growing confidence that Russian forces have the upper hand in the war.

Meanwhile, Scholz said: “Everyone knows that this was proposal wasn’t meant seriously, but had something to do with the peace conference in Switzerland.”

Russia casts what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine as part of a broader struggle with the West, which it says wants to bring Russia to its knees.

Ukraine and the West reject this and accuse Russia of waging an illegal war of conquest.

Switzerland, which took on the summit at the behest of Zelenskyy, wants to pave the way for a future peace process that includes Russia.

About 90 countries and organisations have committed to the two-day gathering due to take place at the Buergenstock, a mountaintop resort in central Switzerland.

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2024-06-15 14:38:18Z
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Ramaphosa re-elected South African president after striking deal with opposition - Financial Times

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Russia-Ukraine war: Putin’s peace plan ‘not serious’, says Germany as leaders gather to discuss end to war - The Guardian

We are restarting our rolling coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Much of the focus will be around the Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland, the largest such event since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. We will bring you the latest updates throughout the day.

G7 leaders did not discuss Vladimir Putin’s proposals for peace in Ukraine since everyone knew they were not serious, Olaf Scholz said shortly before leaving for Switzerland, where a Ukraine conference opens on Saturday.

The German chancellor said Putin’s proposals – for Ukraine to abandon four provinces Russia claims, stop fighting and drop its ambition of Nato membership – were aimed only at distracting from the conference.

“Everyone knows that this was proposal wasn’t meant seriously, but had something to do with the peace conference in Switzerland,” he told ZDF television in an interview.

As world leaders gather for the summit, which Russia was not invited to, US vice-president Kamala Harris will stress that the outcome of the war affects the entire world and that Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected, a US official has said.

Harris will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and is standing in for US President Joe Biden at the event. The president is returning to the US after attending the G7 in Italy to attend a fundraiser for his re-election campaign in Los Angeles.

The summit comes as G7 leaders clinched a new deal for a €50bn loan for Ukraine, securitised through use of the windfall profits from the interest on Russian central bank assets frozen by the EU and other western nations after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Here’s a summary of the day’s other main events:

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy arrived in Switzerland on Friday ahead of the two-day Ukraine peace summit. Zelenskiy said talks would focus on nuclear safety, food security, the return of prisoners of war and Ukrainian children taken to Russian-controlled territory.

• Kamala Harris, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the leaders of Germany, Italy, Britain, Canada and Japan are among those set to attend the Swiss summit in Lucerne. Despite months of Ukrainian and Swiss lobbying, some others will not be there, most notably China. The gathering comes after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Moscow would only enter peace talks after Ukraine pulls its troops out of the east and south of the country – a plan which Zelenskiy has dismissed.

• On the ground in Ukraine, a Russian airstrike killed one person and injured at least four in the northern Sumy region on Friday, the military administration there said. The strike hit the town of Shostka, about 45km (28 miles) from the border with Russia, it said on Telegram, giving no details about damage. The strike came as Kyiv and Moscow staged dozens of drone and missile attacks overnight on Thursday and during Friday.

• Ukrainian attacks on southern Russia’s Belgorod region killed six people on Friday, officials said. Four bodies were pulled from the rubble of a multi-floor apartment building hit by Ukrainian shelling in the border town of Shebekino, Russia’s emergencies ministry said, adding after midnight that 50% of the rubble had been cleared. A Ukrainian drone struck a car in a village near Shebekino, killing the driver, said the regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov. He said a woman was killed in her home when it was struck by rocket fire in the village of Oktyabrsky, farther west.

• Russia launched 17 missiles and nearly 500 drones on Friday, Ukraine’s general staff said. Drone attacks killed a 54-year-old man in the southern Kherson region and injured a 17-year-old girl in the eastern city of Dnipro, regional authorities said. Three people were injured in a drone attack in the eastern Sumy region and several homes damaged in the neighbouring Kharkiv region.

• The EU has ramped up its production of projectiles and will match Russia’s production capacity next year, the bloc’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, told French news outlet La Tribune.

World leaders have been commenting on the goals of the Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland (see opening summary at 08.28 for more details).

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the event an important step towards progress. He told German news channel Welt TV:

Many questions of peace and security will be discussed, but not the very biggest. That was always the plan.

This is a small plant that needs to be watered, but of course also with the perspective that more can then come out of it.

Poland’s president Andrzej Duda, meanwhile, said the summit aimed to bring home to more geographically distant countries the scale of the threat to the world posed by Moscow.

US vice-president Kamala Harris and the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Canada and Japan are among those due to attend. India, Turkey and Hungary, which maintain friendlier relations with Russia, are also expected to join.

A Russian aircraft violated Swedish airspace east of the Baltic island of Gotland on Friday and was met by two Swedish fighter jets, a spokesperson for Sweden’s armed forces has said.

The Swedish armed forces said the Russian military aircraft, a SU-24, had been hailed with a warning but failed to respond after which two Swedish Gripen fighters were sent up to meet it.

“The Russian actions are not acceptable and show a lack of respect for our territorial integrity,” Swedish air force chief Jonas Wikman said. “We followed the entire chain of events and were in place to intervene.”

In March, Sweden officially became the 32nd member of Nato, in a landmark moment for the historically neutral country. Members of the military alliance agree that if one of them is attacked, the other countries should help it defend itself.

Last week, Finland’s defence ministry said an investigation had been launched after a Russian military plane was suspected of violating Finnish airspace, flying about 2.5 km (1.6 miles) inside the Nordic country’s border.

The violation in the eastern Gulf of Finland lasted for about two minutes, the ministry said, with the country’s defence minister, Antti Hakkanen, warning that Finland, which joined Nato in April 2023, takes “the suspected territorial violation seriously”.

Kherson’s regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, has said a third support centre has been opened to support residents of the Kherson region who were forced to leave their homes due to the war.

“The humanitarian office of the Kherson region has become operational in Kyiv. Every day, its employees serve more than 100 displaced people who have found temporary shelter in the capital and the region. And according to official data alone, there are more than 50,000 such people,” he wrote on Telegram.

Grocery kits, free legal support and psychological support are provided in the centre.

Kherson is among the regional settlements west of the Dnipro River which have reported being frequently targeted by Russian strikes since Ukraine recaptured the area in November 2022.

Geng Shuang, China’s deputy representative to the UN, has called on Ukraine and Russia to start peace talks as soon as possible at the UN security council meeting.

“Weapons may end a war, but they cannot bring lasting peace. China calls on the parties to the conflict to demonstrate political will, come together, and start peace talks as soon as possible to achieve a ceasefire and halt military actions,” Shuang was quoted by the Kyiv Independent on Sunday as telling the meeting.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said that Russia would enter peace talks if Ukraine dropped its Nato ambitions and withdrew its forces from four Ukrainian regions claimed by Moscow (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia). Kyiv has repeatedly said its territorial integrity is non-negotiable.

Organisers of the peace summit played down China’s decision not to attend, a move that prompted Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to accuse Beijing of helping Moscow undermine the meeting, which China’s foreign ministry denied.

Kyiv had been pushing hard for a Chinese delegation to attend the summit to give the conference further legitimacy and drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing, writes the Guardian’s Lisa O’Carroll (you can read more here).

Without China, hopes of isolating Moscow have faded, while recent military reverses have put Kyiv on the back foot.

China had said it would consider taking part in the event in Switzerland, but ultimately declined because Russia would not be there.

“It’s clear that at the moment, in geopolitical terms, for China the special relationship with Russia takes precedence over any other consideration,” Bernardino Regazzoni, a former Swiss ambassador to China, said.

China and Russia proclaimed a “no limits” partnership just days before Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Beijing says it is neutral in the conflict and has not supplied Moscow with weapons or ammunition.

90 states and organisations have registered to take part in the Ukraine peace summit on Saturday and Sunday in the alpine resort of Lucerne, which will seek to build support for Zelenskiy’s peace proposals, including the full withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.

We are restarting our rolling coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Much of the focus will be around the Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland, the largest such event since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. We will bring you the latest updates throughout the day.

G7 leaders did not discuss Vladimir Putin’s proposals for peace in Ukraine since everyone knew they were not serious, Olaf Scholz said shortly before leaving for Switzerland, where a Ukraine conference opens on Saturday.

The German chancellor said Putin’s proposals – for Ukraine to abandon four provinces Russia claims, stop fighting and drop its ambition of Nato membership – were aimed only at distracting from the conference.

“Everyone knows that this was proposal wasn’t meant seriously, but had something to do with the peace conference in Switzerland,” he told ZDF television in an interview.

As world leaders gather for the summit, which Russia was not invited to, US vice-president Kamala Harris will stress that the outcome of the war affects the entire world and that Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected, a US official has said.

Harris will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and is standing in for US President Joe Biden at the event. The president is returning to the US after attending the G7 in Italy to attend a fundraiser for his re-election campaign in Los Angeles.

The summit comes as G7 leaders clinched a new deal for a €50bn loan for Ukraine, securitised through use of the windfall profits from the interest on Russian central bank assets frozen by the EU and other western nations after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Here’s a summary of the day’s other main events:

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy arrived in Switzerland on Friday ahead of the two-day Ukraine peace summit. Zelenskiy said talks would focus on nuclear safety, food security, the return of prisoners of war and Ukrainian children taken to Russian-controlled territory.

• Kamala Harris, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the leaders of Germany, Italy, Britain, Canada and Japan are among those set to attend the Swiss summit in Lucerne. Despite months of Ukrainian and Swiss lobbying, some others will not be there, most notably China. The gathering comes after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Moscow would only enter peace talks after Ukraine pulls its troops out of the east and south of the country – a plan which Zelenskiy has dismissed.

• On the ground in Ukraine, a Russian airstrike killed one person and injured at least four in the northern Sumy region on Friday, the military administration there said. The strike hit the town of Shostka, about 45km (28 miles) from the border with Russia, it said on Telegram, giving no details about damage. The strike came as Kyiv and Moscow staged dozens of drone and missile attacks overnight on Thursday and during Friday.

• Ukrainian attacks on southern Russia’s Belgorod region killed six people on Friday, officials said. Four bodies were pulled from the rubble of a multi-floor apartment building hit by Ukrainian shelling in the border town of Shebekino, Russia’s emergencies ministry said, adding after midnight that 50% of the rubble had been cleared. A Ukrainian drone struck a car in a village near Shebekino, killing the driver, said the regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov. He said a woman was killed in her home when it was struck by rocket fire in the village of Oktyabrsky, farther west.

• Russia launched 17 missiles and nearly 500 drones on Friday, Ukraine’s general staff said. Drone attacks killed a 54-year-old man in the southern Kherson region and injured a 17-year-old girl in the eastern city of Dnipro, regional authorities said. Three people were injured in a drone attack in the eastern Sumy region and several homes damaged in the neighbouring Kharkiv region.

• The EU has ramped up its production of projectiles and will match Russia’s production capacity next year, the bloc’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, told French news outlet La Tribune.

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