Middle East: Netanyahu nominates Trump for Nobel Peace Prize

France's intelligence chief said Iran's nuclear program was set back by several months, in his first public remarks since American and Israeli strikes hit Iranian nuclear facilities last month.

Speaking to France's LCI broadcaster, Nicolas Lerner, the head of DGSE intelligence service, said that various stages of Iran's nuclear program had been damaged.

"Our assessment today is that each of these stages has been very seriously affected, very seriously damaged," he said.

"The nuclear program, as we knew it, has been extremely delayed, probably many months."

Lerner also told the channel that a small part of Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile had been destroyed but the rest remained in the hands of authorities.

What else do we know about Iran's uranium stockpile?

Prior to the strikes, Iran had accumulated a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that, if processed further, could fuel around 10 bombs, according to an assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"Today we have indications (on where it is), but we cannot say with certainty as long as the IAEA does not restart its work. It's very important. We won't have the capacity to trace it (the stocks)," Lerner said.

Other intelligence assessments have also suggested that Iran retains a hidden stockpile of enriched uranium and that it could rebuild its nuclear program.

Iran's president also last week ordered the country to suspend its cooperation with the IAEA, limiting international inspectors from keeping tabs on the whereabouts of the country's enriched uranium stockpile.

US President Donald Trump says he will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again on Tuesday to push for a Gaza agreement, just a day after the two leaders had dinner at the White House.

"He's coming over later. We're going to be talking about, I would say, almost exclusively Gaza. We've got to get that solved," Trump told reporters at a cabinet meeting. 

"It's a tragedy, and he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to."

Meanwhile, Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said he was hopeful for a deal between Israel and Hamas, who are holding indirect talks in Qatar.

He said he hopes for an agreement by the end of the week that would secure a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 10 live hostages and nine deceased.

Netanyahu is in Washington until Thursday on his third visit since Trump returned to power in January.

On Tuesday, he was also due to meet Vice President JD Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson and senators on Capitol Hill.

When a DW team traveled to the town of Sinjil to cover a protest by residents, they themselves, along with protesters, came under attack.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced plans to contain hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in what he called a "humanitarian city" in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.

Israeli strikes have largely destroyed Rafah, home to Gaza's only border crossing with Egypt.

The plan would initially house some 600,000 Palestinians currently living in tents in the nearby Mawasi area but could be expanded to contain the enter population of the Gaza Strip

Katz said the area would be administered by unspecified "international partners," with the Israeli military only providing security.

People entering the camp would undergo a security check to prevent Hamas militants from entering the area, he said.

Katz also said the proposed camp would assist Palestinian residents to "voluntarily emigrate" out of Gaza — a move which critics say would amount to forced expulsion.

The Times of Israel newspaper noted that while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said it is not his plan to expel Palestinians against their will, his government is nevertheless beholden to some far-right coalition partners who have previously discussed the idea of forcibly expelling Palestinians from Gaza to make way for new Jewish settlements.

Three mariners were killed in an attack on a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier in the Red Sea carried out by Yemen-based Houthi rebels, according to a EU naval force operating in the region.

The attack on the Greek-owned vessel "Eternity C" took place on Monday evening in an attack that involved drones and speedboats. 

It comes a day after another ship, the Magic Seas, was attacked on Sunday. That vessel ended up sinking on Monday, but the crew was able to abandon ship.

The two attacks are the first by Houthis on Red Sea shipping since November 2024. Although the Iran-backed Houthis have not claimed the second attack, the US Embassy in Yemen accused the militant group of being behind the attack on the Eternity C and said they were "once again showing a blatant disregard for human life."

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said the vessel was repeatedly attacked and had been badly damaged.

"The vessel has sustained significant damage and has lost all propulsion," UKMTO, which is run by the British navy, said in a statement.

The US Embassy in Yemen accused the Iran-backed Houthis said they were "once again showing a blatant disregard for human life."

The EU said the attacks on Red Sea shipping were "a serious escalation endangering maritime security in a vital waterway for the region and the world"

The Houthis have been launching missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in the region in what the group's leadership has described as an effort to end Israel's offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis had paused attacks until the US launched an assault against the group in mid-March.

The US operation ended after a few weeks, and the Houthis hadn't attacked a vessel until this weekend. 

Israel's military said that five of its soldiers were killed in Gaza during combat operations overnight into Tuesday. 

"All of Israel bows its head and mourns the fall of our heroic soldiers, who risked their lives in the battle to defeat Hamas and free all our hostages," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X.

The military said 14 other soldiers were injured, one seriously.

Israeli military correspondents reported that the deaths took place when improvised explosive devices detonated in the area of Beit Hanun in the north of the territory.

The Times of Israel newspaper reports that the death toll for Israel's military as a result of the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza now stands at 449 dead.

Anyone or any organization can be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, but only a select group of people can actually make a nomination.

As a member of a national parliament, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is eligible to nominate US President Donald Trump for the prize.

This privilege also extends to cabinet members and heads of state.

Other categories listed in the Norwegian Nobel Committee's criteria include, among others, university professors, members of certain international courts, directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes, past Nobel laureates, and current and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The Norwegian Nobel Institute has so far registered a total of 338 candidates for the 2025 peace prize. Of them, 244 are individuals and 94 are organizations.

The names of the nominations and the nominators for a given year are not divulged until 50 years after the prize has been awarded. However, some high-profile cases tend to attract media attention — such as the several times Trump has been nominated over the years.

The Palestine Red Crescent said Al-Zaytoun Medical Clinic in Gaza city was forced to close amidIsraeli shelling in the Gaza Strip.

"The clinic had been providing care to thousands of patients, particularly as the area became increasingly overcrowded with displaced residents from eastern Gaza following evacuation orders issued by the Israeli occupation," the Red Crescent said.

"With the clinic’s closure, thousands of civilians will now be forced to walk long distances to access medical care or obtain childhood vaccinations."

Israeli military actions or evacuation orders have forced 18 Palestine Red Crescent medical clinics to close since the beginning of the assault on Gaza, the group said.

Iran has increased the official death toll from the 12-day war with Israel last month.

Saeed Ohadi, the head of Iran's Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans' Affairs, said late on Monday that Israeli attacks had killed at least 1,060 people.

He warned that the death toll could still increase because some people were severely wounded.

Iran initially downplayed the effects of Israeli bombardment and did not frequently update the death toll.

The Washington-based group Human Rights Activists counted 1,190 deaths and at least 4,475 wounded.

DW has met two former Israeli reservists who served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) after the war in Gaza began, but refuse to continue fighting.

Pressing on with the war only serves the "political survival" of the Netanyahu government, they say. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump on Monday that he was nominating the US president for a Nobel Peace Prize as the pair hailed their recent strikes on Iran's key nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu and Trump sat down with their top aides for a dinner in Washington to mark the Iran operation and discuss a 60-day ceasefire proposal aimed at halting the 21-month conflict in Gaza.

"He's forging peace as we speak, and one country and one region after the other," Netanyahu said as he presented Trump with a nominating letter, adding that he is sending it to the Nobel Peace Prize committee.

The development comes after Trump ordered US forces to drop "bunker-buster" bombs and fire a barrage of Tomahawk missiles on three nuclear sites in Iran.

In an interview published on Monday, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said the US airstrikes so badly damaged nuclear facilities that Iranian authorities have not been able to access them.

Netanyahu's outwardly triumphant visit to the White House, his third this year, is dogged by Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza and questions over how hard Trump will push for an end to the conflict.

But in an exchange before the dinner got underway, both Trump and Netanyahu expressed optimism that their success in Iran would mark a new era in the Middle East.

"I think things are going to be really settled down a lot in the Middle East," Trump said. "And, they respect us and they respect Israel."

Negotiations had started in April but were scuttled after Israel began its operations last month.

"We have scheduled Iran talks, and they want to," Trump told reporters. "They want to talk." He said last week that the talks would restart soon.

Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, sitting at the table with Trump, said the meeting would be soon, perhaps in a week, but Iran has yet to confirm the arrangement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he wanted peace with Palestinians, but described any future independent Palestinian state as a platform to destroy Israel.

Speaking in Washington, where he met with US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu described the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, where Hamas was in control, as evidence of what Palestinians would do with a state.

Trump said he didn't know if a two-state solution was possible and passed the question over to Netanyahu, who said: "I think the Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers to threaten us. That means a sovereign power, like overall security, will always remain in our hands."

Donald Trump said late on Monday that Hamas is keen on having a ceasefire with Israel amid the ongoing Gaza conflict.

"They [Hamas] want to meet and they want to have that ceasefire," Trump said at the start of a White House dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said there was an opportunity to reach an agreement quickly.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that Witkoff "intends to travel to Doha later this week" to participate in the mediation talks.

Leavitt heaped praise on Qatar and Egypt for being "incredibly helpful partners in mediating these negotiations and discussions to bring peace to this region and end this conflict once and for all."

Hello and welcome to DW's coverage of developments in the Middle East on Tuesday, July 8, 2025.

US President Donald Trump said that he believed that Hamas wants to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize as the two dined together in Washington.

The two leaders hailed recent joint attacks on Iran.