Israeli forces said strikes on densely populated locations were aimed at killing senior Hamas commander
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on two densely populated locations in Gaza City.
According to initial reports in the Israeli media, the bombings were aimed at assassinating a very senior Hamas commander.
Continue reading...Musician, 33, faces retrial after being sentenced to death for ‘corruption on Earth’
Iran’s supreme court has overturned the death sentence imposed on the rapper Toomaj Salehi, his lawyer said.
The decision comes in the middle of Iran’s presidential election campaign but seems unrelated to the fierce public debates under way about Iran’s future direction, including the rights of women not to wear the hijab if they wish.
Continue reading...Territory’s health ministry says Israeli attack targeted tents of displaced people; Israeli military says report ‘under review’
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says 22 people have been killed in a shelling attack that damaged its Gaza office, which is surrounded by hundreds of displaced Palestinians living in tents.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said there were 25 dead and 50 injured in the shelling, which it blamed on Israel. The ministry said Israeli shelling on Friday had “targeted the tents of the displaced in the al-Mawasi area”, which is around the ICRC base.
Continue reading...Doctors prepare underground hospital units, people flee their homes and in rural kibbutz tension hangs in the air
Beneath the 800-bed Galilee medical centre in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya, treatment is being conducted in an underground complex beneath the hospital.
About 7km from the border with Lebanon, a frontier visible from the hospital’s car park and already under threat from Hezbollah’s missiles and explosive drones, the doctors are aware that in the event of an escalating war their facility will be on the frontline.
Continue reading...Hoda Nagib and her husband had walked 20km in the baking sun in Saudi Arabia while on Mecca pilgrimage
Hoda Nagib and her husband had walked 20km in the baking sun in Saudi Arabia when she told him that she needed to rest. The couple, who are in their 60s, had just scaled Mount Arafat, along with thousands of other white-robed pilgrims on the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, where temperatures as high as 51.8C have been recorded in the shade in recent days.
Nagib’s husband left her to perform a ritual known as the stoning of the devil. When he returned she had disappeared, their neighbour Walaa Roshdy explained.
Continue reading...A decade after tens of thousands of Yazidis escaped an Islamic State attack many fear return to a home in ruins
The Iraqi government has been accused of making the survivors of the Sinjar massacre fear for their future once more, almost a decade after the murderous Islamic State campaign that forced tens of thousands of people to flee from their homes.
In January, the Iraqi council of ministers set a deadline of 30 July to close 23 displacement camps in Iraqi Kurdistan. The camps are home to about 155,000 internally displaced people (IDP), mostly Yazidis, who were slaughtered, kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery in their thousands at the height of the violence in northern Iraq in 2014.
Continue reading...Officials say Cyprus is ‘pillar of peace’ amid shock at warning it could become a target for Lebanese group
Cypriots have reacted with shock after threats from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that Cyprus could become a target if it allows Israel to use its territory in any conflict between the two sides, who diplomats fear are on the brink of a fully fledged war.
Despite the EU expressing unreserved support for its easternmost member, it was clear on Thursday that the Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s warning had set off alarm bells in Nicosia where officials insisted the island republic remained a “pillar of peace” in an otherwise volatile region.
Continue reading...Transfer to officials led by far-right Bezalel Smotrich removes legal checks on settlement expansion
The Israeli military has quietly handed over significant legal powers in the occupied West Bank to pro-settler civil servants working for the far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich.
An order posted by the Israel Defense Forces on its website on 29 May transfers responsibility for dozens of bylaws at the Civil Administration – the Israeli body governing in the West Bank – from the military to officials led by Smotrich at the defence ministry.
Continue reading...Campaign groups write to 20 firms warning of potential war crimes for roles in production of F-35 fighter jets
Campaigners have written to the directors of 20 arms manufacturers based in the UK saying they may face criminal liability for failing to prevent war crimes if their companies continue to sell military equipment to Israel.
Four groups, including the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), have written to directors of arms companies that contribute parts or elements of the F-35 fighter jets used by Israel’s air force as part of the bombing of Gaza.
Continue reading...Move comes five years after US did so and will add to pressure on European governments to follow suit
Canada has listed Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group, joining the US and adding to pressure on European governments to follow suit.
The move means police can now charge people who materially or financially support the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and requires banks to freeze any assets linked to the organisation.
Continue reading...Prime minister’s office says the IDF is committed to the defeat of Hamas, after Daniel Hagari said Hamas is an ‘ideology’
French authorities have detained an Iranian citizen after he posted remarks about Israel-Gaza war posted on social media, a police source said on Thursday, in a case his lawyer has denounced as “political” amid tensions between Paris and Tehran.
Bashir Biazar has been described by London-based Iran International television channel as a former official for the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB. Iranian state media call him a “cultural figure”.
There is nothing, in terms of law, that justifies this measure. Bashir Biazar expressed himself on his Instagram account, as anyone could do freely in a state governed by the rule of law.
I think this procedure is political, and politics has no place in law.
The arrest of an Iranian citizen by the French police for having defended the oppressed Palestinian people (is) another scandal for France in the domain of human rights.
Continue reading...Risk is that miscalculation leads to sudden conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which is far more powerful than Hamas
A warning from Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, that a decision on “all-out war” with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is coming soon is almost certainly a fresh attempt at deterrence on his part – not least because both sides well understand how devastating full hostilities would be.
The reality is that Hezbollah, an ally of Iran, is a more powerful adversary than Hamas in Gaza. It is estimated to have between 30,000 and 50,000 fighters available and a similar number in reserve – plus between 120,000 and 200,000 unguided missiles and rockets, plus attack and reconnaissance drones.
Continue reading...Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warns of ‘war without rules’ if Israel launches full-scale invasion against Lebanese militia
The leader of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, warned of a war “without rules or ceilings” in the event of a full-scale Israeli offensive against the Lebanese militia, as he threatened that Cyprus could become a target if it allowed Israel to use its territory in any conflict.
Cyprus and Israel have a bilateral defence cooperation agreement which has seen the countries conduct joint exercises.
Continue reading...Israeli leader made claim in X post, although Biden administration says it does not ‘know what he is talking about’
The Biden administration has reacted furiously to criticisms by Benjamin Netanyahu that the US is holding back weapons and ammunition from Israel in its war in Gaza, reportedly cancelling a high-level meeting with Israeli officials on Iran in retaliation.
Netanyahu made the claims of a supposedly deliberate weapons delay in a video posted on X in which he implied that Israel’s ability to prevail in the nine-month war with Hamas was being hampered as a result.
Continue reading...Iran-backed militant group fired more than a dozen projectiles into northern Israel, says Israeli army, day after Israel warned of ‘total war’ with group
Agence France-Presse (AFP) report that there have been Israeli airstrikes and clashes between troops and Palestinian militants in Gaza on Wednesday.
Witnesses and the civil defence agency in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip reported Israeli bombardment in western Rafah, where medics said drone strikes and shelling killed at least seven people.
Continue reading...Masoud Pezeshkian hopes to win over an apathetic electorate and revive talks on the country’s nuclear deal
The sole reformist candidate in Iran’s presidential elections this month has said he wants improved relations with the US, as he accused his conservative rivals of blighting the Iranian economy by not doing enough to revive the a nuclear deal with the west that had led to the lifting of some sanctions.
Masoud Pezeshkian, who has unveiled the combative former foreign minster Javad Zarif as his foreign policy adviser, also suggested under his presidency he might also review its relations with Russia, arguing eastern powers should not think that they are Iran’s only option.
Continue reading...Relatives seek news of missing loved ones after hundreds reported dead as temperatures hit 51.8C in Saudi Arabia
Friends and family of missing hajj pilgrims have been searching hospitals and pleading online for news, fearing the worst after hundreds died during the annual rites in Saudi Arabia.
Arab diplomats on Tuesday told Agence France-Presse at least 550 pilgrims had died this year, the majority due to heat-related illnesses after temperatures reached 51.8C (125F) in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.
Continue reading...Egypt forcibly returned 800 Sudanese detainees in first three months of this year, Amnesty International reports
The Egyptian authorities have used EU-funded security forces in a campaign of mass arrests and forcible deportations against refugees from the Sudan war, according to a human rights group report.
Amnesty International found Egypt “forcibly returned an estimated 800 Sudanese detainees between January and March 2024, who were all denied the possibility to claim asylum”.
Continue reading...At least 320 of the dead are from Egypt and Saudi officials report treating more than 2,000 people for heat stress
At least 550 pilgrims have died during the hajj, underscoring the gruelling nature of the pilgrimage which again unfolded in scorching temperatures this year.
At least 323 of those who died were Egyptians, most of them succumbing to heat-related illnesses, the two Arab diplomats coordinating their countries’ responses told AFP.
Continue reading...Signoff on planning for a Lebanon offensive follows release of Hezbollah drone footage of Haifa in northern Israel
The Israeli foreign minister, Israel Katz, has said a decision on an all-out war with Hezbollah was coming soon, as Israel generals announced late on Tuesday that they had signed off planning for an offensive into Lebanon.
The escalating rhetoric came after the release of video footage from a Hezbollah surveillance drone’s overflight of the northern city of Haifa, which included images of sensitive sites and civilian neighbourhoods.
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