Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

US to ask UN security council to back Joe Biden’s Gaza peace deal

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Antony Blinken also visiting Middle East this week in push to nail down support for deal to end hostilities

The US is to try to shore up support for its proposed Gaza ceasefire deal by asking the 15-strong UN security council in New York to back a resolution supporting the deal.

Washington is struggling to gain the unequivocal backing of Israel or Hamas for a three-stage deal proposed by the US president, Joe Biden, that would lead to the release of all the remaining hostages in return for Israel accepting steps towards a permanent ceasefire and the eventual withdrawal of its forces from Gaza – two key Hamas demands.

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Israel-Gaza war: ‘sense of urgency’ to secure immediate ceasefire, says Blinken – as it happened

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US secretary of state, who is visiting the region, says Egyptian mediators have spoken to Hamas

The health ministry in Gaza has issued new casualty figures, claiming that 37,124 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s military campaign, with 84,712 injured.

The claims have not been independently verified. It has not been possible for journalists to verify casualty figures being issued during the conflict.

This could lead to the murder of many Jews. When Hamas demands to end the war while it’s surviving in Gaza, it means that the group is arming itself, digging tunnels, buying rockets and that many Jews could be murdered and taken hostage on another 7 October.

This is the dilemma we are facing. And it is painful. It is our responsibility as leadership to think not only about the current situation, but also about its long-term consequences.

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Sudan: last hospital in North Darfur capital closes after paramilitary attack

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MSF says hospital in El Fasher, last state capital not under Rapid Support Forces control, stormed and looted

The last functioning hospital in El Fasher, Darfur, in western Sudan, has been closed after an attack by paramilitaries trying to seize the key city, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has said.

War has raged for more than a year between the regular military under the army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces led by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

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US-made Gaza pier resumes aid shipments after storm damage

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Repairs complete but security concerns after Israeli operation to free hostages mean food has not yet been distributed

Humanitarian assistance has begun to come ashore in Gaza from a US-made pier once more, two weeks after the short-lived sea corridor was suspended due to storm damage, but security concerns after one of the bloodiest days of the war meant the aid was not distributed.

The head of the World Food Programme (WFP), Cindy McCain, said the food distribution from the pier had been “paused” because she was “concerned about the safety of our people”. An Israeli military operation on Saturday freed four hostages but killed 274 Palestinians and left one Israeli commando dead. McCain told CBS’s Face the Nation programme that two of WFP’s warehouses in Gaza had also been rocketed and a staffer injured.

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‘Like the horrors of judgment day’: Palestinians on Israel’s hostage rescue

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People were shopping in Nuseirat market when the first airstrikes hit. Then hundreds began running

The market in Nuseirat was busy on Saturday morning. Among the crowds were Asia El-Nemer, looking for a pharmacy that still had stock of her sister’s medication, and Ansam Haroun, hoping to find new clothes to lift her daughters’ spirits on the forthcoming Eid al-Adha holiday.

This part of central Gaza had emptied at the start of the year when Israeli troops first moved through, destroying Haroun’s house in an airstrike, but filled up again from May as more than a million people fled north to escape another operation in Rafah.

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Outrage over ‘massacre’ in Gaza as Israel rescued four hostages

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Top EU diplomat says ‘bloodbath must end’ after Israeli attacks killed at least 274, according to Gaza ministry

Israeli attacks in central Gaza killed scores of Palestinians, many of them civilians, amid a special forces operation to free four hostages held there, a death toll that has caused international outrage.

At least 274 Palestinians were killed and 698 wounded in Israeli strikes on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday. The Israeli military said its forces had come under heavy fire during the daytime operation.

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Hamas claims three hostages died, including US citizen, in Israel raid that killed more than 200 Palestinians – as it happened

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Hamas’ armed al-Qassam Brigades said three hostages were killed in an Israeli military operation on Saturday in which some hostages were freed. This live blog is closed

At least 236 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s raid to free hostages Saturday, Gaza health officials have told the Washington Post.

At al-Awda Hospital, where victims were transported, there were 142 bodies, hospital director Marwan Abu Nasser told the US newspaper. Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital spokesman Khalil al-Degran said over the weekend that the hospital had at least 94 bodies. Hundreds more are believed to be wounded.

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Hardline parliament speaker and five others approved to run for Iran president

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Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who ordered live gunfire on students in 2003, approved by Iran’s Guardian Council

Iran’s Guardian Council has approved the country’s hardline parliament speaker and five others to run in the country’s 28 June presidential election after a helicopter crash that killed the president, Ebrahim Raisi, and seven others.

The council again barred the former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a firebrand populist known for the crackdown that followed his disputed 2009 re-election, from running.

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Trial of jailed Iranian Nobel laureate Mohammadi opens in her absence

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Peace prize winner and women’s rights activist is refusing to attend hearings in Tehran

A new trial against the jailed Iranian Nobel peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi opened on Saturday in her absence, said a lawyer for the women’s rights activist who has refused to attend hearings.

Mohammadi, 52, has been jailed since November 2021 over several past convictions relating to her advocacy against the obligatory hijab for women and capital punishment in Iran.

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Israel rescues four hostages in Gaza, as attacks nearby kill at least 93 Palestinians

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Woman and three men freed from Nuseirat, as EU diplomat condemns ‘reports from Gaza of another massacre of civilians’

Israeli special forces have freed four hostages held in Nuseirat, central Gaza, as Israeli attacks and airstrikes in the same area killed at least 93 Palestinians, including children, local medics said.

The rescue raid was the largest of the war, bringing three men and a woman who were kidnapped at the Nova music festival back to Israel.

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Yemen’s Houthis detain 11 UN employees in unclear circumstances

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Aid group workers also taken as UN says it is trying to secure access to its personnel and clarify the situation around the detentions

Yemen’s Houthis have detained 11 Yemeni employees of UN agencies under unclear circumstances, authorities say, as the militia group faces increasing financial pressure and airstrikes from a US-led coalition.

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said 11 UN staffers had been taken.

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US warns Israel against war with Hezbollah

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Warning comes amid visits by Israeli officials to region bordering Lebanon and speculation about an operation

The Biden administration has warned Israel that widening its conflict against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah would risk drawing in Iran, even as Israeli officials said last week they had completed preparations for an operation if it were required.

According to an Axios report quoting two unnamed senior US officials, the administration has told Israel it does not believe “a limited war” in Lebanon or a “small regional war” is a realistic option because it would be difficult to end and be likely to spin out of control.

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Survivors of Israeli strike on Gaza school describe finding children’s bodies

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Territory’s civil defence chief says more than 40 killed with toll increasing due to lack of medical care

Survivors of an Israeli airstrike on a UN school in central Gaza have described finding children’s bodies that had been torn apart by the blast, as Israeli attacks on the area continued for a second night.

Gaza’s head of civil defence said his teams at al-Sardi school in Nuseirat found only civilians among the dead. Mahmoud Basal said the death toll from the attack was more than 40 and still climbing, because injured survivors could not get proper medical care.

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Israel-Gaza war live: Gaza facing Israeli attacks from land, sea, and air, witnesses report

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Refugee camps under fire across region, according to reports

At least nine Yemeni employees of UN agencies have been detained by Yemen’s Houthi rebels under unclear circumstances, authorities said on Friday, reports the Associated Press (AP). The news agency adds that others working for aid groups are also likely to have been taken.

The detentions come as the Houthis, who seized Yemen’s capital nearly a decade ago and have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition since shortly after, have been targeting shipping throughout the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

The AP reports that the Houthis have cracked down at dissent in Yemen, including recently sentencing 44 people to death.

Regional officials, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to brief journalists, confirmed the UN detentions.

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BAT subsidiary lobbies Pakistan to allow export of cigarettes to Sudan

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Exclusive: critics say British American Tobacco’s plan to ‘flood a country in crisis with cheap cigarettes’ is ‘shameful’

A subsidiary of British American Tobacco is lobbying the government of Pakistan to allow it to export 10-packs of cigarettes to war-torn Sudan, prompting criticism from a smoking campaign group.

Pakistan is among more than 80 countries that do not permit the sale or manufacture of 10-packs of cigarettes, which the World Health Organization has said make smoking more affordable for children.

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Keir Starmer expected to push for Palestinian state in Labour manifesto

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Labour policy likely to irritate Israel, whose prime minister reacted angrily when Ireland, Spain and Norway officially recognised Palestine in May

Keir Starmer is planning to use the Labour manifesto to make his strongest commitment yet on Palestinian statehood in a move to shore up the party’s core support on the left, sources have told the Guardian.

People with knowledge of the document say the Labour leader is expected to include a pledge to recognise Palestine before the end of any peace process, and to make sure such a move does not get vetoed by a neighbouring country.

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‘We will not go away’: Israeli demolitions leave Bedouins homeless

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Bedouins erect tents only for Israeli forces to return and dismantle them in Negev village earmarked for clearance

Under the unrelenting heat of the Negev desert, for the fifth time in the last two weeks, Tayaeer Abu Asda has set up an improvised tent, which will serve as a temporary home for his wife and five children for at least the next three days. Abu Asda, 38, a Palestinian Bedouin and truck driver, is one of a group of Bedouins now numbering 500 who have been living for decades in Wadi al-Khalil, a village east of Be’er Sheva, about 12 miles (20km) from Gaza.

In early May, Israeli authorities demolished 350 structures in the community, 47 of them homes, leaving hundreds of children homeless. In the shadow of the conflict in Gaza, the government described this action as “an important move of sovereignty and governance”.

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Israel-Gaza war: dozens reported killed after Israeli strike on UN school in refugee camp – as it happened

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Unrwa chief says 6,000 displaced people were sheltering at school when it was hit and at least 35 have been killed. This live blog is closed

Local authorities report that 37 people have been killed after an overnight Israeli strike on the UN-run Unrwa school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in near Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

Inages from the site show a large number of bodies laid out for burial outside a hospital in Deir al Balah. Unrwa communications director Juliette Touma told Reuters on Thursday that the number of those reported killed in the Israeli offensive on the Nuseirat school is between 35 and 45, but it still cannot confirm the number at this stage, she added.

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At least 100 killed after RSF paramilitary group attacks village in Sudan

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Claims of looting as dozens injured during Rapid Support Forces clash with Sudanese army in Gezira province

At least 100 people were killed and dozens more injured after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked a village in Gezira province in Sudan on Wednesday.

Women and children were among the victims in the RSF attacks on Wad al-Noura village in Gezira, Mini Arko Minawi, the governor of Darfur province, said on X.

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