Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Top senator calls on Biden to ‘use all levers’ to pressure Israel over Gaza

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Democrat Chris Van Hollen says Biden must cease giving arms to Israel until it lifts restrictions on aid and does more to protect lives

Joe Biden should use his leverage and the law to pressure Israel to change how it is prosecuting the war in Gaza, the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is among a group of senators urging Biden to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons until it lifts restrictions on the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza, where children are now dying of hunger and famine looms.

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‘Everyone has friends in jail’: how Palestinian prisoners became central to Gaza ceasefire talks

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Hamas seeks scaled-back release it can portray as victory as Israeli government weighs conflicting pressures over hostages

In a cafe on a dusty roundabout in the small West Bank town of Silwad, men sit and play cards, one eye on the large TV screen showing the latest news from Gaza. When there is any mention of a possible ceasefire deal – and so the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails – there is silence.

“Nobody tell us anything officially. We see on the news about a deal. So we just know that my brother might be released,” said Akhram Hammad, a 45-year-old blacksmith whose sibling Tayyer is serving multiple life sentences for shooting dead seven Israeli soldiers and three civilians at a checkpoint not far from Silwad in 2002. “It would be really good and everybody would be really happy; otherwise, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.”

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Biden says Schumer made ‘good speech’ in breaking with Benjamin Netanyahu

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President also condemns US surge in Islamophobia in comments that could portend broader shift in sentiment towards Gaza war

Joe Biden on Friday said Senator Chuck Schumer made “a good speech” that reflected many Americans’ concerns when he publicly broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over his handling of the war in Gaza.

While the US president announced no changes in his administration’s policy towards Israel, his views on the speech Schumer made Thursday from the floor of the US Senate, where the New York Democrat is the majority leader, could portend a broader shift in sentiment.

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Protests in north-west Syria mark 13 years since start of fight for democracy

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Rallies take place in Idlib region, held by rebels against Bashar al-Assad, whose repression sparked civil war in 2011

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Syria’s rebel-held north-west to mark 13 years since pro-democracy protests swept the country, chanting against President Bashar al-Assad and the region’s jihadist rulers.

The government’s brutal suppression of the 2011 uprising triggered a civil war that has killed more than half a million people, drawn in foreign armies and jihadists, and divided the country.

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Netanyahu approves Rafah attack plans as aid ship reaches Gaza

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Israeli PM’s decision may be intended to put negotiating pressure on Hamas, observers say, after his cabinet discussed truce proposal

Benjamin Netanyahu has approved plans for an attack on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than a million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have sought shelter, officials in Israel have said.

The decision was made as a ship towing a barge loaded with food arrived off Gaza on Friday. It was a test run for a new aid route by sea from Cyprus into the devastated Palestinian territory, where famine looms after five months of Israel’s military campaign.

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Middle East crisis live: Netanyahu’s office ‘approves plan for Rafah operation’

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Reuters reports that Israeli military is preparing to evacuate the population of Gaza border town

Reuters has a breaking news line about the Gaza aid ship, the Open Arms, that set off from Cyprus on Tuesday. According to the news agency, witnesses have reported that the ship is close to Gaza’s coast now.

More details soon …

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Israeli forces kill 20 Palestinians waiting for aid, Gaza health ministry says

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Israeli military denies reports after officials say eight people killed in separate strike on aid distribution centre

Gaza’s health ministry has said Israeli fire killed 20 people waiting to receive desperately needed aid in the besieged Palestinian territory, but the Israeli military said the reports were “erroneous”.

Gaza officials said the attack occurred as a crowd gathered to receive aid from a truck at the Kuwait roundabout, a key interchange used by humanitarian convoys carrying food into northern Gaza. More than 150 people were wounded, they added.

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UN must block Iranian missile supply to Houthis in Yemen, UK and US say

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Calls during Yemen briefing come as missile believed to have been launched by Houthis strikes a vessel off Aden

The US and UK have called for a UN maritime inspectorate to do more to prevent Iranian missiles reaching Houthi-controlled ports in the west of Yemen.

The calls during a UN security council briefing on the crisis in Yemen came as a missile believed to have been launched by Yemen’s Houthi militia struck a vessel off the southern city of Aden – but caused no damage – and US forces fired missiles on to Hodeidah international airport.

Guardian Newsroom: The unfolding crisis in the Middle East

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Charity hopes to send second food aid ship to Gaza in next few days

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Pallets with 50% more supplies than first boat, Open Arms, being loaded in Cyprus

The charity sending food aid to Gaza on a ship travelling across the Mediterranean from Cyprus is loading a second boat with supplies, which it hopes will set off in the coming days.

Pallets containing 300 tonnes of food aid – 50% more than the first shipment – are expected to be screened and loaded by the end of Thursday, but there is no indication yet when it will leave the port of Larnaca.

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Middle East crisis: Netanyahu is ‘major obstacle to peace’ and should call election, says Schumer – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. You can read the latest news and reaction to Schumer’s speech in our US politics blog:

Lebanon’s National News Agency reports Israeli planes have overflown Jezzine in southern Lebanon. There are unconfirmed images circulating social media appearing to show airstrikes have been carried out. Israel and anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon have repeatedly exchanged fire since 7 October.

The aid ship from Cyprus expected to arrive on Gaza’s shores is only “a drop in the ocean” of what is needed to address the acute crisis in the territory, the International Rescue Committee’s lead on the crisis said late yesterday.

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Schumer faces backlash after calling for new Israeli elections to oust Netanyahu

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Senate majority leader says Israeli prime minister has ‘lost his way’ and warns that country risks becoming ‘a pariah’

Chuck Schumer, the US Senate leader and a top ally of Joe Biden, on Thursday broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over his handling of the invasion of Gaza and called for Israel to hold new elections, in comments that upset its ruling party and allies on Capitol Hill.

The shift by Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the United States, came as he continued to press lawmakers to pass a military assistance package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, the countries Biden has named as America’s top national security priorities.

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Somalia has 99% of $2bn debt cancelled in major boost to fragile recovery

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Paris Club of creditor nations agree cancellation as Mogadishu moves towards financial normalisation amid ongoing conflict

The Paris Club, a collection of some of the world’s wealthiest creditor nations, has announced the cancellation of 99% of Somalia’s debt, in a major boost as the country continues its fragile economic recovery from an ongoing three-decade conflict.

In a statement released by the Paris Club, which is run by senior officials from the French Treasury, Somalia’s creditors, including the US, UK, Russia, Norway, and Japan, announced the cancellation of $2bn owed to club members as of January 2023.

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Biden’s ‘bear-hugging’ of Netanyahu a strategic mistake, key Democrat says

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Ro Khanna, Biden campaign surrogate, believes US president should take tougher line with ‘insufferably arrogant’ Israeli PM

Joe Biden has committed a “strategic mistake” by “bear-hugging” the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as he prosecutes war with Hamas, a leading congressional progressive Democrat and Biden campaign surrogate said.

“The bear-hugging of Netanyahu has been a strategic mistake,” Ro Khanna said, accusing the Israeli leader of conducting “a callous war” in Gaza, in defiance of the United States.

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Darfur rape survivors gather together after ethnically targeted campaign

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Group on outskirts of Geneina share stories from November when RSF and allied militias unleashed wave of sexual violence

Twice a week, a group of women gather together in a nondescript house in Ardamata, on the outskirts of Geneina in Sudan’s West Darfur state, to tell their stories to each other, cry, and drink coffee.

The women, who work or used to work in education, are all survivors of an ethnically targeted campaign of rape and sexual abuse carried out by fighters from Arab militias backed by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group on 5 November, after the fall of the army garrison in Ardamata.

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Revealed: How the global oil industry is fueling Israel’s war on Gaza

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Analysis shows how jets and tanks are being kept fueled despite interim ICJ ruling warning Israel to prevent genocidal acts

Israeli jets and tanks bombarding Palestinians are being fueled by some of the world’s most profitable fossil fuel companies – and US tax-payers, according to research.

Israel relies on crude oil and refined products from overseas to run its large fleet of fighter jets, tanks and other military vehicles.

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Ship carrying aid nears Gaza as Cyprus puts second vessel on standby

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Where Spanish-flagged vessel Open Arms will dock, and how supplies will be distributed, is still unclear

A ship carrying aid is nearing Gaza about 48 hours after it left Cyprus, with further aid preparations being made aboard a second “much bigger” vessel. It came as the EU foreign policy chief said starvation was being used as a weapon of war.

After the 240-mile voyage, the ship will dock at a jetty being built by the World Central Kitchen (WCK), the organisation that will distribute the aid.

Guardian Newsroom: The unfolding crisis in the Middle East On Wednesday 20 March, 7-8.15pm GMT, join Devika Bhat, Peter Beaumont and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad as they discuss the fast developing crisis in the Middle East. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live

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Israel broke international law with tank shelling that killed journalist, UN finds

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IDF fired two rounds at ‘clearly identifiable journalists’ in Lebanon last year when there was no exchange of fire in area

An Israeli tank that killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six others in Lebanon last year fired two 120mm rounds at a group of “clearly identifiable journalists” in violation of international law, a UN investigation has found.

The investigation by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), summarized in a report seen by Reuters, said its personnel did not record any exchange of fire across the border between Israel and Lebanon for more than 40 minutes before the tank opened fire, killing Issam Abdallah, a 37-year-old video journalist.

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Telegraph takeover: UK planning new laws to prevent foreign states owning assets

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New legislation could thwart planned £600m purchase of media group by UAE-backed consortium

The UK government plans to introduce legislation that would prevent foreign governments owning UK newspapers and news magazines in a significant move that could scupper the planned £600m sale of the Telegraph to a United Arab Emirates-backed consortium.

RedBird IMI – a partnership between a fund backed by the UAE’s vice-president, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and a privately owned US investment firm – is seeking to acquire one of the UK’s most influential newspaper groups.

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A Separation director Asghar Farhadi cleared of plagiarism claims, says agent

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The double Oscar winner’s film A Hero won the grand prix at Cannes in 2021 but was the subject of an alleged copyright infringement brought by a former student

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has been cleared of charges of plagiarism over his film A Hero brought by one of his students, the agency representing him said on Wednesday.

The film, about a prisoner in the Iranian city of Shiraz, won the grand prix at the Cannes film festival in 2021.

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Palestinian boy killed by Israeli police during clashes in East Jerusalem

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Child suffered fatal gunshot wound after riots broke out at Shuafat refugee camp during Ramadan

A Palestinian boy has died after being shot by Israeli border police at a refugee camp in East Jerusalem in the first such fatality in the Israeli-annexed territory during Ramadan.

The child – who was variously reported as being 12 or 13 years old – suffered a fatal gunshot wound during clashes between residents of the Shuafat refugee camp and police.

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