Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Blinken to urge Israel to show restraint in campaign to destroy Hamas

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US secretary of state in Tel Aviv to call for pauses in fighting to allow more aid to enter Gaza

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has arrived in Tel Aviv to meet Israel’s war cabinet and urge it to show greater restraint in its campaign to destroy Hamas, starting by allowing more aid to enter Gaza and implementing humanitarian pauses.

Israel says it has Hamas surrounded in Gaza City and has shown no willingness to back a break in the fighting advocated by the US president, Joe Biden, let alone agree a ceasefire.

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Dozens killed in blaze at drug rehab centre in Iran

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Investigation under way after 32 people reported to have died in fire in Langarud, north of Tehran

Local media in Iran say 32 people have died in a fire at a drug rehabilitation centre in the north of the country, up from an earlier count of 27.

The death toll from the blaze at the centre in Langarud, a city in the northern Gilan province, was reported by the local ISNA news agency, quoting the province’s deputy governor, Mohammad Jalai.

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‘Failed to be a critical friend’: UK accused of taking eye off Israel-Palestine crisis

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Critics say government shies away from standing up to Netanyahu in tilt to Indo-Pacific and pursuit of Middle East trade deals

Concerns that the UK Foreign Office has neglected the Israel-Palestine conflict in its tilt to the Indo-Pacific and the pursuit of trade deals across the Middle East is to be investigated by the foreign affairs select committee.

Alicia Kearns, the chair of the committee, which will start holding evidence sessions on the issue in November, has been one of the most prominent MPs warning that a crisis was brewing that required greater attention and a more robust approach from the UK towards Israel’s new government.

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Australia has no legal obligation to repatriate 31 women and children held in Syrian camp, court rules

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Most of the Australians have been held in the Roj detention camp in north-east Syria for four years

The federal government does not have a legal obligation to repatriate 31 Australian women and children who have been forcibly held in a Syrian detention camp for four years, a court has ruled.

The Australians are the wives, widows and children of slain or jailed Islamic State fighters. Most have been held in the squalid Roj detention camp in north-east Syria for four years. None have been charged with a crime or currently face a warrant for arrest.

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US House passes $14.3bn aid package for Israel despite Democratic opposition

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Led by House speaker Mike Johnson, Republican plan passes Thursday 226-196 as Biden threatens veto

The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a Republican plan to provide $14.3bn in aid to Israel as it fights Hamas, despite Democrats’ insistence it has no future in the Senate and the White House’s promise of a veto.

The measure passed 226-196, largely along party lines, with most Republicans supporting the bill and most Democrats objecting.

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Biden says 74 Americans with dual citizenship evacuated from Gaza

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The evacuees were able to cross from the Gaza Strip into Egypt, the US president said on Thursday

The United States has been able to get 74 Americans with dual citizenship out of the Gaza Strip, Joe Biden said at the White House on Thursday, one day after evacuees began crossing into Egypt.

“Good news, we got out today 74 American folks, dual citizens,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office at the start of a meeting with the president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader.

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Tension escalates on Lebanese frontier amid Hamas and Hezbollah barrages

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Hamas armed wing the al-Qassam brigades says it hit border town, while Hezbollah claims attack on 19 Israeli positions

Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, said its fighters in southern Lebanon were behind the shelling of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, where four rockets landed in an industrial area, injuring two people and damaging buildings.

In a second barrage, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening in the latest escalation on Israel’s northern border.

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‘Absolute chaos’: first Briton to cross from Gaza to Egypt describes ordeal

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Abdel Hammad took 10 hours to get to Egypt and will not receive support from UK Foreign Office to fly home

A British surgeon who was stranded in Gaza has described scenes of “absolute chaos” at the Rafah crossing after becoming one of the first UK nationals to cross into Egypt.

Abdel Hammad, 67, a transplant surgeon from Liverpool working for a charity in Gaza, told his son Salim Hammad that he was stuck on a bus for five hours with 54 others as he waited to be given the go-ahead to cross into Egypt.

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WHO says ‘almost impossible’ to bring aid into Gaza – as it happened

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This blog is closed.

Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister and army chief, has spoken to Foreign Policy magazine, saying Israel will “probably lose the support of public opinion” over its response to the 7 October Hamas attack.

In a transcript of the interview published on the publication’s website, the former prime minister said, “our objective is to limit the military and government capabilities of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This could not be accomplished by airstrikes alone. We have to deploy probably many thousands of boots on the ground.”

Even if it develops into a full-scale regional conflict with Hezbollah, which has 10 times more rockets and missiles, or if the West Bank or Golan Heights are involved, Israel is still stronger. It’s not an existential threat, but it will take more time, more losses, and more friction with our supporters in the world.”

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Thursday briefing: The Labour councillors quitting over Keir Starmer’s Israel-Hamas ceasefire stance

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In today’s newsletter: More than 30 councillors have resigned from the party in protest against Starmer’s position – here’s why, in their own words

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Good morning. Today, we’re going to Bradford to meet city councillor and bus driver Taj Salam. He is one more than 30 Labour councillors who have resigned from the party in anger at Sir Keir Starmer’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

They are part of a growing rebellion within the party over Starmer’s refusal to publicly advocate for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. Instead, he has called for “humanitarian pauses” to allow the “urgent alleviation of Palestinian suffering”.

Israel-Hamas war | Joe Biden has said there should be a “pause” in the fighting in Gaza to enable the release of hostages, as Hamas said nearly 200 people had been killed in two days of Israeli airstrikes on the enclave’s Jabalia refugee camp.

AI | The UK, US, EU and China have all agreed that artificial intelligence poses a potentially catastrophic risk to humanity, in the first international declaration to deal with the fast-emerging technology.

UK news | Northumbria police have said that two more people have been arrested over the deliberate felling of the Sycamore Gap tree in Northumberland.

Media | Noel Clarke’s legal action against the Guardian has suffered a setback after a high court judge rejected his lawyers’ arguments on the meaning of eight articles that he says unfairly defamed him.

Covid-19 | The pandemic has caused sustained harm to the brain health of people aged 50 or over, rapidly speeding up cognitive decline regardless of whether or not they caught Covid, researchers have discovered.

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Why Egypt has not fully opened its Gaza border for fleeing Palestinians

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President Sisi has been criticised for allowing few refugees through, but housing large numbers would be a big political risk

Egypt has been caught in a dilemma for weeks about opening the Rafah crossing into Gaza: wanting to help the most seriously injured Palestinians leave, but adamantly refusing to contemplate a surge of Palestinian refugees into the Sinai peninsula. “We are prepared to sacrifice millions of lives to ensure that no one encroaches upon our territory,” Egypt’s prime minister, Mostafa Madbouly, said earlier this week.

The negotiations over the release of wounded Palestinians and some foreign nationals, largely overseen by Qatar, have been inextricably linked to the flow of aid from Egypt into Gaza over the same crossing. The US president, Joe Biden, negotiated a passage for aid through Rafah, but levels are low compared to what is needed. On Wednesday the UN humanitarian coordinator, Martin Griffiths, again called for Israel to reopen Kerem Shalom, the crossing it controls at the southern tip of Gaza.

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Iranian mother jailed for 13 years after denouncing death of son shot at protest

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Mahsa Yazdani convicted of blasphemy and ‘insulting supreme leader’ as Iran regime targets families of those killed in protests

A mother in Iran, whose son was reportedly killed after being shot repeatedly at close range by security forces, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by an Iranian court after she demanded justice for her child on social media.

Mahsa Yazdani, whose 20-year-old son Mohammad Javad Zahedi was killed at an anti-regime protest in September 2022, was convicted on charges of blasphemy, incitement, insulting the supreme leader, and spreading anti-regime propaganda, according to human rights groups and family members. They say she will serve the first five years with no chance of parole.

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Biden urges pause in Gaza fighting as Hamas says refugee camp death toll nearing 200

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US president says pause will allow time to rescue hostages, amid fresh Israeli airstrikes on enclave’s Jabalia refugee camp

Joe Biden has said there should be a “pause” in the fighting in Gaza to enable the release of hostages, as Hamas said nearly 200 people had been killed in two days of Israeli airstrikes on the enclave’s Jabalia refugee camp.

The US president was speaking at a campaign fundraiser in Minneapolis on Wednesday when a woman shouted: “Mr President, if you care about Jewish people, as a rabbi, I need you to call for a ceasefire.”

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Adelaide family of four among 20 Australians to flee Gaza via Egypt border

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Adelaide family who escaped besieged enclave through Rafah as part of multinational deal say crossing border was ‘nerve-wracking’ and took several attempts

An Adelaide family of four who had been trapped in Gaza for three weeks are among 20 Australians who have managed to escape the besieged enclave into Egypt.

Australia has confirmed 20 Australian nationals – and three other people who had registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) – crossed through the Rafah pass into Egypt as part of a multinational deal to allow foreign national civilians to leave Gaza.

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Palestinian Americans sue state department on behalf of relatives stuck in Gaza

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Americans were provided flights from Israel after the 7 October Hamas attacks, but those in besieged Gaza Strip cannot leave

American citizens trapped in the Gaza Strip and their families in the US are lawyering up after weeks of desperate and futile attempts to exit the war zone, which has been under heavy bombardment by Israel since Hamas’s attacks on 7 October.

Nearly a dozen lawsuits have been filed or are set to be filed against the US state department, according to the Arab American Civil Rights League.

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First UK nationals leave Gaza via Rafah crossing, says Foreign Office

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Relatives of the 200 British or dual nationals trying to leave describe scenes of chaos and desperation

The families of British citizens trapped in Gaza have said it is devastating that their loved ones have been turned away from the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, as the Foreign Office said the first UK nationals had made it through.

Hundreds of foreign passport holders and injured Palestinians requiring hospital treatment crossed into Egypt on Wednesday after more than three weeks of conflict in which thousands of people have been killed.

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UN official who denounced Gaza ‘genocide’ had been under review after Israel lobby complaint

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Exclusive: Craig Mokhiber, retiring UN official who criticised the body over its failure to protect civilians in Gaza, had been accused of bias in his social media

A senior UN official who sent a letter denouncing the organisation’s failure to protect civilians in Gaza had been subject to a review into allegedly biased social media posts after a pro-Israel lobby group complained.

Craig Mokhiber, director of the New York office of the UN high commissioner for human rights, wrote on 28 October to the UN high commissioner in Geneva, Volker Türk, accusing Israel of committing genocide and his employer of failing to stop it. “This will be my last communication to you,” he said. He has since stepped down.

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Fifteen Israeli soldiers killed as fighting intensifies in Gaza

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Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu vows to press on with ground offensive despite rising death toll

Fifteen Israeli soldiers were killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the Israel Defence Forces in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza.

The heaviest loss of life occurred when a “Namer” armoured personnel carrier was hit at about noon on Tuesday by an anti-tank guided missile, killing 11 soldiers and wounding several more.

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US should place ‘no limit’ on civilian casualties Israel inflicts, senator says

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However, Republican senator Lindsey Graham says, Israel should be ‘smart’ and try to limit casualties ‘the best they can’

The US should place “no limit” to civilian casualties Israel might inflict in Gaza in response to the Hamas terror attacks of 7 October, a senior Republican senator said.

Speaking to CNN, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was asked: “Is there a threshold for you, and do you think there should be one for the United States government, in which the US would say, ‘Let’s hold off for a second in terms of civilian casualties?’”

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Hamas says 195 killed in two days of strikes on Jabalia camp – as it happened

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Hamas says hundreds injured after refugee camp strikes; the US president responded to an anti-war protestor saying he supports a humanitarian ‘pause’

Iranian leaders have warned the world is closer to a regional war in the Middle East and that Israel has crossed red lines, which, in the words of President Ebrahim Raisi, “may force everyone to take action”.

But Iran is walking a tightrope, keen to avoid a direct confrontation and therefore blurring its red lines to avoid walking into a trap. Instead, it leans on proxy militias around the region from its “axis of resistance” to launch limited strikes aimed at Israel and US military bases in Iraq and Syria.

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