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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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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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.”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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?’”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Crossing open for first time in weeks to allow evacuation of foreign passport holders and injured Palestinians
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has opened for the first time in more than three weeks of brutal conflict to allow the evacuation of dozens of injured Palestinians requiring hospital treatment and hundreds of foreign passport holders.
Witnesses at the border on the Gaza side saw scores of people and cars hurrying to get through the gates towards the Egyptian side through the damaged terminal area, some carrying their belongings. Ambulances whisked away the wounded to Egyptian field hospitals, including one young boy with heavy bandaging around his stomach.
Continue reading...Israeli military says it bombed Jabalia camp to target a key Hamas commander, Ibrahim Biari
Israeli airstrikes have destroyed apartment blocks and killed dozens of people at a refugee camp in northern Gaza on the 25th day of a conflict that the United Nations said has become a “graveyard” for children.
At least six airstrikes hit residential areas in the Jabalia refugee camp on Gaza City’s outskirts on Tuesday, killing more than 50 people and injuring about 150 people, Hamas officials said.
Continue reading...Limited information suggests IDF seeking to encircle Gaza City – but urban warfare can confer significant advantages to defenders
Israel’s ground invasion of the northern Gaza Strip began on Friday evening, an urban warfare operation that is likely to be lengthy, fraught with danger for its military and Palestinian civilians and whose ultimate goals remain uncertain.
It began more than three weeks after Hamas’s surprising and brutal cross-border attack of 7 October, in which 1,400 Israelis were killed, and comes amid what the monitoring group Airwars says is an aerial bombardment that “far outpaces” the number of bombs dropped in “the deadliest months” of the US-led war against Islamic State.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser denies contributing to an atmosphere of misogyny at No 10, saying he was ‘much ruder about men’
Heather Hallett, the chair, intervenes at this point. She asks Cain if he is defending the 10-day gap. She says she finds that curious if he is.
Cain says locking down the country is a huge, huge undertaking. In government terms, that is government acting at speed. But it was “longer than you would hope”, he says.
Do I understand from what you said earlier that you would defend the 10-day gap between the decision taken that there had to be a national lockdown and actually implementing that decision? Because I find that curious.
As I said, I think it is longer than you would like, but I think it’s important just to emphasise the amount of things that had to be done and the amount of people we had to take with us to deliver a nationwide lockdown.
It’s a huge, huge undertaking and to be honest, from my understanding of government, that is government moving at a tremendous speed – which maybe says more about government than other things.
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