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The United Nations has said “there is already clear evidence that war crimes may have been committed” by Hamas and the Israeli military since 7 October and that it is gathering evidence for potential prosecutions.
All parties involved in the conflict are governed by a body of law drawn from a system of conventions, treaties and war crimes tribunal rulings known as “international humanitarian law” or the “law of armed conflict”.
Continue reading...Saudi Arabia was confirmed on Tuesday as the sole bidder to host the 2034 men’s World Cup, raising concerns over Fifa’s ability to deliver on its human rights commitments.
After Australia decided against a bid, having been given a 25-day deadline by Fifa to express interest after the deadline was unexpectedly brought forward to 4pm GMT on Tuesday, the prospect of a second World Cup in the Gulf within 12 years is all but a formality. The lack of a competitive tender and the alacrity with which the process has been conducted, however, have prompted alarm among human rights groups. Amnesty International called on Fifa to pull the plug if human rights commitments were not fulfilled.
Continue reading...Labour leader criticises Israeli bombardment but says ceasefire is not ‘the correct position now’
Keir Starmer has urged Israel to obey international law but refused to back calls for a ceasefire, as he seeks to heal increasingly bitter divisions within his own party over the conflict in Gaza.
The Labour leader spelled out his position on the crisis in detail on Tuesday after days of criticism from many of his own members and MPs that he appeared oblivious to the suffering of Palestinians.
Continue reading...Andy McDonald was suspended from the Labour party for using the phrase, which some say advocates the eradication of Israel
“We won’t rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty,” said Andy McDonald, a Labour MP, at a protest in London organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign at the weekend.
Three days later, McDonald was suspended from the party pending an investigation, leaving the former shadow cabinet minister sitting as an independent for now.
Continue reading...IDF says it struck 300 targets this week and killed ‘numerous’ militants, including Hamas commander
Israeli tanks and infantry have targeted tunnel entrances and rocket launch positions in fresh clashes with Hamas around Gaza City and in the south of the enclave.
The fighting on Tuesday came amid renewed hope that significant quantities of aid would reach beleaguered Palestinian civilians in the south via the Rafah crossing with Egypt. A World Health Organization official in Geneva said on Tuesday that a “public health catastrophe” was imminent in Gaza.
Continue reading...Some of the 200 British or dual nationals in strip tell of life amid Israel’s attack and the communication blackout
When Musheir El-Farra climbs into bed in Gaza each night, he cannot get the sounds of people screaming out of his head.
Since last week, the British civil engineer has been plagued by memories of an Israeli bomb attack on a residential block in Khan Younis in which, he said, 16 of his relatives were killed.
Continue reading...Philippe Lazzarini, who leads main UN agency in Palestine, says lives of millions depend on ceasefire
The entire population of Gaza is becoming “dehumanised”, the commissioner general for the main UN agency in Palestine has told the UN security council, saying a ceasefire has become a matter of life and death for millions.
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general for the UNRWA was one of three speakers to starkly describe the scale of the damage being inflicted on Gaza, as UN agencies piled pressure on the Security Council to set aside its divisions and back some form of immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
Continue reading...Prime minister rejects ceasefire calls, saying army’s advance in Gaza puts pressure on Hamas ‘monsters’
Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out a ceasefire in Gaza, declaring “this is a time for war”, as he hailed the rescue of a hostage as evidence that Israel’s military offensive can free Israeli captives while delivering crushing blows to Hamas.
The Israeli prime minister congratulated the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and security agency Shin Bet for freeing Ori Megidish, an army private, but Israeli joy was tempered by a Hamas video of three other captives that remain in captivity.
Continue reading...Israel-Hamas conflict raises fears Iran might seek to encourage radical groups or terrorist activities in Britain
British counter-terrorism officers are monitoring closely if Iran will try to exploit the Israel-Hamas war for its own ends in the UK, amid wider anxieties that Tehran is an increasing security menace to dissidents and critics.
Concerns about Russia and China are well established, but Iran’s campaign of intimidation and harassment has been the most visible development in the domestic threat picture over the last 12 months.
Continue reading...Foreign ministry says Kyiv played ‘direct and key role’ after mob stormed planes in search of Israeli passengers
Russia has blamed Ukraine for the antisemitic riot in the mostly Muslim region of Dagestan on Sunday in which an angry mob stormed the airport in Makhachkala in search of Jewish passengers arriving from Israel.
Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Monday that the riot was the result of a “provocation” orchestrated from outside Russia, with Ukraine playing a “direct and key role”.
Continue reading...Ori Megidish said to have been freed as Hamas issues video of three others still in captivity
Israeli forces have announced the liberation of a hostage in Gaza hours after Hamas released a video of three other hostages who remain in captivity.
Ori Megidish, an Israel Defence Forces soldier, was freed during an escalating offensive in Gaza, the IDF and the internal security agency Shin Bet said in a joint statement on Monday night. It said she had undergone medical checks and was doing well.
Continue reading...UNRWA chief says ‘human tragedy unfolding under our watch is unbearable’; Netanyahu says ‘this is a time for war’ as he says no to ceasefire
Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has urged Israel to “listen” when its friends ask it to protect innocent lives in Gaza and warned that the world “will not accept continuing civilian deaths”.
Wong’s comments reflect a strengthening of the Labor government’s calls for Israel to minimise civilian deaths in Gaza. The foreign minister said civilians on both sides had been “murdered” in the “dreadful, tragic conflict”.
“It is a dreadful, tragic conflict. We are seeing loss of life. We are seeing civilians on both sides [who] have been murdered,” Wong told Radio National.
“We have seen civilians up on both sides in a lot of pain, and obviously, we still have Israeli hostages who have been taken, that Hamas is still holding.”
Continue reading...Witnesses report Salah al-Din Road cut as Israel expands assault, in apparent effort to divide strip in two
Israeli tanks and infantry have advanced on Gaza City from two directions, with tanks reported to be on the main north-south road, in an apparent effort to cut the strip into two.
Reports in the Hebrew media, statements from Hamas and Palestinian witness accounts, described Israeli armour operating close to the Mediterranean coast in the north of Gaza in an area where Hamas said it was engaged in heavy fighting.
Continue reading...Reports of fierce clashes inside Gaza as the ‘second phase’ of the Israeli military’s war against Hamas continues
Israeli troops backed by tanks have expanded their operations inside Gaza amid reports of fierce air and and artillery strikes in the enclave’s north, as nearly three dozen trucks entered through the territory’s southern border on Sunday.
Hamas confirmed it was engaged in “heavy fighting” with Israeli troops inside northern Gaza on Sunday, as besieged residents were again warned by Israel to flee southward.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Mohammad Shtayyeh calls for a ‘comprehensive, peaceful vision’ and ceasefire in Gaza
The Palestinian Authority will not return to governing Gaza after the Israel-Hamas conflict without a comprehensive agreement that includes the West Bank in a Palestinian state, the authority’s prime minister has said.
Israeli civilian and military officials have said their plan for the end of the Gaza war is to have some form of transitional authority rule the territory, perhaps involving Arab states, leading to the restoration of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was ousted from Gaza in a 2007 Hamas coup.
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The UN security council scheduled an emergency meeting on Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza on Monday afternoon at the request of the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the council, according to a report by Associated Press.
Israeli airstrikes have hit areas around Gaza’s largest hospital, destroying roads leading to the facility, which is a major shelter for Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombardment, residents have told Associated Press.
Continue reading...Scottish first minister expresses relief after communications were cut off during Israeli bombardment
Scotland’s first minister has expressed relief after discovering his parents-in-law in Gaza are alive, although they have run out of clean drinking water.
Humza Yousaf said the welcome news had come through on Sunday morning, hours after describing his worries about whether they were alive or dead following the imposition by Israel of a communication blackout in Gaza on Friday.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer has ‘listened’ to rebels and will ‘continue engaging’, says Peter Kyle, amid mounting pressure from senior party figures
Members of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet will not be punished if they break party ranks by demanding a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, because Labour is a “diverse party”, Peter Kyle has suggested.
The shadow science, innovation and technology minister also rejected claims that Labour was taking Muslim votes for granted, and said the party was not basing its policy on the conflict around what might win votes.
Continue reading...Head of refugee agency says wheat, flour and hygiene supplies taken as Israel continues its bombardment
Order is beginning to collapse in the besieged Gaza Strip after thousands of desperate people raided UN warehouses in search of food, as the international criminal court’s top prosecutor said impeding relief supplies to the population may constitute a crime under the court’s jurisdiction.
Wheat, flour and hygiene supplies were taken from on Saturday from four UN-run centres across the blockaded 25- by 7-mile strip, home to more than 2 million trapped people, Thomas White, Gaza director for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said on Sunday.
A UN peacekeeper on the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon was injured in cross-border fire, the world body said.
Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron “stressed the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support” into Gaza.
Jack Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said the US believed “there should be humanitarian pauses to get hostages out, potentially to get aid in”.
A delegation of families of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas urged President Isaac Herzog to keep their plight at the top of the political agenda.
Continue reading...Mahmoud Abu Amir is among thousands of Palestinians frantically trying to locate their loved ones from afar
For Mahmoud Abu Amir, the war in his native Gaza began on Monday 9 October. An Israeli airstrike flattened a large area in the Jabalia refugee camp where he spent most of his life, demolishing the apartment block that was sheltering most of his family including his wife, Mayar, and their two young children.
Two days earlier, Hamas militants had stormed towns and kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip, killing 1,400 Israelis and taking at least 200 more hostage. When Abu Amir called his family that day to check on them, “it was a shock”, he said. “No one expected this to happen. But my wife, and my entire family were dead scared. They knew something would happen to them. They live near the border and they knew they would pay the price.”
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