Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

‘I was helpless’: Nepali survivors of Hamas attack in Israel haunted by trauma

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Ten Nepali students died at kibbutz, leaving families for whom they were breadwinners bereft

Dhanbahadur Chaudhari now dreams of rivers of blood. Although he returned home to Nepal this week, flashes of the scenes he left behind in Israel won’t leave him alone, and for days he has barely been able to sleep.

Chaudhari, 25, was among almost 50 students from Nepal who were staying on a kibbutz in Alumim, the border area between Israel and Gaza, when it came under attack from Hamas militants on 7 October. Since the current conflict broke out that day, at least 4,200 people have died in Israel and Palestine.

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Israel security officials signal readiness for ground offensive into Gaza

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Senior official vows assault will ‘eliminate Hamas from the roots … everything should go away’

Israel security officials have signalled their readiness to embark on a ground offensive into Gaza that they say will be far more comprehensive and ferocious than any previous conflict with Hamas.

Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, visited troops on the Gaza border on Thursday, telling them: “You see Gaza now from a distance, you will soon see it from inside. The command will come.”

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Labour peer Alf Dubs calls for refugee plan for Palestinians

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Former refugee says scheme could help people with family connections to Britain and those in need of medical aid

Alf Dubs, the veteran Labour peer and former child refugee, has called for the creation of a resettlement scheme for Palestinians with family connections to Britain and those in need of medical aid.

The peer, who came to Britain from Austria as a child fleeing the Nazis, also spoke of his concerns about rising antisemitism and Islamophobia against the backdrop of the crisis in Israel and Gaza.

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Instagram apologises for adding ‘terrorist’ to some Palestinian user profiles

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Parent company Meta says bug caused ‘inappropriate’ auto-translations and was now fixed while employee says it pushed ‘a lot of people over the edge’

Meta has apologised after inserting the word “terrorist” into the profile bios of some Palestinian Instagram users, in what the company says was a bug in auto-translation.

The issue, which was first reported by 404media, affected users with the word “Palestinian” written in English on their profile, the Palestinian flag emoji and the word “alhamdulillah” written in Arabic. When auto-translated to English the phrase read: “Praise be to god, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom.”

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Joe Biden’s warning to Israel is a nod to US failures in the ‘war on terror’

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The US response to 9/11 was dogged by a threat posed by an ill-defined enemy, which led to human rights abuses associated with Guantánamo

When Joe Biden, the US president, spoke to Israelis during his brief visit this week, he said he and “many Americans” understood “their shock, pain and rage”.

Then he added a warning. “Justice must be done. But I caution this – while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”

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Hundreds arrested as US Jews protest against Israel’s Gaza assault

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Protesters in Washington demand ceasefire, marking rift in community as Anti-Defamation League condemns demonstration

Leftwing Jewish activists campaigned against Israel’s bombardment and blockade of Gaza this week in Washington, culminating in protests that have seen hundreds arrested for civil disobedience outside the White House and Congress.

But groups like the Anti-Defamation League have dismissed the actions as unrepresentative of fellow Jews, signalling a growing rift in the community as the war in the Middle East continues to claim thousands of lives.

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Israeli military discussing alternatives to full Gaza invasion with US, says Biden

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US officials warn that a ground assault could bring conflict with Hezbollah and risk a two-front war

Joe Biden has said that the US and Israeli militaries are discussing alternatives to the full invasion of Gaza widely expected since the Hamas attack on 7 October.

On the flight back to Washington after a day of talks in Israel, Biden was asked about the prospect of a large-scale ground assault by the 300,000-strong Israeli force arrayed along the border.

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Iran’s Mahsa Amini awarded EU’s Sakharov human rights prize

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Top MEP says Iranian woman’s death in police custody last year ‘triggered a movement that is making history’

Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who died in police custody in Iran last year, sparking worldwide protests against the country’s conservative Islamic theocracy, has been awarded the EU’s top human rights prize.

The award, named for the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honour individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. Sakharov, a Nobel peace prize laureate, died in 1989.

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MSF suspends surgery at Khartoum hospital after Sudanese military blocks supplies

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Charity says that medication and materials at Bashair teaching hospital have run out and surgical team is being withdrawn

The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières has suspended life-saving surgery at a hospital in Khartoum after the Sudanese military blocked medical supplies from entering the city.

MSF said it had been refused permission to transport supplies from warehouses in Wad Madani, in Al Jazirah state, to hospitals in the south of the capital since 8 September. The charity said on Thursday that medication and materials at Bashair teaching hospital have now run out and the team could no longer perform trauma surgery or caesarean sections.

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Aid convoy set to enter Gaza a ‘drop in the ocean of need’ says WHO

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Twenty trucks preparing to enter Gaza through Rafah crossing, but Israel says aid will halt if seized by Hamas

Aid agencies have warned that the help set to arrive in Gaza could be too little too late for many of the territory’s desperate population, as preparations were being made for a small convoy of lorries carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza on Friday, under a deal between the US, Israel and Egypt.

The US president, Joe Biden, brokered an agreement during his one-day visit to Israel on Wednesday for an initial convoy of 20 trucks to pass through the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza on Friday. Under conditions demanded by the Israelis, further consignments of relief supplies would be dependent on whether the first delivery was distributed without Hamas involvement.

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Israel defence minister tells troops they will soon see Gaza – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. You can find the latest Israel-Hamas war news and updates here.

Egypt and Jordan flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively. Both have have been reticent to allow displaced Palestinians in.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi made his toughest remarks yet on Wednesday, saying the current war was not just aimed at fighting Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, “but also an attempt to push the civilian inhabitants to … migrate to Egypt.” He warned this could wreck peace in the region.

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Australians told ‘do not travel’ to Lebanon – as it happened

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No move on paying super to people on paid parental leave

But so far, the government has not moved on paying superannuation to parents (mostly women) on paid parental leave.

Super, of course, is really important and it’s something we would very much like to look to in the future when the budget can afford it. But this is a very big step forward, the current arrangements, but we’ll continue to look around superannuation into the future and consider it in each budget context.

I think with the reserved period as well, we’re going to see an increase in shared care, both parents taking some time out, which is really, really important if we want to get a more equal burden of, you know, of that share of care.

So that is really important as well.

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Australian ministers say Palestinians are being ‘collectively punished’ for Hamas barbarism

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Ed Husic backed by fellow Labor frontbencher Anne Aly who says Israel ‘could be investigated’ for alleged war crimes

Palestinians are being “collectively punished for Hamas’s barbarism”, senior federal minister Ed Husic has said, in the strongest condemnation yet of Israel’s reprisals in Gaza by a member of the Australian government.

Fellow Labor frontbencher Anne Aly immediately backed Husic saying it was “difficult to argue” that Palestinians, including 1,000 children who had been killed, were not being “collectively punished”. Aly, the early childhood education minister, suggested Israel could be investigated over whether it had committed war crimes.

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Mohamed Salah makes donation and calls for aid to be allowed into Gaza

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  • Striker said to have made significant donation
  • ‘The people of Gaza need food and supplies urgently’

Mohamed Salah has appealed for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza after making a donation to help those affected by Israeli air strikes.

The Egypt and Liverpool striker, one of the highest-profile Muslim footballers in the world, made the donation to the Egyptian Red Crescent on Sunday. The amount was undisclosed but is said to be significant.

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Biden tells Israel not to ‘repeat mistakes’ made by US after 9/11

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President reaffirmed US support but urged Israel not to be ‘consumed by rage’ as Netanyahu promises to allow aid into Gaza

Joe Biden has appealed to Israel not to be “consumed” by rage in its response to the attack by Hamas, as the US president pledged stalwart support for Israel for its self-defence and the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to allow aid into Gaza via Egypt.

Speaking in Tel Aviv towards the end of his one-day visit to the region, which did not include any meetings with leaders from the Arab world, Biden compared Israel’s predicament after the massacre of more than 1,300 of its citizens to the US’s crisis 22 years ago after the 9/11 attacks. His country had “sought and got justice”, but also “made mistakes”, he said.

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Egypt’s president agrees to open the Rafah crossing – as it happened

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The UN Security Council scheduled the vote on a resolution on the Israel-Hamas conflict for Wednesday morning.

The resolution initially condemned “the heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas” on Israel as well as all violence against civilians, while calling for “humanitarian pauses” to deliver desperately needed aid to millions in Gaza.

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Rishi Sunak urges MPs not to rush to judgment over Gaza hospital blast

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Sunak says British intelligence is working at pace to ‘get to the bottom’ of explosion at al-Ahli hospital

Rishi Sunak has urged MPs not to rush to judgment over the blast at a hospital in Gaza, as he was repeatedly urged by the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, to remind Israel to respect international law.

Sunak said British intelligence was working at pace to analyse evidence and “to get to the bottom” of the explosion al-Ahli hospital, which was reported to have killed hundreds of civilians.

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Israel faces blame from regional allies over Gaza hospital deaths

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Several Arab states condemn Israel for explosion, which it blames on failed rocket launch by Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Israel is using media and diplomatic channels to try to convince leaders of Arab countries that Tuesday’s blast at a Gaza hospital was caused by a misfiring jihadist missile, after even its regional allies rushed to blame it for the explosion.

Tuesday’s explosion, which killed hundreds, was blamed by Palestinian officials on an Israeli airstrike. Israel said it was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.

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More protests expected across Middle East after Gaza hospital blast

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Hezbollah calls for ‘day of rage’ as both sides in war continue to trade blame for deadly explosion

Further furious rallies and protests are expected across the Middle East and north Africa on Wednesday after the blast at a Gaza hospital that left hundreds dead and injured.

Hamas has blamed Tuesday’s explosion at al-Ahli Arab hospital on an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military says the hospital was hit by a rocket barrage launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which has denied responsibility.

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