Foreign minister’s comments follow rocket attacks fired into Israel, and police raids on a Jerusalem mosque
Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, has condemned escalating violence and terror attacks in the Middle East.
Her comments follow rocket attacks fired into Israel from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
Continue reading...Rina and Maia Dee, aged 15 and 20, identified on Twitter by Benjamin Netanyahu as mother remains in intensive care
The two British-Israeli sisters killed in a gun attack in the occupied West Bank on Friday have been named as Rina and Maia Dee.
Rina, 15, and Maia, 20, who were born in London, were identified on Twitter by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Continue reading...Women who break Islamic dress code will be identified, warned on first instance and then taken to court
Police in Iran plan to use smart technology in public places to identify and then penalise women who violate the country’s strict Islamic dress code, the force said on Saturday.
A statement said police would “take action to identify norm-breaking people by using tools and smart cameras in public places and thoroughfares”.
Continue reading...Further violence feared after Arab-Israeli man drives his vehicle into busy city promenade following a West Bank shooting
On 8 April 2022, a Palestinian gunman entered a crowded bar in Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital, and opened fire, killing three people and wounding 10. This weekend, on the anniversary of that attack, an Arab-Israeli man rammed his car into pedestrians on the city’s seaside promenade, killing an Italian tourist and injuring seven more people.
That attack followed a shooting earlier in the day in the north of the occupied West Bank that killed two British-Israeli sisters, aged 15 and 20, and left their 48-year-old mother in critical condition after their car veered off the road.
Continue reading...Visits comes two days after Middle Eastern powers met in China to restore relations
A Saudi delegation arrived in Tehran on Saturday to discuss reopening diplomatic missions with Iran after seven years.
The visit comes two days after the unprecedented meeting between Iran and Saudi Arabia’s heads of diplomacy in China after the two countries agreed to restore diplomatic ties last month.
Continue reading...The rocket attack that followed air strikes and mosque raids failed to provoke all-out war, but it must surely be inevitable
The groves of southern Lebanon had been quiet for nearly 17 years. But as farmers tended to orange trees and banana crops on Thursday, rocket men lurked among them, readying the biggest barrage fired into Israel since the war of 2006 and taking a startled region to the precipice of another conflict that leaders on both sides of the border fear will be worse than all before them.
Familiar sights of streaks through a clear blue sky, sirens and billowing smoke from impact sites were soon replaced by fear and trepidation. In Beirut and Tel Aviv, an escalation seemed imminent. But as a troubling afternoon wore on, the apocalyptic showdown between Hezbollah and Israel that had been widely predicted started to fizzle. Rhetoric was of measured responses. Israel was content to blame Palestinian groups and put a distance between them and Hezbollah. War could wait, for now.
Continue reading...Latest incident comes amid sharp rise in numbers trying to leave crisis-hit north African country
At least 20 people were missing on Saturday after their boat sank off Tunisia as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to Italy, amid a sharp rise in boats setting off from the north African country.
The coastguard rescued 17 other people from the same boat off the southern city of Sfax, two of whom were in critical condition, said a local judge, Faouzi Masmousdi.
Continue reading...Police to deploy extra battalions in city centres as Benjamin Netanyahu also directs army to mobilise additional forces
Israel began calling up police and army reservists on Saturday after separate attacks killed three people, including an Italian tourist and two British-Israeli sisters, in Tel Aviv and the West Bank.
Despite appeals for restraint, violence has surged since Israeli police clashed with Palestinians inside Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque on Wednesday, with Israel bombarding Gaza and Lebanon in response to rocket fire by Palestinian militants.
Continue reading...Italian tourist dies and Britons among injured after driver rams people near beach, Israeli officials report
An Italian man has died and five other British and Italian tourists have been injured in an attack in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv, the latest episode of violence after several days of rising tensions sparked fears of a broader conflagration in the region.
The 30-year-old Italian died from a gunshot wound, Israel’s rescue service said on Friday night, the Jewish holy day. At the same time, Israeli police said a car had been driven into people near the beach, and that the driver had been shot and killed.
Continue reading...UAE accused of non-cooperation by South Africa after court rules against extraditing tycoons Atul and Rajesh Gupta
South Africa said on Friday it had learned with “shock and dismay” that the United Arab Emirates had turned down its request to extradite two brothers accused of orchestrating industrial-scale corruption.
The justice minister, Ronald Lamola, bluntly accused the UAE of “non-cooperation” after being informed late on Thursday of a court ruling against extraditing the tycoons Atul and Rajesh Gupta.
Continue reading...Sisters, believed to have migrated from the UK, died after car was shot at and crashed on Friday
Two sisters with British nationality have been killed and their mother seriously injured in a shooting attack in the occupied West Bank, keeping the region on edge even as the situation on Israel’s borders appeared to ease after Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip overnight.
The sisters were killed when their car crashed after it was shot at in the north of the territory on Friday, Israeli media reported. Local authorities said they were 16 and 20 years old, and their mother 48. The family have not yet been officially named due to a pause in some Israeli police procedures for the Jewish holy day, Shabbat.
Continue reading...Rocket fire from Gaza and Lebanon and second Israeli raid on al-Aqsa mosque stoke fears of further escalation
Israeli jets hit sites in Lebanon and Gaza early on Friday, in retaliation for rocket attacks it blamed on the Islamist group Hamas, as tensions following police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem this week threatened to spiral out of control.
Two explosions were heard in Gaza late on Thursday. It was not immediately clear what had been targeted but Israel said its jets hit targets including tunnels and weapons manufacturing sites of Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the blockaded southern coastal strip.
Continue reading...Israeli army says salvo fired from Lebanese territory, after officers entered religious compound to remove worshippers
Rocket fire from Gaza and Lebanon and a second Israeli police raid on Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque in as many nights have stoked fears of further escalation in the region during a sensitive period of overlapping religious holidays.
On Thursday afternoon, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said the biggest salvo of rockets since the 2006 war had been fired from Lebanese territory into northern Israel. Most of the 34 projectiles were intercepted, but there were two minor injuries and a fire.
Continue reading...Faisal bin Farhan and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Beijing for talks after Chinese-brokered agreement
The Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers have met for the first time in seven years, weeks after the two countries came to an agreement, brokered by Chinese officials, to restore diplomatic relations.
Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and Iran’s Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met in Beijing to discuss the reopening of embassies, the appointment of ambassadors and a planned visit to Saudi Arabia by Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president. They also discussed resuming flights between the two countries and issuing travel visas for each others’ citizens.
Continue reading...New law bans people from taking leavened food made from grain into medical centres during Jewish holiday
Passover celebrations in Israel this year are once again being overshadowed by a row over the consumption of leavened food such as bread in public buildings, in a symbolic fight about the role of religion in the state.
Last week, the Knesset passed the “chametz law”, which bans people from taking leavened food made from grain into hospitals during Passover. The law, sponsored by an ultra-Orthodox party, is in accordance with traditional Jewish teachings stipulating that observant Jews cannot eat chametz or have it in their homes during the week-long holiday.
Continue reading...Police raid triggers West Bank clashes, cross-border strikes in Gaza Strip and fears of escalation
At least 14 Palestinians have been injured and hundreds arrested in an Israeli police raid on Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, triggering clashes in the West Bank, cross-border strikes in the Gaza Strip and fears of wider escalation over the holiday period.
The violence in the early hours of Wednesday – during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and on the eve of the Jewish Passover holiday – comes after a year of spiralling bloodshed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also carries echoes of 2021, when clashes at Jerusalem’s holiest site helped start an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement in control of Gaza.
Continue reading...Risk of unrest rises amid fourth dry year, poor grain harvest, weak economy and likely food subsidy cuts
Tunisia has introduced water rationing as the country suffers its fourth year of severe drought.
The state water distribution company, Sonede, has already begun cutting mains water supplies every night between 9pm and 4am. The agriculture ministry has now banned the use of water for irrigation, watering green spaces and other public areas, and for washing cars.
Continue reading...Khalid Aydd Ahmad al-Jabouri said to have been responsible for planning IS attacks in Europe
The US military has said it carried out a strike in Syria, killing a senior Islamic State group official responsible for planning attacks in Europe.
The strike in the north-west of the country on Monday killed the senior IS leader Khalid Aydd Ahmad al-Jabouri, US Central Command said.
Continue reading...Contradictions over missions in Syria and Iraq deepens concern over Britain’s ‘perfect’ precision war
It sounded like accountability. Pressed about the UK’s implausibly spotless record in its bombing campaign against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the British government admitted in May 2018 that its military had killed one civilian in eastern Syria two months earlier.
But the strike the then defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, described to parliament was not logged in the records of civilian casualties kept by its allies in the international coalition flying bombers and drones over Syria and Iraq.
Continue reading...Exclusive: UAE’s fossil fuel boss will be the president of Cop28, making a mockery of the summit, say campaigners
The United Arab Emirates, which is hosting this year’s UN climate summit, has the third biggest net zero-busting plans for oil and gas expansion in the world, the Guardian can reveal. Its plans are surpassed only by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The CEO of the UAE’s national oil company, Adnoc, has been controversially appointed president of the UN’s Cop28 summit in December, which is seen as crucial with time running out to end the climate crisis. But Sultan Al Jaber is overseeing expansion to produce oil and gas equivalent to 7.5bn barrels of oil, according to new data, 90% of which would have to remain in the ground to meet the net zero scenario set out by the International Energy Agency.
Continue reading...