Isaac Herzog can pardon convicted criminals in some circumstances, but cases against Israeli PM are ongoing
Donald Trump has repeated a request to Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, for a pardon for Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial in three separate corruption cases.
The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the ongoing court cases. No rulings have been delivered, and his supporters have dismissed the trials as politically motivated.
Continue reading...Armed forces and settlers used bombs, dogs, poison and machinery to attack people and infrastructure at key sites
Israeli armed forces and settlers have attacked Palestinian water sources more than 250 times in the past five years, amounting to the most sustained assault on civilian water supplies in recent years, new research reveals.
Bombs, dogs, poison and heavy machinery were among the weapons used to attack Palestinians and their infrastructure at drinking water, irrigation and sanitation sites in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on at least 90 occasions between January 2024 and mid-2025, according to the Pacific Institute, a California-based nonpartisan thinktank tracking water conflicts.
Continue reading...Two fathers in Britain enlist law firm to get government to follow through on evacuation promises made months ago
The British government is facing legal action over its lack of action to help evacuate families in Gaza after committing to do so months ago.
Two families have argued that the government’s failure to act is unlawful and in breach of their family’s human rights. They are among a number of separated families to which the government has failed to keep its evacuation promise, according to the law firm Leigh Day, which is representing them.
Continue reading...Sports personalities including Martina Navratilova and the swimmer Sharron Davies sign letter condemning Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani’s death sentence
More than 20 Olympic medallists, coaches and other international athletes, including the tennis player Martina Navratilova and the swimmer Sharron Davies, have signed a letter calling for a halt to the execution of a boxing champion and coach, who is on death row in Iran.
Amid growing international outrage over Iran’s escalating use of capital punishment as a tool of oppression, the strongly worded letter condemns the Iranian regime’s decision to uphold the death sentence of Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.
Continue reading...Ahmed al-Sharaa and Donald Trump hold first White House summit between a US and Syrian leader since 1946
The US has announced a partial suspension of sanctions on Syria after a historic meeting in Washington DC between its new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and Donald Trump.
Monday’s meeting was the first summit between a US and Syrian leader at the White House since 1946. The meeting is part of a remarkable turnaround in US-Syrian relations after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, who had prosecuted a deadly civil war in the country from 2011 until his forces collapsed in December 2024.
Continue reading...Decision reflects wider regional doubts about terms of US-drafted plan to disarm Hamas
Plans for a UN-mandated international stabilisation force charged with disarming Hamas inside Gaza face growing opposition after the United Arab Emirates said it would not participate because it did not yet see a clear legal framework for the force.
Israel has already ruled out Turkey joining the force, and King Abdullah of Jordan has said Jordanian troops will not join. Azerbaijan, once mooted as a contributor, did not attend a planning meeting in Turkey last week and said it would not contribute unless a full ceasefire was in place.
Continue reading...IDF soldiers tell documentary of opening fire unprovoked and arbitrary designations of who was an enemy
Israeli soldiers have described a free-for-all in Gaza and a breakdown in norms and legal constraints, with civilians killed at the whim of individual officers, according to testimony in a TV documentary.
“If you want to shoot without restraint, you can,” Daniel, the commander of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank unit, says in Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War, due to be broadcast in the UK on ITV on Monday evening.
Continue reading...Ahmed al-Sharaa is expected to push for full lifting of remaining sanctions imposed during 13-year civil war
Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, will on Monday hold talks with Donald Trump at the White House, the first such official visit by a Syrian leader since national independence in 1946. He is expected to push for a full lifting of the remaining sanctions on his war-ravaged country.
Sharaa, whose Islamist rebel forces toppled the longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, has courted the US president to try to reverse the economic restrictions imposed during the 13-year civil war, arguing they are no longer justified.
Continue reading...Storage dwindles in Mashhad, home to 4 million people, as country struggles with drought
Water levels at the dam reservoirs supplying Iran’s north-eastern city of Mashhad have plunged below 3%, according to reports, as the country suffers from severe water shortages.
“The water storage in Mashhad’s dams has now fallen to less than 3%,” Hossein Esmaeilian, the chief executive of the water company in Iran’s second largest city by population, told the ISNA news agency.
Continue reading...More than 150 psychiatrists sign letter condemning contract to host exams in country with well-documented human rights abuses
The Royal College of Psychiatrists is facing a backlash from members over a controversial partnership with Qatar’s state healthcare provider.
The college has signed a contract with the state-owned Hamad Medical Corporation to host international exams in Doha, enabling psychiatrists from across the Middle East and beyond to apply for membership.
Continue reading...Security operations came as Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in Washington to meet Donald Trump
Syria has carried out nationwide preemptive operations targeting Islamic State cells, a spokesperson for the interior ministry said on Saturday, as the country’s president arrived in the US for talks with Donald Trump.
Syrian security forces carried out 61 raids, with 71 people arrested and explosives and weapons seized, the spokesperson told state-run Al Ekhbariya TV.
Continue reading...Iran’s police say Omid Sarlak, 22, shot himself, but fellow activists suspect he may have been killed for his views
The death of a young Iranian man who had filmed himself burning a photograph of the country’s supreme leader has sparked a war of words between state media and activists over how he died.
Government-sanctioned news websites reported that Omid Sarlak, who was in his 20s, had been found in his car on Saturday in western Iran with a gunshot wound to his head and traces of gunpowder on his hands. Iranian police said Sarlak had “died by suicide”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Detainees at Rakefet include nurse deprived of natural light since January, and teenager held for nine months
Israel is holding dozens of Palestinians from Gaza isolated in an underground jail where they never see daylight, are deprived of adequate food and barred from receiving news of their families or the outside world.
The detainees have included at least two civilians held for months without charge or trial: a nurse detained in his scrubs, and a young food seller, according to lawyers from the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) who represent both men.
Continue reading...Israeli PM, ministers and army chief accused of crimes against humanity ‘perpetrated systematically’ in Gaza
Turkey has issued arrest warrants for alleged genocide against the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and senior officials within his government.
Among 37 suspects listed were the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the army chief Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said a statement from the Istanbul prosecutor’s office, which did not publish the complete list.
Continue reading...Accusations of violent interceptions and human rights violations levelled at EU-funded Libyan services by NGOs
More than a dozen NGO rescue vessels operating in the Mediterranean have suspended communication with the Libyan coastguard, citing escalating incidents of asylum seekers being violently intercepted at sea and taken to camps rife with torture, rape and forced labour.
The 13 search-and-rescue organisations described their decision as a rejection of mounting pressure by the EU, and Italy in particular, to share information with the Libyan coastguard, which receives training, equipment and funding from the EU.
Continue reading...Exclusive: British government adopted ‘least ambitious’ option months before RSF’s massacres in El Fasher
Britain rejected atrocity prevention plans for Sudan despite intelligence warnings that the city of El Fasher would fall amid a wave of ethnic cleansing and possible genocide, according to a report seen by the Guardian.
Government officials turned down the plans six months into the 18-month siege of El Fasher in favour of the “least ambitious” option of four presented.
Continue reading...Three towns attacked despite truce with Hezbollah in what Israeli military says was effort to prevent group rearming
The Israeli military has carried out a wave of airstrikes in southern Lebanon in what it described as an attempt to prevent Hezbollah rearming.
Israeli warplanes struck the towns of Kfar Dounine, Tayr Debba and Zawtar al-Sharqiya on Thursday, about an hour after issuing evacuation warnings to residents. No deaths had been reported at the time of publishing.
Continue reading...International mediators broker three-month halt to civil war as further evidence emerges of mass civilian killings
A Sudanese paramilitary group accused of killing thousands of unarmed civilians in an ethnically motivated massacre has agreed to a truce.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is facing mounting criticism over apparent war crimes committed by its fighters in the city of El Fasher last month, said it had agreed to a “humanitarian ceasefire” put forward by the quad countries of the US, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Continue reading...Osama Almasri Najim was arrested in Italy in January on an ICC warrant, only to be released and flown back to Libya
A Libyan general wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity has been arrested in Tripoli.
Osama Almasri Najim, the former chief of Libya’s judicial police, was arrested over allegations of torturing prisoners, leading to the death of one, at Tripoli’s main prison, Libya’s prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.
Continue reading...António Guterres calls for the violence to end but there appears little appetite for ceasefire proposed by US
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said the war in Sudan is spiralling out of control as he called for a halt to the fighting and an end to the violence.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which are reportedly backed by the United Arab Emirates, seized El Fasher in Darfur last week after a near 18-month siege. Some of its soldiers have posted videos of civilians being shot, including in the town’s maternity hospital.
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