Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

US-Iranian journalist believed to have been detained in Iran

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News of Reza Valizadeh’s imprisonment comes as Iran marks 45th anniversary of US embassy hostage crisis

An Iranian-American journalist who once worked for a US government-funded broadcaster is believed to have been detained by Iran for months, authorities have said, further raising the stakes as Tehran threatens to retaliate over an Israeli attack on the country.

The imprisonment of Reza Valizadeh, which was acknowledged to the Associated Press by the US Department of State, came as Iran marked the 45th anniversary on Sunday of the US embassy takeover and hostage crisis. It also followed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatening both Israel and the US the day before with “a crushing response” as long-range B-52 bombers reached the Middle East in an attempt to deter Tehran.

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Israel abducts alleged Hezbollah official in unprecedented sea raid

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Commandos land in northern Lebanon in highly unusual operation to capture supposed militant group member

The Israeli military abducted who it said was a senior Hezbollah official in an unprecedented operation on Saturday morning during which Israeli commandos landed on the shores of Batroun, northern Lebanon, captured the alleged official and escaped via speedboat.

In a statement, an Israeli military official said its forces captured a “senior operative of Hezbollah” and transferred him to its territory to be investigated by military intelligence. The media outlet Axios cited Israeli sources as saying the captured man – Imad Amhaz – was responsible for Hezbollah’s naval operations.

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‘Death is everywhere’: fears grow that Israel plans to seize land in Gaza

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Increasingly violent siege of north raises suspicions about Netanyahu’s war aims

Israel has tightened its siege of northern Gaza in the face of warnings from the UN and other aid agencies that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian lives at are risk, raising questions over whether the Netanyahu government’s ultimate war aims include territorial expansion.

The IDF says it is hunting Hamas militants but suspicions are growing that Israel is putting into practice a blueprint it had officially distanced itself from, known as the “generals’ plan”.

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Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib declines to endorse Kamala Harris

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The Palestinian American ‘squad’ member has been critical of Harris and the Democratic party’s inaction on Gaza

Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib declined to endorse Kamala Harris at a union rally in Detroit, where the war in Gaza is the top issue for the largest block of Arab American voters in the country.

Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, is the only one of the so-called leftist “Squad” that has not endorsed the Democrat candidate. The other three members – Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York – endorsed Harris in July.

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Israel captures Lebanese sea captain and claims he is a Hezbollah operative – as it happened

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Navy confirms it landed in Batroun, 30km north of Beirut, and took him to Israel to be ‘investigated’

Troops were also operating in central Gaza and Rafah in the territory’s far south, the Israeli military said, while witnesses told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Israeli drones and boats opened fire on al-Mawasi in south Gaza.

Medics and Gaza’s civil defence rescuers on Saturday reported three people killed in a strike on Nuseirat, in central Gaza, a day after AFP images showed the blood-stained shrouds of several people killed there in an Israeli strike.

The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.”

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‘It’s created an internal shitstorm’: turmoil at UK law firm accused of ‘whitewashing’ Saudi World Cup report

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Sources say key people at Clifford Chance were not consulted, as it emerges another company refused job due to reputational concerns

When the Saudi crown prince locked nearly 400 of his country’s most powerful people in a luxury hotel in 2017 and stripped them of their fortunes, a UK law firm allegedly played a significant role.

On the orders of Mohammed bin Salman, Clifford Chance - a “magic circle” legal giant with headquarters in London – was reported to have facilitated the forced transfer of assets from a Saudi TV station to the government.

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Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon and Gaza kill dozens as rockets are fired into Israel

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Israel targets north-eastern Lebanon and Beirut, while bombardment of Gaza raises fears of worsening humanitarian conditions for civilians

Israeli airstrikes on Friday killed at least 52 people and wounded scores more, the Lebanese health ministry said, while rockets fired from Lebanon fell on Israel on Saturday.

Israeli police said 19 people were injured before dawn on Saturday in the central town of Tira. Three projectiles crossed into Israel from Lebanon, Israel’s military said, and some were intercepted.

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Middle East crisis: North Gaza situation ‘apocalyptic’ with whole population at risk of ‘imminent death’, say UN chiefs – as it happened

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The Israel Defence Force has shared pictures of Nazi memorabilia it says it found in “civilian homes exploited by Hezbollah” in Lebanon.

The IDF shared photos of a book with a swastika and the name “Hassan Salih” inscribed on the front, as well as a Nazi pennant flag and figurine of Adolf Hitler, but it did not provide any more evidence or details of the find. The Guardian could not independently verify the images.

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Israeli assault has caused ‘apocalyptic’ situation in northern Gaza, UN warns

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Key officials say entire population of northern Gaza ‘at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence’

The situation in the northern Gaza Strip is “apocalyptic” as Israel pursues a military offensive against Hamas militants in the area, top United Nations officials have warned.

“The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence,” they said in a statement on Friday signed by the heads of UN agencies, including the UN children’s agency Unicef and the World Food Programme, and other aid groups.

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Lebanon’s PM denies US asked him to declare unilateral ceasefire with Israel

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Reports of such a request emerge as Israeli jets continues to bombard Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh

The US asked Lebanon to declare a unilateral ceasefire to revive stalled talks to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, according to a report later denied by the Lebanese prime minister

Two unnamed sources, a Lebanese political source and a senior diplomat, made the claim to Reuters, saying the US envoy, Amos Hochstein, had communicated the proposal to Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, this week.

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UN should consider suspending Israel over ‘genocide’ against Palestinians, says special rapporteur

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Francesca Albanese, who was stopped from appearing at US Congress this week, said Israel defied UN resolutions

The UN should consider suspending Israel as a member state due to its continuing “genocide” against the Palestinians, the divisive special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories has said.

Francesca Albanese was speaking to a UN committee on the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in New York the day after she published her latest report alleging that Israel was not just committing war crimes or crimes against humanity in Gaza, but a genocide.

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US attempts to broker ceasefire as civilians killed in Lebanon and Israel

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IDF airstrikes kill 45 people while seven die, including four Thai workers, in rocket attack on northern Israel

Senior US officials have held talks in Israel aimed at brokering a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, on a day when more civilians in both countries were killed in the year-long war.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, who had expressed optimism of a speedy settlement “in hours or days” earlier on Thursday, said that Israel’s “ongoing escalation” in his country “does not inspire optimism”.

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Almost two dozen countries at high risk of acute hunger, UN report reveals

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Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Palestine and Haiti rated at level of highest concern in latest six-monthly analysis

Acute food insecurity is expected to worsen in war-stricken Sudan and nearly two dozen other countries and territories in the next six months, largely as a result of conflict and violence, an analysis by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme has found.

The latest edition of the twice-yearly Hunger Hotspots report, published on Thursday, provides early warnings on food crises and situations around the world where food insecurity is likely to worsen, with a focus on the most severe and deteriorating situations of acute hunger.

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US says Lebanon ceasefire talks making ‘good progress’ – as it happened

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US secretary of state and defence secretary express hope of ceasefire in near future as Hamas rules out short-term truce for Gaza

Reuters reports that the Israeli military said on Thursday it had shot down a drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel on Wednesday.

No other information was provided. We will update the blog as more details come in.

Rafael and Lala Goliev … residents of Lod, were arrested after they carried out tasks on behalf of an Iranian cell that recruits Israelis from the Caucasus countries in Israel.”

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Saudi Arabia World Cup bid report accused of ‘whitewashing’ rights abuses

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Law firm AS&H Clifford Chance failed to include alleged abuse of migrant workers in assessment for Fifa 2034 bid, say rights groups

A report by the Saudi arm of a global law firm on Saudi Arabia’s 2034 Fifa World Cup bid has “whitewashed” the Gulf kingdom’s record of exploiting and suppressing the rights of migrant workers, rights groups have claimed.

AS&H Clifford Chance was commissioned to independently assess the human rights implications of the bid, but the report “contains no substantive discussion of extensive and relevant abuses in Saudi Arabia”, according to a statement released by 11 organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

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US identified 500 cases where its weapons harmed Gaza civilians but hasn’t taken action

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Some the incidents might have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources

US state department officials have identified nearly 500 potential incidents of civilian harm during Israel’s military operations in Gaza involving US-furnished weapons, but have not taken further action on any of them, according to three sources, including a US official familiar with the matter.

The incidents – some of which may have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources – have been recorded since 7 October 2023, when the Gaza war started. They are being collected by the state department’s Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG), a formal mechanism for tracking and assessing any reported misuse of US-origin weapons.

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World must act to prevent ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Gaza, António Guterres warns

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Secretary general makes appeal as civilian casualties mount amid intensive Israeli strikes on north

The UN secretary general, António Guterres has warned Israel could carry out the “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza if the international community does not make a determined stand to prevent it.

Guterres made his appeal at a time of mounting civilian casualties from the Israeli bombardment of northern Gaza. A strike on Tuesday in Beit Lahiya district killed at least 93 people, in what the UN said was just one of at least seven “mass casualty incidents” across Gaza in the past week.

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Palestinian student stripped of UK visa after Gaza remarks wins human rights appeal

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Home Office failed to show presence of Dana Abu Qamar ‘not conducive to public good’, according to tribunal ruling

A Palestinian student who was stripped of her student visa after remarks she made about the Israel-Gaza war has won a human rights appeal against the Home Office’s decision.

The Home Office failed to demonstrate that the presence of Dana Abu Qamar, 20, was “not conducive to public good” after the law student’s visa was revoked in December 2023, according to a tribunal ruling.

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Nobel and Pulitzer winners denounce ‘dangerous’ Israel cultural boycott

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More than 1,000 well-known figures sign open letter in response to authors pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions over Gaza

More than 1,000 figures from the literary and entertainment industry – including several Nobel laureates, Pulitzer prize, and Booker prize winners – have signed an open letter against “illiberal and dangerous” cultural boycotts.

The letter was released by the nonprofit body Creative Community For Peace [CCFP], which campaigns against cultural boycotts of Israel, after more than 1,000 book industry figures pledged to boycott Israeli cultural institutions that “are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians”.

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Middle East crisis: UN security council warns against attempts to dismantle Unrwa – as it happened

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Under the laws – which will not be implemented for several months – Unrwa could not “operate any institution, provide any service, or conduct any activity, whether directly or indirectly”.

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