Middle East crisis: Israel issues evacuation order for parts of northern Gaza – as it happened

IDF says residents should evacuate Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and the neighbourhoods of Sheikh Zayed, al-Manshiya and Tal al-Zaatar

At least 50,399 Palestinian people have been killed and 114,583 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

At least 42 bodies and 183 injured people have been received by hospitals in Gaza over the last day, according to the territory’s health ministry, which said that at least 1,042 Palestinian people have been killed by Israeli forces since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas on 18 March.

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Trump’s bombing threat over Iran nuclear programme prompts backlash

Iranian officials accuse US president of breaching UN charter and say ‘violence brings violence’

Iran has reacted with outrage after Donald Trump said the country will be bombed if it does not accept US demands to constrain its nuclear programme.

The US president said on Sunday that if Iran “[doesn’t] make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”.

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New images reveal extent of looting at Sudan’s national museum as rooms stripped of treasures

Only a few statues remain, with thousands of priceless artefacts from Nubian and Kushite kingdoms missing

Videos of Sudan’s national museum showing empty rooms, piles of rubble and broken artefacts posted on social media after the Sudanese army recaptured the area from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in recent days show the extent of looting of the country’s antiquities.

Fears of looting in the museum were first raised in June 2023 and a year later satellite images emerged of trucks loaded with artefacts leaving the building, according to museum officials. But last week, as the RSF were driven out of Khartoum after two years of war, the full extent of the theft became apparent.

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Netanyahu says he is ‘willing’ to reach deal to free Gaza hostages

Prime minister says military pressure is working, as he rejects claims that Israel is not serious about negotiations

Rejecting claims from Hamas and Israeli protesters that his government is not engaged in serious negotiations aimed at securing the release of those held captive in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he was committed to reaching an agreement to free the hostages and military pressure had been effective.

“We are willing,” Israel’s prime minister told a cabinet meeting. “We are negotiating under fire” and “can see cracks beginning to appear” in what Hamas has demanded in its negotiations, he said.

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‘He insisted we take him to the graves’: the Palestinian civilians coming home to catastrophe

Alaa Abu Zeid only discovered his wife and children had been killed after his release from an Israeli prison. His is a story repeated across Gaza

• ‘They don’t want them to know anything’: Gaza civilians held in Israel not told families had been killed

More than a year after his abduction by Israeli soldiers, the first thing Alaa Abu Zeid wanted to do on his return to Gaza was hold his wife and children. He didn’t know that Ali, his brother, would be the only person waiting when he arrived in Khan Younis earlier this month: Alaa’s wife, Hala, and all five of the couple’s children had been killed in an Israeli airstrike last summer.

Abu Zeid, 48, the headteacher of a primary school funded by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) in Bureij in central Gaza, was arrested along with dozens of other men when Israeli troops raided the school turned shelter in December 2023. He would never see his family again.

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Hamas reportedly agrees to release five living Israeli hostages for ceasefire

Militants release video of Israeli captive Elkana Bohbot pleading for freedom as they seek a 50-day halt to conflict

Hamas has allegedly agreed to free five living Israeli hostages in exchange for a 50-day ceasefire, as the militant group released a video of a hostage making an appeal for his freedom.

Hamas’s chief, Khalil al-Hayya, reportedly said on Saturday that the militant group expressed willingness to release the five hostages over the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, which begins on Sunday, after a proposal it received two days ago from Egypt and Qatar, Reuters has reported.

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Partial solar eclipse: moon blocks part of sun for people in northern hemisphere – as it happened

This blog is now closed, you can read our story here

Here’s a view of the sun from Dakar, Senegal:

How visible today’s partial eclipse will be depends, unsurprisingly, on how clear the sky is where you are.

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Israel admits firing at ambulances in Gaza after Palestinians say rescuers missing in Rafah

Body of team leader found almost a week after six rescuers went missing, Gaza’s civil defence agency says

Israel’s military admitted on Saturday it had fired on ambulances in the Gaza Strip after identifying them as “suspicious vehicles”, with Hamas condemning it as a “war crime” that killed at least one person.

The incident took place last Sunday in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood in the southern city of Rafah, close to the Egyptian border.

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Friday briefing: How Gaza is becoming the deadliest conflict zone for journalists

In today’s newsletter: Media workers in Gaza and the West Bank have faced relentless danger, and attacks on press freedom on the rise across the world

Good morning.

More than 170 journalists have been killed in Gaza since 2023, with some estimates putting the toll as high as 206. It is the deadliest conflict for media workers in recent history. In a sobering report, Thaslima Begum gathered some of their stories. And attacks on journalists worldwide are on the rise, with deaths occurring everywhere from the Middle East to Europe.

UK economy | Lower-income households are on track to become £500 a year poorer by the end of the decade as a result of the UK chancellor’s spring statement, according to analysis by the Resolution Foundation.

Monarchy | King Charles required hospital observation on Thursday after experiencing “temporary side-effects” as part of his medical treatment for cancer, Buckingham Palace said.

Canada | Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, has said the era of deep ties with the US “is over” as governments from Tokyo to Berlin and Paris sharply criticised Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on car imports, with some threatening retaliatory action.

Asia-Pacific | Japan has for the first time released plans to evacuate more than 100,000 civilians from some of its remote islands near Taiwan in the event of conflict amid escalating tensions between Beijing and Taipei.

Environment | Supporters of the climate group Just Stop Oil have announced that after three years of disruptive protests they are ending their campaign of civil resistance. Hannah Hunt, whose speech on Valentine’s Day 2022 marked the beginning of the campaign, made the announcement outside Downing Street in London on Thursday.

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No Other Land co-director condemns Academy’s letter to members after Hamdan Ballal attack

Yuval Abraham criticised the Academy’s statement defending its silence after Israeli settlers attacked his co-director Hamdan Ballal

The Israeli director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land has condemned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its response to a violent attack on his Palestinian co-director Hamdan Ballal, who was beaten by Israeli settlers and detained by Israeli forces in the West Bank on Monday.

Earlier this week, Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham criticised the Academy for failing to publicly speak out in support of Ballal. Now he has criticised a statement issued by the Academy to its members on Wednesday, in which it appeared to defend its silence.

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Israel parliament defies protests to pass law tightening grip over judges

Opposition parties say political control of appointments will make judges subject to politicians and undermine democracy

Israel’s parliament has passed a law expanding elected officials’ power to appoint judges, in defiance of a years-long protest against Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to drive through judicial changes.

The approval of the bill, which opposition parties say will make judges subject to the will of politicians, comes as Netanyahu’s government is locked in a standoff with the supreme court over its attempts to dismiss the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara and Ronen Bar, the head of the internal security agency.

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Six Russian tourists die after submarine sinks off Egypt coast

Another 39 people rescued and brought to shore after incident on vessel at Red Sea resort

Six Russian tourists have died and 39 people have been rescued after a submarine sank near the resort of Hurghada, the latest in a series of fatal accidents involving tourists on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.

Four survivors, including at least one child, were admitted to intensive care, according to an official statement.

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Netanyahu repeats threat to seize territory in Gaza as anti-Hamas protests continue

Israeli PM warns of seizure of territories and ‘other measures’ if Hamas refuses to release remaining hostages

Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated Israeli threats to seize territory in Gaza if Hamas refuses to release the remaining Israeli hostages, as, for the second consecutive day, hundreds of Palestinians joined protests against the militant group and demanding the end of the war.

The Israeli prime minister’s warning came a week after Israel resumed its military operation in the territory, shattering the relative calm of a January ceasefire with Hamas.

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‘It was revenge for our movie’: Oscar winner says soldiers helped settlers attack him in West Bank

Hamdan Ballal says Israeli soldiers beat him with their rifle butts and threatened to kill him

The Oscar-winning Palestinian film director Hamdan Ballal has said that Israeli settlers who attacked him were aided by two Israeli soldiers, who beat him with the butt of their rifles outside his home and threatened to kill him.

In an interview with the Guardian, Ballal, one of the four directors of the film No Other Land, which documents the destruction of villages in the West Bank and won best documentary at this year’s Academy Awards, recounted how on Monday two Israeli soldiers first encircled him while a settler was assaulting him, before violently striking him on the head and threatening to shoot him.

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Hundreds join protest against Hamas in northern Gaza

Demonstrators shout ‘Hamas out’ and carry banners saying ‘we want to live in peace’

Hundreds of Palestinians have joined protests in northern Gaza, shouting anti-Hamas slogans and calling for an end to the war with Israel, in what has been described as the largest protest against the militant group inside the territory since the 7 October attacks.

Videos and photos shared on social media late on Tuesday showed hundreds of people, mostly men, chanting “Hamas out” and “Hamas terrorists” in Beit Lahiya, where the crowd had gathered a week after the Israeli army resumed its intense bombing of Gaza after nearly two months of a truce.

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Trump dismisses Signal security failure as ‘the only glitch in two months’

President says national security adviser Mike Waltz, suspected of adding journalist to chat, ‘has learned a lesson’

Donald Trump defended his embattled national security adviser on Tuesday and said the leak of highly classified military plans was “the only glitch in two months”, as scrutiny intensified into how top US officials shared operational details for bombing Yemen in a group chat.

In an interview with NBC, the president said, “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” as Democrats called for an investigation into the sharing of the plans for this month’s major airstrikes in Yemen on the Signal app. Later on Tuesday, during a meeting with ambassadors, Trump said his administration would investigate the incident but claimed “there was no classified information” shared on Signal.

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Hamdan Ballal: Oscar-winning Palestinian director attacked by Israeli settlers and arrested

Director of No Other Land attacked by armed settlers in West Bank and handed to Israeli military, witnesses say

A Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land has been arrested by the Israeli army after masked settlers attacked his house.

According to five Jewish American activists who witnessed the attack, Hamdan Ballal, one of the four directors of the the film that documented the destruction of villages in the West Bank, was surrounded and attacked by a group of about 15 armed settlers in Susya in the Masafer Yatta area south of Hebron.

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Drones, informers and apps: Iran intensifies surveillance on women to enforce hijab law

Iranian police are using digital tools to identify and punish women who defy the Islamic state’s harsh dress code

Like many women in Iran, Darya is used to feeling under surveillance. Yet in recent months, the 25-year-old finance analyst from northern Tehran says that she never knows who could be watching her every move.

She says she has received messages from the police before warning her of suspected violations of the country’s strict hijab laws, but last November she was sent an SMS message containing her car registration plate that stated the exact time and place that she had been recorded driving without her head properly covered. Next time it happened, the SMS warned, her car would be impounded.

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Israeli strike at Gaza hospital kills five, including senior Hamas figure

Ismail Barhoum and medics die in attack, which Israel says was based on extensive intelligence

An Israeli airstrike on Sunday night hit the largest hospital in southern Gaza, killing five people, including a Hamas political leader.

The Gaza health ministry said the strike hit the surgery department at Nasser hospital in the city of Khan Younis. The Israeli military said its attack followed extensive intelligence and used precise munitions to minimise harm at the site.

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Gaza medics issue malnutrition alert as total Israeli blockade enters fourth week

Israel continues to batter territory in renewed offensive as death toll from nearly 18 months of war passes 50,000

Malnutrition is spreading in Gaza, medics and aid workers in the devastated Palestinian territory are warning, as a total Israeli blockade of all supplies enters its fourth week.

There has been no sign that Israel will open entry points to allow essential aid to flow or ease its new offensive in Gaza, which started on Tuesday with a wave of airstrikes that killed 400 people, mostly civilians, ending two months of relative calm. On Sunday, Palestinian officials said the total death toll from nearly 18 months of conflict had passed 50,000.

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