Thai conglomerate Central Group to co-own high-profile retailer with Saudi Public Investment Fund
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has bought a stake in the upmarket department store Selfridges in its latest move on a high-profile British asset.
The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) said it had signed a deal to buy a 40% stake in the loss-making retailer for an undisclosed sum.
Continue reading...Riyadh accused of killing hundreds of Ethiopian migrants, jailing women’s rights advocates and murdering critics
Saudi Arabia is on the brink of being elected on to the United Nation’s Human Rights Council, warn campaigners, in a move they say would undermine its ability to demand justice for rights violations and would feel like a “slap in the face” to the many victims of the Saudi regime.
While the Saudi Arabian government has attempted to present itself as a reformed country that has made progress on gender equality and human rights, its record on both has been fiercely criticised by activists.
Continue reading...Vice-president commits to ‘always’ support Israel’s defense as Biden condemns ‘vicious surge in antisemitism’ in US
US politicians on both sides of the aisle issued statements marking the anniversary of the 7 October attacks, with Kamala Harris paying tribute to the victims and calling, in their honor, to “never lose sight of the dream of peace, dignity, and security for all”.
Outside the vice-presidential residence, Harris, accompanied by her husband, spoke of the nearly 1,200 people, including 46 Americans, killed in Israel one year ago.
Continue reading...Kais Saied secured 90.7% of the vote in election on a turnout of just 27.7%, after detaining rival Ayachi Zammel
Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, has secured a second five-year term with a landslide victory, although the election had one of the lowest turnouts in the north African country’s history.
The Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE) declared on Monday evening that Saied had won 90.7% of the vote in Sunday’s election, on a turnout of 27.7%.
Continue reading...Many who last week couldn’t have got within 500 miles of Mauritius on a map now can’t bear it taking the archipelago
What a difference a week makes. Just last Wednesday, you could have put money on most MPs being totally clueless about the exact location of the Chagos Islands. Give them a map and many would have better luck being blindfolded.
Even a hint wouldn’t have made much difference. Are they east, west, south or north of Mauritius? To be in with a shout, you have to know where Mauritius is. And most MPs wouldn’t get within 500 miles. The Indian Ocean is bigger than you think. And don’t get them started on Diego Garcia. Surely he’s the younger brother of the titular character in the 1974 Sam Peckinpah film Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
Continue reading...UK prime minister tells parliament that the first anniversary of 7 October Hamas attack is a ‘day of grief’ for region
Keir Starmer has urged all sides to pull back from the brink in the Middle East as he addressed the House of Commons on the anniversary of the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel.
With Israel yet to decide how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented missile strike last week, the prime minister said he supported “Israel’s right to defend herself against Iran’s aggression, in line with international law”.
Continue reading...Pope and UN secretary general call for end to fighting as governments and individuals commemorate attack by Hamas
The US president, Joe Biden, has condemned the “unspeakable brutality” of the 7 October attacks launched by Hamas on Israel as world leaders, governments and individuals around the globe marked their first anniversary in commemorations ranging from official statements to formal ceremonies and small private vigils.
The attack killed nearly 1,200 people, according to Israeli government figures, including hundreds at a music festival near the Israel-Gaza border, and saw about 250 hostages taken to Gaza.
Continue reading...Low sobs and prayers for those killed by Hamas punctuated by sound of artillery fire towards nearby Gaza
One year ago, nearly 400 young Israelis were massacred at the site of the Nova music festival during the 7 October Hamas attack. As mourners gathered at the site of the festival to commemorate the victims on Monday, their low sobs and murmured prayers were punctuated by the sound of artillery and machine guns being fired by soldiers into nearby Gaza.
Perhaps no single scene across Israel more expressly exhibited the horrific violence meted out against hundreds of civilians by Hamas, and the subsequent ferocity of the Israeli response against that organisation and millions of people inside of Gaza.
Continue reading...A year on, there are still bitter recriminations over warnings missed by Israeli military and intelligence services
In the late afternoon on 7 October, an Israeli software engineer in his mid-30s found himself driving down a deserted road parallel to the perimeter fence that separated Gaza from Israel. He had been fighting for hours with an AK-47 taken from a dead Hamas militant. Now he and three friends were headed to the town of Ohad to search for relatives who had gone missing.
“Only when we set off south did we understand how big this was. It was like an apocalypse,” the engineer, who did not want to be named, said last week. “There were hundreds of bodies of civilians inside their cars or on the road, hundreds of dead terrorists with their pickup trucks or motorbikes. There were dead police, army vehicles on fire. We were alone.”
Continue reading...Military says 100 aircraft used in attack on targets in south of country as Israeli operations expand on multiple fronts
Israel launched an intense wave of air raids on southern Lebanon on Monday, with 100 aircraft targeting about 120 sites in the space of an hour, according to the country’s military.
An IDF Arabic spokesperson issued an urgent warning to Lebanese civilians to avoid being on the beach or on boats on the coast from the Awali River southward until further notice.
Continue reading...The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah intelligence and weapons storage, as rocket hits Haifa injuring at least 5 people
Ceremonies were held across Israel on Monday as the country marked the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks, with the war it launched in response raging in Gaza and escalating in Lebanon, while conflict threatened to spread across the Middle East.
In the hours leading up to the anniversary, Israel bombed targets in Beirut and Gaza, while Hezbollah rockets struck Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, causing damage to buildings, police said. Israeli media reported 5 people were wounded in rocket attacks in Haifa and the city of Tiberias.
Continue reading...Bethan McKernan visits Nir Oz in southern Israel to talk to survivors about Hamas’s attack on 7 October last year, and to discuss what has happened to their kibbutz and the wider region since
About a quarter of kibbutz Nir Oz’s population was killed or kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October last year. Proportionally, nowhere in Israel was affected more.
Twelve months later, our Jerusalem correspondent, Bethan McKernan, travels down southern Israel to visit the settlement, just a few miles away from the Gaza Strip, to talk to survivors.
Continue reading...Many are deeply sceptical of the argument that only more military pressure will bring their loved ones back
Eli Albag had been fighting for the release of his daughter from captivity in Gaza for almost a year when he was pelted with eggs and verbally abused.
The father of Liri Albag, who is held hostage by Hamas, was protesting recently outside a political event attended by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the coastal city of Netanya.
Continue reading...Overnight Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, while at least 10 people were reportedly injured after a Hezbollah rocket hit the city of Haifa
Israel will hold memorials for the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks on Monday as the war it launched in response escalates on two fronts, with heavy bombing raids and mass evacuation orders issued in Lebanon and Gaza amid the growing possibility of a retaliatory airstrike against Iran.
As Israelis across the country prepared to mark one year since Hamas launched its devastating attack, a region that has spiralled into unprecedented crisis was on high alert. In Israel, authorities said they were on the lookout for attacks timed to coincide with the anniversary after a gunman opened fire on pedestrians in a central bus station in a city in the Negev desert, killing one and wounding 10 in the second attack in the last week.
Continue reading...Leader of north African country expected to win second term after jailing opponents and changing constitution
Polls have closed in Tunisia’s presidential election as the president, Kais Saied, seeks a second term, while his most prominent critics are in prison and after his main rival was jailed suddenly last month.
Observers see the election, which Saied is expected to win, as a closing chapter in Tunisia’s experiment with democracy.
Continue reading...This blog has now closed. You can see all our coverage of the Israel-Gaza war: one year on here and all our coverage of the Israel-Lebanon conflict here.
The death toll from the Israeli strike on the Gaza mosque has risen to 24, according to local authorities. The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said 93 people were also wounded in the strikes on the mosque and the school, near the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital told the Associated Press that the strike hit a mosque sheltering displaced people. Eyewitnesses told Reuters the same. However Israeli forces say the mosque was being used as a Hamas command and control centre “to plan and carry out terrorist operations against the IDF forces and the State of Israel”, and that it took steps to reduce the chance of harming civilians. An AP reporter counted 18 bodies at the hospital morgue, and said hospital records listed all those killed as men.
Continue reading...Israeli prime minister turns on French counterpart’s continuing efforts towards a ceasefire and end to violence in Lebanon
A call by Emmanuel Macron for a halt in arms supplies to Israel for use in Gaza has been met with an angry rebuttal from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The French president’s comments were directed mainly at the US and were part of continuing French efforts to revive its call for a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Continue reading...Muslim and Jewish figures join archbishop in first act of high-level solidarity
Muslim and Jewish leaders today unite around an unprecedented joint statement calling the assaults on Israel on 7 October last year “brutal Hamas terrorist attacks” that led to a “devastating war in Gaza and beyond” which together have caused “horrific” human suffering.
Joined by the archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby in the first high-level act of inter-faith solidarity in the year-long conflict, they say in a letter to the Observer: “Our faiths and our humanity teach us that we should mourn for all the innocent people who have lost their lives.
Continue reading...Intelligence analysis of Tehran’s attack suggests that much-touted Israeli missile defences are not, in fact, impregnable
In the aftermath of Iran’s attack on Israel on Tuesday night, Israeli officials claimed their defences had stood firm. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Iran had launched more than 180 missiles, but few details about the damage were released and the US’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the attack “appears to have been defeated and ineffective”.
But as Israel prepares its retaliation, analysts believe those initial reports could have been misleading – and could change the calculus of Israel’s response if it fears getting into a bout of protracted “missile ping-pong” with Iran, especially should Tehran choose softer targets in the future.
Continue reading...Healthcare workers have been displaced and paramedics killed in the south of the country
Three hospitals in south Lebanon were forced to close on Friday after Israeli bombings struck two and the other ran out of supplies, displacing a number of doctors from the area and creating concerns around the state of the Lebanese health sector.
Marjayoun governmental hospital and the Salah Ghandour hospital in Bint Jbeil, large healthcare centres along the eastern and western sections of the Lebanese borders, announced their closure after their premises were struck, killing seven and wounding 14 healthcare workers.
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