Mediators including Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying for months to secure a ceasefire and the release of 120 remaining hostages
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday that the Palestinian death toll from nearly nine months of war has surged past 38,000.
The ministry said that in the last 24 hours, the bodies of 58 people had been brought to hospitals, bringing the overall death toll to 38,011.
Continue reading...Call for investigation into security breach after parliament partly locked down as activists reveal banner declaring ‘war crimes … enabled here’
Some areas of Australia’s federal parliament were locked down as pro-Palestine protesters climbed on to the roof of the building in Canberra and unfurled a banner declaring “war crimes … enabled here”.
Thursday’s protest focused on the war in Gaza appeared to be coordinated with other actions highlighting the climate crisis and Indigenous rights.
Continue reading...Many have moved more than once, with estimated 1.9m Palestinians relocating since Israel’s invasion, says OCHA
About 90% of the population of the Gaza Strip have been displaced at least once since the war between Israel and Hamas began, according to the UN’s humanitarian agency.
Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN’s OCHA agency in the Palestinian territories, said on Wednesday that about 1.9 million people are thought to be displaced in Gaza.
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Al Jazeera is reporting that “at least four people have been killed and 17 injured in Israeli bombardment in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighbourhood”.
More details soon …
Continue reading...Last time a Labor MP voted against the party position was 2005 when Tasmanian MP Harry Quick opposed anti-terrorism legislation
The last federal Labor MP to vote against his party has urged Fatima Payman to “stick to her guns” as the senator faces intense pressure to toe the line on Palestinian statehood or leave Labor.
Federal Labor MPs and senators on Tuesday unanimously endorsed Payman’s indefinite suspension from the party’s parliamentary caucus after the 29-year-old said she would cross the floor again if faced with a similar Senate motion to last week’s vote.
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Eight Palestinians have been killed and dozens more wounded after Israeli forces again bombarded several areas of Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Reuters reports health officials in the territory have said.
Reuters have spoken via a chat app to a 55-year-old in Gaza, who told the news agency he had been displaced six times since 7 October by Israeli attacks and evacuation orders.
Continue reading...IDF bombards ruined city and orders mass evacuation after rocket barrage claimed by Islamic Jihad
Thousands of Palestinians were fleeing Khan Younis in southern Gaza after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) once again bombarded the largely ruined city and ordered a mass evacuation of residents.
Witnesses reported strikes on Tuesday in and around the city, which came after the militant group Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas, claimed responsibility for a rare rocket barrage on Monday.
Continue reading...Al-Shifa’s Mohammed Abu Salmiya alleges Israel tortured him across seven months of detention without charge
The head of the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital has accused Israel of torturing him and other detainees, following his release after seven months in Israeli prisons and detention facilities.
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, was among dozens of Palestinians freed and returned to Gaza on Monday, according to Israeli authorities.
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Palestinian news agency Wafa has spoken to a detainee released by Israel, who told the agency those from Gaza being held by Israeli forces suffer from tragic and unbearable conditions and circumstances.
He said he had been detained on 16 November, had been held in a tent with 30 inmates, and that Israeli prisoners were subject to various types of torture, abuse, and assaults.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Use of tourist visas not fit for purpose, advocates say, as Gaza man describes how coming to Australia on one has left him with ‘no rights’
The number of Palestinians applying onshore for protection in Australia has ballooned, prompting calls from refugee advocates for the creation of an “emergency uplift” visa rather than people fleeing conflict relying on tourist visas to escape.
Home affairs department statistics for May revealed 119 people from the “Palestinian Authority” had applied for onshore protection visas, up from 66 in April, 110 in March, 88 in February and 33 in January.
Continue reading...Israel’s military says ‘large number’ of militants dead in Shujaiya area near Gaza City amid reports of bodies in streets
In an update to the earlier news about Israeli forces advancing further into Shujaiya, residents said Israeli tanks, which moved back into Shujaiya four days ago, fired shells towards several houses, leaving families trapped inside and unable to leave.
Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his position that there was no substitute for achieving victory in the war against Hamas.
Continue reading...Man-made crises in Gaza and Sudan leaving millions of people at risk, says retiring British diplomat Martin Griffiths
Sudan is facing horror “beyond imagination”, the outgoing UN aid chief has warned, with 750,000 people under imminent threat of famine and with conditions in danger of worsening even further.
The British diplomat Martin Griffiths will retire from his job as the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs at a time when famine on a historic scale is looming over Sudan and Gaza.
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Continue reading...Britain to make legal arguments over jurisdiction in case of alleged war crimes by the Israeli PM
An intervention by the UK government at the international criminal court is expected to delay a decision over whether an arrest warrant can be issued against the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Judges at the ICC ruled on Thursday they would allow the UK to make legal arguments in the case as they consider whether to approve requests made by the ICC’s chief prosecutor for warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.
Continue reading...Unrwa director says ‘stench in Gaza is enough to make you kind of immediately nauseous’. This live blog is closed
A ship’s captain reported that five missiles had landed close to his vessel in the Red Sea, 150 nautical miles (172 miles) northwest of the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) monitor said on Friday.
After posting earlier that it had received the report and that authorities were investigating (9.32am BST), the UKMTO said the ship had reported no damage and was heading northward. It gave no information on the ship or its cargo, reports Reuters.
Continue reading...Nineteen minors, five with cancer, allowed to enter Israel before travelling to Egypt and elsewhere for treatment
A group of critically ill children have been allowed to leave Gaza, the first such medical evacuation since early May when Israel seized control of Rafah, the territory’s sole border crossing with the outside world.
Nineteen minors, including five who have cancer, were allowed to travel through the Kerem Shalom crossing into Israel on Thursday accompanied by relatives, and were to travel to Egypt and further abroad for medical treatment. The Israeli military body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs said the evacuation was carried out in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO) and officials from the US and Egypt.
Continue reading...Yoav Gallant said Israel is preparing for war with Hezbollah but stressed that his government preferred a diplomatic solution
Here are some of the latest images from Israel, where an anti-government demonstration has again attempted to block highways while demanding that Benjamin Netanyahu strike a deal to return Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and to call elections in Israel.
Haaretz reporter Bar Peleg has posted this video, which shows protesters blocking a road by setting a fire.
Continue reading...Notable Israelis add their voices to oppose invite extended by Mike Johnson, which Democrats plan to boycott
A group of prominent Israelis – including a former prime minister and an ex-head of Mossad, the foreign intelligence service – have added their voices to the growing domestic calls in the US for Congress to withdraw its invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to address it next month, calling the move “a terrible mistake”.
The plea, in an op-ed article in the New York Times, argues that the invitation rewards Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister, for “scandalous and destructive conduct”, including intelligence failures that led to last October’s deadly Hamas attack and the ensuing bloody war in Gaza which shows no sign of ending.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Labor Friends of Palestine hit out at federal government’s stance as ‘weakening’ commitment to Palestinian statehood
Labor Friends of Palestine have praised Fatima Payman’s decision to cross the floor to support Palestinian statehood as “entirely consistent with Labor principles and policy” and rejected federal Labor’s stance as a “weakening” of its commitment on the issue.
After Anthony Albanese temporarily suspended the senator from caucus, the group wrote to Payman declaring that she had “the support of thousands of rank-and-file ALP members”.
Continue reading...Decision threatens Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government with collapse as Gaza conflict drags on
Israel’s supreme court has ruled that ultra-Orthodox Jewish men must be drafted into military service, a politically explosive decision that threatens the stability of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government.
The unanimous ruling on Tuesday, from an expanded panel of nine judges, upheld an interim decision last month that the state had no authority to offer the current exemption for ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, men. It found that yeshivas – Orthodox seminaries for Torah study – should be ineligible for state subsidies unless students enlisted in the military.
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