UK imposes sanctions on seven groups that support West Bank settlers

Foreign Office declines to penalise two Israeli ministers as ex-foreign secretary David Cameron had planned

The UK Foreign Office has announced sanctions against seven organisations that support illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank, but held back from penalising two extremist members of the Israeli government as the former foreign secretary David Cameron had been planning.

Cameron told the BBC on Tuesday that he had intended to impose sanctions on Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and said he was concerned that the Labour government had not adopted his proposal. He said he had only held back from taking the step in the spring because he had been advised that it would be too political during the general election.

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UK Covid-19 inquiry live: report calls for UK-wide civil emergency strategy

Former health secretaries Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock criticised for their failure to better prepare the UK for the pandemic

Among the recommendations in the report are:

The leader or deputy leader of each of the four nations should chair a Cabinet level committee responsible for civil emergency preparedness.

A UK-wide pandemic response exercise should run at least every three years and a new UK-wide whole-system civil emergency strategy put in place.

External “red teams” should regularly challenge the principles, evidence and advice on emergency plans

An independent statutory body to advise the UK government and devolved administrations should be set up and consult with voluntary groups and council-based directors of public health on civil emergency preparedness and response.

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David Cameron quits Tory frontbench as Sunak names interim top team

Andrew Mitchell becomes shadow foreign secretary and Kemi Badenoch moves to communities in new lineup

David Cameron has left Rishi Sunak’s frontbench as the Conservatives unveiled an interim shadow ministerial team ahead of a party leadership race.

The party said Lord Cameron, the former foreign secretary, and Richard Holden, who chaired the Tories through the disastrous election campaign, had resigned from Sunak’s top team. Andrew Mitchell, who had the largely honorary title of deputy foreign secretary in government, becomes shadow foreign secretary.

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David Cameron falls victim to hoax call from ‘former Ukraine president’

Foreign secretary had brief video call with person claiming to be Petro Poroshenko, says Foreign Office

The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, has been the victim of a hoax video call with someone claiming to be Petro Poroshenko, the former president of Ukraine, it has been revealed.

A number of text messages were exchanged followed by a brief video call between Lord Cameron and someone purporting to be Poroshenko, the Foreign Office said in a statement.

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Rishi Sunak denies he considered missing D-day events entirely as he reiterates apology – UK general election live

PM, who left to attend an ITV interview, says ‘the last thing I wanted was for the commemorations to be overshadowed by politics’

I think it would be fair to say that children’s minister David Johnston is not having a vintage media round today.

First he was ambushed by Rishi Sunak issuing his D-day absence apology while the minister was literally out defending Sunak by repeatedly pointing out that he had been in France earlier in the day and in Portsmouth the day before [See 8.18 BST].

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New review by UK ministers again finds no reason to stop arms exports to Israel

Latest three-month period to 24 April includes Israeli strike that killed three workers for British World Central Kitchen

UK government ministers have reviewed a further three months of the IDF’s presence in Gaza and found no reason to suspend arms exports to Israel.

The latest review of evidence examined Israel Defense Forces’ behaviour until 24 April, the Foreign Office said in a statement late on Friday.

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Summary of advice that UK arms sales to Israel not unlawful to be released

Andrew Mitchell preparing to share details of assessment that there is no clear risk in breaching international human law

The British government is preparing to publish a summary of its legal advice stating there are no clear risks that selling arms to Israel will lead to a serious breach of international humanitarian law (IHL).

In a pre-prepared concession to the business select committee, the deputy foreign secretary, Andrew Mitchell, said: “In view of the strength of feeling in the IHL assessment process, I will look to see what more detail we could offer in writing on the IHL assessments in relation to Israel and Gaza both in process and substance.”

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Zarah Sultana: the Labour MP taking on the Tories, and her own party, over Gaza

Coventry MP, whose antipathy for David Cameron sparked her interest in politics, has largest TikTok following in parliament

When the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, sat in the BBC TV studio last Sunday morning, he clearly had no idea of the identity of the woman sitting on the panel opposite him, simply referring to her as “the Labour MP”.

By contrast, Zarah Sultana, the MP for Coventry South, knows everything about Lord Cameron, telling the Guardian that it was her hatred of him as prime minister that first brought her into politics as a young, leftwing, Muslim woman. Her whole political outlook has been shaped by Cameron: the trebling of tuition fees and austerity.

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Post-Brexit deal on border between Gibraltar and Spain remains unresolved

European Commission vice president, Maroš Šefčovič, cites progress on trade and economy for territory but not border checks

Talks on a post-Brexit deal to govern the border between Gibraltar and Spain have broken up without an agreement, although both sides insisted a deal was “getting closer”.

David Cameron, the UK foreign secretary, met the European Commission vice president, Maroš Šefčovič, in Brussels to discuss the British overseas territory on the Iberian peninsula, which has been in limbo since Britain left the EU.

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Red Cross and Foreign Office to discuss plan to visit Palestinians in Israeli detention

ICRC is denied access to prisoners in what is said to be breach of Geneva conventions but critics say UK plan may weaken rule of law

Red Cross officials are to hold talks with the UK over a Foreign Office plan to visit Palestinian detainees held by Israel. Critics say this bypasses a duty on Israel under the Geneva conventions to give the Red Cross access to detainees.

Israel has suspended the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from access to Palestinian detainees since the Hamas attack on 7 October, and says it will not rescind the policy until Hamas grants access to Israeli hostages.

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UK politics: government to appeal against ruling that blocks Rwanda deportations in Northern Ireland – as it happened

Rishi Sunak says Belfast judgment will not affect his plans and the Good Friday agreement should not be used to obstruct Westminster policy

Sunak starts with global security threats.

The dangers that threaten our country are real.

There’s an increasing number of authoritarian states like Russia, Iran, North Korea and China working together to undermine us and our values.

People are abusing our liberal democratic values of freedom of speech, the right to protest, to intimidate, threaten and assault others, to sing antisemitic chants on our streets and our university campuses, and to weaponize the evils of antisemitism or anti-Muslim hatred, in a divisive ideological attempt to set Britain against Britain.

And from gender activists hijacking children’s sex education, to cancel culture, vocal and aggressive fringe groups are trying to impose their views on the rest of us.

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David Cameron urges BBC to describe Hamas as terrorist organisation

Foreign secretary’s call comes after group releases video of British-Israeli hostage it says died after being wounded in Israeli airstrike

Middle East crisis: latest news updates

David Cameron has urged the BBC to describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation, reviving an accusation that the corporation shies away from a valid description of the Islamist group that is holding Israeli hostages.

The UK foreign secretary told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that the organisation should reconsider its guidelines in light of a video released by Hamas showing the British-Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell, who the group said had died in Gaza.

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US threatens to block more arms sales if Israeli assault on Rafah goes ahead

Antony Blinken highlighted the ‘horrible loss of life of innocent civilians’, in some of the strongest criticism of Israel from the US to date

The US may block more weapons systems to Israel if it goes ahead with a ground offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said.

The US has already suspended the shipment of 3,500 2,000lb (907kg) and 500lb (227kg) high-payload bombs following concerns over the scale of civilian casualties in Israel’s war in the territory.

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Briton with cancer living in Italy unable to get care he is entitled to after Brexit

Withdrawal agreement means Graham Beresford is eligible for free treatment but Italian authorities have said he must pay

A British man settled in Italy who has a rare cancer has been unable to receive the free healthcare he is entitled to because local officials do not understand the Brexit withdrawal agreement, he has said.

Graham Beresford, 61, has spoken out days before the foreign secretary, David Cameron, who triggered the Brexit referendum, has his first major meeting with the European commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič in Brussels about post-Brexit relations.

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Three Davids throw off Global Britain bluster and chart new foreign policy course

Speeches by Cameron, Lammy and Miliband all depicted a darkening world but differed on where to find allies

In a TikTok world it’s rare that three big foreign policy speeches come along all at once, all trying to chart a new course for the UK in a more perilous world, and all written by someone christened David.

But it says something for how foreign affairs dominates so much political thinking currently that speeches this week by David Cameron, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, his shadow, and David Miliband, Labour’s non-resident foreign policy guru, all required attention.

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David Cameron says UK will not withhold arms sales to Israel

Foreign secretary says British weapons position different to US, but UK does not support Rafah invasion without civilian protection plan

David Cameron has said the UK will not be withholding arms sales to Israel, saying its position is not comparable with that of the US, which has paused the delivery of a weapons shipment, since the UK is not a large state-to-state arms supplier to Israel.

The foreign secretary added that the UK did not support a large-scale invasion of Rafah unless it saw a plan that protects civilians, a position the UK has repeated for the past month.

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Western military trainers could go to Ukraine, Lithuania minister says

Gabrielius Landsbergis also backs David Cameron and Emmanuel Macron on standing up to Putin

Lithuania’s foreign minister has raised the prospect of an ad hoc coalition of western countries sending military training personnel into Ukraine backed by ground-based air defence, days after Russia took an increasingly strident tone against what it sees as the threat of deeper western involvement in the war.

Speaking to the Guardian after meeting his British counterpart, David Cameron, in London, Gabrielius Landsbergis also backed the British foreign secretary for saying that Ukraine could use British-made weapons against Russia; remarks that alongside Emmanuel Macron refusing to rule out western troops in Ukraine prompted the Kremlin to threaten UK assets and order a tactical nuclear training exercise.

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Russia threatens UK military and orders nuclear drills after ‘provocation’

Vladimir Putin responds to recent statements from David Cameron and Emmanuel Macron over Ukraine war

Russia has threatened to strike British military facilities and ordered its military to hold battlefield nuclear weapons drills in a move the Kremlin described as a response to comments from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on western troops fighting in Ukraine and from the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, on using British-supplied weapons against Russia.

The Russian defence ministry said in a statement that troops from the southern military district would “practise the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons … in response to provocative statements and threats by certain western officials against the Russian Federation.”

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David Cameron commits £3bn a year in aid to Ukraine ‘for as long as necessary’

The foreign secretary called the conflict ‘the challenge of our generation’ after making second trip to Kyiv to meet Zelenskiy

The UK has promised £3bn a year “for as long as it is necessary” to help Ukraine, David Cameron said on Thursday as he made his second visit to Kyiv since becoming UK foreign secretary.

He also said he had no objection if weapons supplied by the UK were used to strike inside Russia.

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Chagos Islanders fear loss of identity as birth certificates altered to remove disputed homeland

Birthplace and parents’ names are being removed from passports and birth certificates as Mauritius stakes claim to the island

Exiled islanders from the disputed British-owned Chagos Islands are finding their heritage has been removed from new identity documents in an apparent move by Mauritius to stake its claim to the territory.

British ownership of the Chagos Islands has long been challenged by Mauritius, where most islanders were shipped in the 1960s after being evicted from their Indian Ocean homeland to make way for a US military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island.

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