Category Archives: Hamas

Food prices soar in Gaza after looting of almost 100 aid trucks worsens shortages

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WHO says hijacking by armed men has aggravated already severe scarcity of food, medicine and other aid

Food prices have soared in Gaza after the looting of nearly 100 aid trucks amid an already severe food crisis caused by more than a year of war between Israel and Hamas.

This weekend’s hijacking of 98 lorries of a 109-strong convoy by armed men – the biggest such attack to date – has aggravated food, medicine and other aid shortages, according to a World Health Organization spokesperson, Margaret Harris. “It’s getting harder and harder to get the aid in,” she said on Tuesday.

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Middle East crisis: Hamas ‘ready’ for Gaza ceasefire, says senior official – as it happened

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Senior official Bassem Naim says militant group ‘ready for ceasefire’ and urges Donald Trump to ‘pressure’ 'Israel to ‘end the aggression’

Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, is reporting that two Palestinian people were killed in an Israeli artillery attack in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. Three other Palestinians were killed in a separate Israeli airstrike near the general security junction in western Gaza City, according to Wafa. A renewed Israeli assault was launched on the northern part of the Gaza Strip last month, with the Israeli military claiming it was to stop Hamas fighters regrouping there. The blockage of aid and food deliveries and the targeting of civilian infrastructure, however, have led to accusations that Israel is committing the war crime of seeking to forcibly displace the remaining population. The entirety of northern Gaza has been under Israeli evacuation orders but it is unclear how many people remain.

We have some comments coming through from Ali Larijani, the senior advisor to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. He has been speaking with Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri and Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, in Beiurt.

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Israeli strikes intensify on three fronts as Lebanon talks reach critical stage

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IDF hits Gaza, Syria and Beirut suburbs, as analysts say raids could be aimed at forcing hand of Hezbollah in negotiations

Israel has intensified its air offensives on three fronts, launching dozens of new strikes in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria as negotiations for a ceasefire on its northern border reach a critical point.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said about 30 targets had been struck in the southern suburbs of Beirut in 48 hours and described continuing efforts to “dismantle and degrade” the military capabilities of the militant Islamist organisation.

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Dozens killed as Israeli strikes destroy home, Gaza officials say

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Gaza’s civil defence agency says 25 people killed, including 13 children, as Israel continues attacks in north of territory

Israeli warplanes carried out more strikes in northern Gaza on Sunday, reportedly destroying a home in the Jabaliya area that had been under siege for weeks, killing and wounding dozens, including many women and children.

The death toll is one of the biggest in a single strike so far in Jabaliya, where hundreds of people have died since a major Israeli operation in the area began last month.

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Middle East crisis: Amsterdam officials ban protests after violence; Hamas says it has ‘not received’ request to leave Qatar – as it happened

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Israeli air strikes on the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre have now killed seven people.

Reuters reported that Lebanon’s health ministry said the death toll has risen from three to seven after the attack on Friday.

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Qatar halts Israel-Gaza ceasefire mediation over lack of ‘good faith’

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Gulf state’s government is stopping mediation efforts until warring parties show a ‘sincere willingness’ to reach a deal

The Qatari government has informed the US and Israel it will stop mediation efforts to halt the conflict in Gaza because it no longer thinks the parties are negotiating in good faith.

The Gulf state has concluded that talks have become a political football, and its efforts to facilitate them were generating criticism towards it, according to a diplomatic source briefed on the situation.

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‘Strong likelihood’ of imminent famine in northern Gaza, food experts warn, as Israel continues siege

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‘Looming catastrophe’ will ‘dwarf anything we have seen so far’ in Gaza since 7 October 2023, famine review committee says

There is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of the northern Gaza Strip, a committee of global food security experts warned on Friday, as Israel claims to be pursuing a military offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas in the area.

“Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation,” the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.

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Middle East crisis: UN members must defend Unrwa against Israel’s ban, says aid agency boss – as it happened

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Philippe Lazzarini, head of Unrwa, says aid agency will collapse ‘without intervention by member states’

Lebanon’s army has issued a warning to residents in the Ghobeiry area of the southern suburbs of Beirut that today between 10.30am and 1.30pm it will “detonate unexploded ordnance” in the area.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered his congratulations to Donald Trump, who appears on course for re-election in the US.

Dear Donald and Melania Trump, congratulations on history’s greatest comeback! Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America. This is a huge victory! In true friendship, yours, Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu.

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Protests in Israel after defence minister sacked – as it happened

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Al Jazeera reports that the death toll from an Israeli strike on tents housing displaced people in central Gaza has risen to six, and includes a six-year-old and a four-year-old child.

Lebanon’s Nation News Agency has reported that the Israeli army, which has been staging incursions inside the south of the country, “is booby-trapping and destroying entire neighbourhoods in cities and towns, such that more than 37 towns have been wiped out and their homes destroyed, and more than 40,000 housing units have been completely destroyed.”

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Alleged Netanyahu leak may have harmed Gaza hostage deal, says court

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Doctored intelligence files allegedly leaked by Israeli PM’s office ‘harmed the achievement of Israel’s war aims’

An alleged intelligence leak from Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has ballooned into a major scandal for the Israeli prime minister after a court partly lifted a gag order on the case, saying that the affair may have undermined efforts to reach a hostage deal in the Gaza war.

Four people have been arrested in connection with the joint investigation by the police, internal security services and the army, a court in the city of Rishon LeZion said on Sunday night.

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Middle East crisis live: Leaks from Netanyahu’s office may have compromised peace deal, Israeli court finds – as it happened

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Breakdown in peace negotiations may have been caused by leaked and falsified documents involving close aide to Israeli PM

Israeli media reports that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet today with opposition leader Yair Lapid for a security briefing.

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry has issued a statement condemning the reported burning of cars by Israeli settlers in Al-Bireh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The ministry affirms that the Jewish terrorist elements who stormed Al-Bireh would not have committed this heinous crime had they not felt protected, supported and immune from the political level in the occupying state, especially the ministers of the extreme Israeli right who openly incite against Palestinian citizens, their land and their property in full view.

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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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‘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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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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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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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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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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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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Middle East crisis: US concerned by ‘horrifying’ Israeli airstrike that killed at least 93 civilians, including 20 children, in Gaza – as it happened

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Al Jazeera has spoken with the director-general of the Gaza government’s media office, Ismail al-Thawabta, who has said at least 93 people were killed in the Israeli airstrike on northern Gaza’s town of Beit Lahiya. Gaza’s health ministry said earlier today that 60 people were killed in the strike this morning, which hit a residential building housing displaced civilians. Al-Thawabta said that the building Israel attacked housed 200 people. Dozens of people are reported missing and 150 others estimated to be injured. Medics said 20 children were among the dead.

Many of those injured have been rushed to nearby Kamal Adwan hospital inside the Jabalia refugee camp. But the hospital is struggling to treat them as it reportedly has run out of medical supplies and only has two paediatric doctors, with no surgeons. Israeli forces detained dozens of medical staff at the hospital days ago. Dr Hossam Abu Safiya, director of the hospital, told Al Jazeera on Friday that most of the surgeons had been arrested by Israeli troops, meaning urgent surgeries could not be performed.

The UAV (drone) force of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a specific military operation targeting the industrial zone of the Israeli enemy in the Ashkelon region.

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Deadly airstrikes reported in Lebanon – as it happened

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The Israeli army told residents in parts of Lebanon’s southern city of Tyre to leave immediately, warning that it would attack Hezbollah targets there.

“Hezbollah’s activities force the (Israeli army) to act against it forcefully,” military spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X that included a map of targeted areas in the coastal city.

Hezbollah’s activities force the IDF to act against it forcefully, as we do not intend to harm you.

You must immediately move out of the area marked in red and head north of the Awali River.

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