Bombardment signals new escalation after Netanyahu said Israel would ‘go in with full force to complete the operation’
An intense wave of Israeli bombing has reportedly killed dozens of people in Gaza, including many children, signalling a new escalation at a critical moment in regional politics.
The exact number of deaths from the attacks was unclear, with estimates ranging from about 30 to more than 50, making it one of the highest tolls in a single morning for many weeks.
Continue reading...American soldier Edan Alexander meets family at Israel border after masked fighters hand him over to Red Cross
Hamas has freed the last living US citizen it held in Gaza, soldier Edan Alexander, in a unilateral move US president Donald Trump described as a “good faith step” towards ending the war and bringing home all remaining hostages.
The release of 20-year-old Alexander, who spent 584 days in captivity after he was seized from his base on 7 October 2023, was agreed with little Israeli involvement beyond practical coordination on the ground.
Continue reading...Mahmoud Abbas appoints veteran aide to newly created role, making him frontrunner to replace ageing leader
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday named a veteran aide and confidant as his new vice-president. It’s a major step by the ageing leader to designate a successor.
The appointment of Hussein al-Sheikh as vice-president of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) does not guarantee he will be the next Palestinian president. But it makes him the frontrunner among longtime politicians in the dominant Fatah party who hope to succeed the 89-year-old Abbas.
Continue reading...The Palestinian Islamist organisation, which launched deadly 7 October attacks on Israel, says it is a ‘resistance movement’ and no threat to Britain
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has submitted a legal filing saying it should be removed from the UK government’s list of proscribed terrorist groups.
Hamas, which carried out the 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel, in which more than 1,200 people, mainly civilians, were killed and a further 250 taken hostage, is arguing that it is not a terrorist group but “a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project”.
Continue reading...Search for survivors continues at residential building, amid reports Israeli military preparing to seize entire city in south
At least 23 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a residential building in northern Gaza, as reports emerged that the Israeli military is preparing to seize the entire city of Rafah as part of a newly announced security corridor.
Medics at al-Ahli hospital said that the bombing on Wednesday of a four-storey building in the Gaza City suburb of Shijaiyah had killed at least eight women and children, as rescue workers continued to search for survivors into the evening. The Israeli military said the strike targeted a senior Hamas militant.
Continue reading...After 15 Palestinian medics and civil defence workers were killed by Israeli forces late last month, Israel began a familiar pattern of denial
The Israel Defense Forces’ changing account of its killing of 15 Palestinian medics and civil defence workers is part of a long familiar pattern in high profile cases involving the killing of civilians.
Often, at first, the IDF denies involvement. Sometimes – in the context of Gaza – it suggests one of Hamas’s own rockets fell short, causing the casualties.
Continue reading...At least 25 killed in attack on Khan Younis in south as Israel says it is aiming to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages
Israel has restarted ground operations in the northern Gaza Strip and killed at least 25 people in airstrikes on the southern city of Khan Younis in what it says is a renewed military campaign aimed at pressuring Hamas into releasing Israeli hostages.
At least 25 people were killed in the attack on Khan Younis early on Friday, the local Nasser hospital told AFP, as the search for survivors continued.
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee from southern city of Rafah in one of war’s biggest mass displacements
An Israeli bombing of a school turned shelter in Gaza City has killed at least 27 people, rescuers said, and hundreds of thousands in the Rafah area are fleeing in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war amid Israel’s newly announced campaign to “divide up” the Gaza Strip.
Three missiles hit Dar al-Arqam school in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood on Thursday afternoon, the civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal said, killing several children and wounding 100 people.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...One killed and seven wounded in attack as freed hostages and families of those still held in Gaza urge end to fighting
Israel carried out a strike in Tyre, south Lebanon, on Saturday, killing one and wounding seven people and endangering the shaky truce that ended a year-long conflict against Hezbollah, as 40 survivors of Hamas captivity called on the Israeli government to halt the “endless war”.
The strike on a building came after Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes in Lebanon on Saturday, its most intense aerial assault on the country in four months. In total, six people were killed, including a child, and 28 injured, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Continue reading...Defence minister issues threat as IDF intensifies offensive with ‘non-stop’ overnight attacks across territory
Israel’s defence minister said he had instructed the military to “seize more ground” in Gaza and threatened to annex part of the territory unless Hamas released 59 Israeli hostages still held in the devastated territory.
Israel Katz’s warning on Friday came as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intensified the new offensive launched on Tuesday, when a wave of airstrikes shattered the truce that had brought a fragile and relative calm since mid-January.
Continue reading...Former special forces soldier made enemies after disagreements with far-right factions in Netanyahu government
Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s powerful internal security service, the Shin Bet, may seem an unlikely rebel.
A former special forces soldier who holds degrees from Tel Aviv and Harvard universities, Bar has devoted three decades of his working life to the service of the state. His frame is lean, greying hair close shaved, features gaunt, manner reserved and speech moderate.
Continue reading...UN calls for investigation after staff member among 20 people reportedly killed in renewed airstrikes
Israeli forces have launched a “limited ground operation” to retake the Netzarim corridor, a newly widened road protected by fortified bunkers that divides Gaza and is seen as essential to controlling the devastated Palestinian territory.
The move is a significant escalation of Israel’s new offensive in Gaza and came less than 36 hours after a massive wave of airstrikes that killed more than 400, including 183 children and 94 women, the health ministry there said.
Continue reading...Groups representing Israeli hostages plan protests and issue statements calling for an immediate ceasefire
Protesters in Israel have accused Benjamin Netanyahu of ordering the airstrikes that shattered the ceasefire in Gaza on Tuesday to provide “cover” for a campaign to dismantle Israel’s democratic system and to maintain his own grip on power.
Political tensions in Israel surged after the Israeli prime minister announced on Sunday that he would seek to fire the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, an unprecedented move that legal experts said may be unlawful.
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