Category Archives: Israel-Hamas war

Israel investigates claims investors made millions short-selling before Hamas attacks

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US professors detected unusual trading activity on Tel Aviv and US stock exchanges before 7 October

Israeli authorities are investigating claims by US researchers that some investors may have known in advance about the Hamas plan to attack Israel on 7 October and used that information to earn millions of dollars by short-selling Israeli shares.

Research by law professors Robert Jackson Jr from New York University and Joshua Mitts of Columbia University found significant short-selling of shares leading up to the attacks that triggered the war.

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British national, 19, killed while fighting for IDF in Gaza

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Binyamin Needham was born in England but moved with his family to Israel at the age of eight

A 19-year-old British national has been killed while fighting for the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza.

Binyamin Needham was one of two soldiers killed during an operation in the north of the territory on Sunday, according to a statement released by the IDF.

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Members of Texas Republican party free to associate with Nazi sympathizers

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Executive committee rejects banning members who ‘espouse or tolerate antisemitism’ and deny Holocaust, arguing clause is vague

Members of Texas’s Republican party are free to associate with Nazi sympathizers without worries of violating internal policy after they held a vote on Saturday.

In a 32-29 vote, the party’s executive committee decided against excluding from their organization those “known to espouse or tolerate antisemitism, pro-Nazi sympathies or Holocaust denial”. A proposal to ban such individuals was included in a resolution supporting Israel as it wars with Hamas in Gaza.

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Israel extends ground offensive into southern Gaza, with mission in north ‘almost complete’

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Israel orders people to evacuate areas marked on maps online, but move criticised as many in Gaza do not have internet access

Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers have entered the southern part of the Gaza Strip near Khan Younis, as an Israeli commander claimed the army had almost completed its mission in the north.

Israeli military vehicles were on the southern section of the main north-to-south road in Gaza, “firing bullets and tank shells at cars and people trying to move through the area”, a witness, Moaz Mohammed, told the AFP news agency.

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Emmanuel Macron says Israel must define more precisely its Gaza aims

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French president says there is no lasting security for Israel if it comes at the cost of Palestinian lives

Emmanuel Macron has ramped up his criticism of Israel’s military strategy, saying its stated objective of the elimination of Hamas could take a decade and stoke “the resentment of all public opinion in the region”.

In his strongest warning yet, the French president said at the weekend that the Israeli authorities needed to “define more precisely” their aims in Gaza, adding that the proper response to a terrorist group was not “to bomb the entirety of civilian capabilities”.

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Girl, 12, held hostage in Gaza for 50 days ‘won’t let father out of her sight’

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Hen Avigdori says daughter Noam sometimes wakes up screaming as doctors report trauma among released Israeli children

The father of a 12-year-old girl who was held hostage in Gaza for 50 days has said she sometimes wakes in the night screaming and will not let him out of her sight.

Hen Avigdori’s daughter Noam and wife, Sharon, were held with other relatives in a single room in Gaza after being abducted from the Be’eri kibbutz on 7 October.

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The Israeli army says it has fired on Hezbollah in Lebanon in response to attacks on Monday – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. See our Full report here: Israel extends ground offensive into southern Gaza

A volunteer with the Palestinian Red Crescent has been killed in an Israeli strike on the al-Faluja neighbourhood north-east of Gaza City, the organisation has said on X.

Osama Tayeh was killed at his home, the Red Crescent said, while employee Muhammad Abu Rukba was injured in the attack.

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Three commercial vessels attacked in Red Sea by Houthi rebels, says US

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US military says the destroyer Carney shot down three drones as US Central Command says they believe attacks ‘fully enabled by Iran’

Three commercial vessels came under attack in international waters in the southern Red Sea, the US military said on Sunday, as Yemen’s Houthi group claimed drone and missile attacks on two Israeli vessels in the area.

“Today there were four attacks against three separate commercial vessels operating in international waters in the southern Red Sea,” the statement from the US Central Command reads. “We have every reason to believe that these attacks, while launched by the Houthis in Yemen, are fully enabled by Iran.”

This article was amended on Monday 4 December to correct a headline error that stated the three commercial vessels were US-owned.

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IDF claims to have found 800 tunnel shafts – as it happened

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Al Jazeera is carrying a quote from Unicef’s global spokesperson, James Elder, who had this to say about conditions inside al-Nassar hospital in Khan Younis:

Everywhere you turn to, there are children with third-degree burns, shrapnel wounds, brain injuries and broken bones. Mothers crying over children who look as if they are hours away from death. It seems like a death zone right now.

The UKTMO has received a report of Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) activity including a potential explosion in the vicinity of the Bab el Mandeb originating from the direction of Yemen.

Vessels in the vicinity are advised to follow industry guidance on loitering munitions and advised to exercise caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO.

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One of the three Palestinian-American students shot in Vermont is paralyzed

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Twenty-year-old Hisham Awartani paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spine, his family says

One of the three college students of Palestinian descent who were shot in Vermont last month is paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spine, the student’s family said.

Hisham Awartani, a 20-year-old student at Brown University who grew up in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was walking with two friends near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington on 25 November when, police say, 48-year-old Jason Eaton shot them with a handgun in a suspected hate crime. Eaton has pleaded not guilty.

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Israel says its ground forces are operating across ‘all of Gaza’

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IDF spokesperson says ‘troops coming face-to-face with terrorists and killing them’

Israel continued with its intense bombing campaign across the north and south of Gaza for a third day since the end of the truce with Hamas, killing hundreds of Palestinians in a 24-hour period, according to local officials.

On Sunday night, the Israeli military also said it has expanded its ground operation to all of Gaza. “The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] continues to extend its ground operation against Hamas centres in all of the Gaza Strip,” spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in Tel Aviv. “The forces are coming face-to-face with terrorists and killing them.”

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Muslim leaders in swing states pledge to ‘abandon’ Biden over his refusal to call for ceasefire

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Warnings that president stance on the war risks losing support of community in states critical to his chances for re-election

Muslim community leaders gathered on Saturday in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the US, to protest President Biden’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, reiterating that the president’s stance could affect his support in crucial swing states next year.

Jaylani Hussein, director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that Biden’s unwillingness to call for a ceasefire had damaged his relationship with the American-Muslim community beyond repair. (Cair-Minnesota is not involved in his work on the Abandon Biden effort, which the organization said Hussein is doing in his personal capacity.)

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Dozens attend protest in Tel Aviv against Israeli bombardment of Gaza

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Demonstration is first time abductees’ families have come together with other activists

Dozens of people attended a noisy fringe protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday night outside the Israeli military’s headquarters, protesting against the renewed bombardment on Gaza that they blame for the halt in the release of the estimated 130 hostages still held by Hamas.

The group gathered after the regular weekly rally demanding the release of all the hostages held by Hamas, and marched around the Israel Defense Force’s Kirya military base demanding an urgent meeting with the country’s war cabinet and pressing for a ceasefire.

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UK surveillance aircraft to search for Hamas hostage sites in Gaza

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MoD says any information on the potential whereabouts of captives will be shared with Israel

The UK will conduct surveillance flights over Israel and Gaza to search for hostage locations used by Hamas, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.

MoD officials said a range of unarmed aircraft would be used for the reconnaissance flights, including Shadow R1s, which are used for intelligence gathering.

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Israel ‘using Hamas prisoners to track down terror chiefs’

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As pressure grows on Israel to avoid civilian deaths, IDF believes killing leaders will collapse organisation

The Israeli military’s coming push into southern Gaza is driven by the belief that intelligence gleaned from hundreds of militants captured during the fighting in the north will allow them to find and kill leaders of Hamas.

Israel’s politicians and generals believe that taking out top commanders – and leader Yahya Sinwar – is their best chance of forcing the collapse of an organisation that is deeply embedded in Gaza, after nearly two decades controlling the enclave.

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Pro-Palestine protests continue around UK for eighth weekend

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Local rallies and vigils organised as alternative to centralised marches that have seen hundreds of thousands out in London

Pro-Palestine demonstrations in the UK continued into their eighth successive weekend on Saturday, as protesters gathered in cities and towns across the country to demand a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

The protests were part of a day of smaller, local actions organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), an alternative to the larger marches seen in previous weeks. Last Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people marched through central London in protest at the Israeli bombing of Gaza.

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As the ceasefire ends, a question from history lingers: will Israel win the battle but lose the war against Hamas?

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One lesson from the 1982 Lebanon war is that Israel’s enemy only needs to survive against superior firepower to gain an advantage

The scene is one familiar from many conflicts. Soldiers line up to get food from an outdoor canteen, weapons slung haphazardly over their shoulders, boots muddy, shirts undone. An armoured personnel carrier clanks by, the roar of its engine temporarily drowning out the boom of artillery. Officers shout orders. Tired men jump down from dusty vehicles and swear.

Even during the recent ceasefire, the rear areas of the massive Israeli military offensive in Gaza were busy. So too was Hamas, which used the seven-day pause in hostilities to reorganise its battered forces and reconstitute some of its degraded capabilities.

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Israeli grid maps make life in Gaza ‘macabre game of Battleships’, say aid workers

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Online system designed to order precise evacuations inaccessible to those without power or network access

• Israel-Hamas war – live updates

Israel’s new grid system for targeted evacuation warnings in southern Gaza risks turning life in the territory into a “macabre game of Battleships”, aid workers have warned.

When Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza after a week-long ceasefire deal collapsed, it immediately signalled plans to intensify attacks on the south of the territory, in areas where Palestinian civilians had previously been urged to take shelter.

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Israel-Hamas war live: Israeli attacks on Gaza continue as further truce talks ‘reach dead end’; Unicef condemns ‘ongoing war on children’

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A team from Israel’s Mossad intelligence services has been ordered home after talks in Qatar about another pause in fighting in Gaza reach a ‘dead end’

Here are the latest images coming across the wires:

Israeli airstrikes killed two Syrian pro-Hezbollah fighters when they hit sites belonging to the Iran-backed group near Damascus early on Saturday, a war monitor told AFP.

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