This blog is now closed. See all our Middle East crisis coverage here
A total of 25,105 Palestinians have been killed and 62,681 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
An estimated 178 Palestinians were killed and 293 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
Continue reading...Hundreds follow route to Parliament Square in solidarity with people affected by Israel-Gaza conflict
Without flags, placards or chants, hundreds of people joined a silent multi-faith peace walk in London on Sunday in response to the Israel-Gaza war.
Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists walked side-by-side from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square and back in solidarity with people affected by the conflict in the Middle East.
Continue reading...Territory’s health ministry says most casualties are women and children, and that thousands more may lie under rubble
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed 25,000 Palestinians, the health ministry in the territory has announced, as the UN chief described the scale of civilian killings as “heartbreaking and utterly unacceptable”.
Most of the casualties were women and children, the ministry said, and thousands more bodies were likely to remain uncounted under rubble across Gaza.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary told MPs he had not made formal decision to continue, but papers reveal he recommended move
The chair of the foreign affairs select committee is writing to the foreign secretary, David Cameron, asking him to clarify his claim that he had not taken any formal decision to allow arms sales to Israel to continue amid the Gaza crisis.
Written evidence presented by the UK Department for Business and Trade shows the foreign secretary on 8 December recommended arms sales licences be allowed to continue when presented with three options: stopping arms sales, pausing them, or allowing them to continue.
Continue reading...Sir Ephraim Mirvis says use of the term is moral inversion designed to ‘tear open the still gaping wound of the Holocaust’
The chief rabbi has said using the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza is an “increasingly frequent, disingenuous misappropriation of the term”.
Sir Ephraim Mirvis said the use of the term was a “moral inversion, which undermines the memory of the worst crimes in human history” and was designed to “tear open the still gaping wound of the Holocaust”.
Continue reading...Human rights worker Ayman Lubbad is among the Palestinian prisoners claiming abuse in Israeli custody, where six have died
The Gaza-based human rights activist Ayman Lubbad has not seen his wife and three children for more than a month, since he was ordered to strip to his underwear in the street outside his home, then driven away with other Palestinian men for a week of abuse and detention.
He was tortured and humiliated, he said, giving one of various accounts of recent Israeli abuse of Palestinians in detention; at least six have died, and one autopsy report showed serious injuries, Haaretz newspaper reported.
Continue reading...With the IDF now routinely using armed drones to watch and target militants, the worst wave of violence for almost 20 years is sweeping the West Bank
For days earlier this month, many of the young men of Nur Shams refugee camp on the outskirts of the town of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank were engaged in a potentially lethal race against time.
Scaling precarious ladders, they stretched between rooftops vast plastic sheets used in more peaceful times to collect the olive harvest. Soon, hundreds of metres of winding lanes were in deep shadow, the sun and the sky obscured. The hill behind the buildings, from which you can see the Mediterranean less than 20km away, was no longer visible.
Continue reading...Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says it has lost four members in strike on Syrian capital
A suspected Israeli strike killed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ espionage chief for Syria and three other guard members on Saturday, Iran has said, in an attack that destroyed much of a multistorey residential building in Damascus.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six people were killed in the Israeli strike on the upmarket Mazzeh neighbourhood in the Syrian capital.
Continue reading...The Israeli leader is under pressure over course of the Gaza war but is doubling down on opposition to a two-state solution
Defiant Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on opposition to Palestinian statehood, deepening the divide with Israel’s closest international allies, as cracks in his wartime “unity” government became increasingly evident.
Anger with Netanyahu is also increasingly visible on the streets, even though there is broad public support for the war. On Saturday, protesters gathered in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Caesarea and Kfar Saba, some calling for bolder action to secure the release of hostages, and others demanding the prime minister step down.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed. See all our Middle East crisis coverage
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza “remains dire”, with people returning to “primitive methods for food preparation and general hygiene”. It also said the situation had been “exacerbated by the continuous Israeli blockade hindering aid delivery”.
In a post on X, the PRCS quoted Mohammed Abu Msbeh, its director of ambulances and emergency centres in the Gaza Strip, as saying:
People have returned to primitive methods for food preparation and general hygiene, to make bread.
The daily struggle for water is a daily torment for Gaza residents to secure life-sustaining droplets, who stand in large crowds for hours with containers.
Continue reading...Shadow foreign secretary says Israeli president must explain how post-conflict Gaza will operate
The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has described Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state when the war in the Middle East ends as “unacceptable”.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he echoed Keir Starmer’s reaction to Netanyahu’s stance. Lammy said: “We are committed to the recognition of a Palestinian state. We want to work with international partners to achieve that.”
Continue reading...As pockets of war multiply across region so does the risk that conflict becomes more contagious and intractable
On Thursday morning the Iranian news website Entekhab ran, without irony, the headline: “Taliban call on Pakistan and Iran to show restraint and urge both sides to settle differences through diplomatic means”.
If proof were needed that a new, more dangerous world order may be upon us, the Taliban cast in the role of advocates for restraint seems conclusive.
Continue reading...President accused of allowing country to become a target because of ‘complicity in bloodshed of Gaza’
The Cyprus government is facing growing criticism over British military bases on the island being used by UK and US forces to stage airstrikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
President Nicos Christodoulides has been accused by activists of turning a blind eye to the risks the EU’s most easterly state might confront if the strategic facilities on the island continue to be deployed in military operations.
Continue reading...Britain faces ‘dangerous climate’ as online propaganda and referrals to Prevent surge, says policing leader
The conflict in the Middle East has led to a surge in Islamist activity, with online terrorist propaganda rocketing and new individuals feared to have been radicalised, the head of counter-terrorism policing has said.
Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Matt Jukes, who is head of the UK Counter Terrorism Policing network, said the events had led to a “dangerous climate” with indications of a rising threat, after Hamas’s atrocity against Israel on 7 October last year led to a sustained Israeli assault on Gaza with heavy civilian casualties still continuing.
Continue reading...Labour leader says Israeli PM’s comments are unacceptable and Palestinian statehood not in his gift
Keir Starmer has criticised Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he is “wrong” to reject moves to establish a Palestinian state.
The Labour leader stepped up criticism of Israel’s government, after Netanyahu told the White House that he rejects any moves to establish a Palestinian state when Israel ends its offensive in Gaza, and that all territory west of the Jordan River would be under Israeli security control.
Continue reading...Documents reveal humanitarian law investigation was far more intensive than David Cameron suggested
UK Foreign Office legal advisers were unable to conclude that Israel was in compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) in its bombardment of Gaza, court documents reveal.
After reviewing specific potential breaches of IHL cited in a report by Amnesty International, the Foreign Office initially concluded it had “serious concerns” about breaches.
Continue reading...Prospect of close combat in overpopulated area ‘deeply concerning’, say aid officials, while Gaza’s largest functioning hospital may have to close
As Israeli forces have moved further into southern Gaza, airstrikes and close-combat fighting are approaching areas crowded with more than a million people seeking refuge from the destruction across the rest of the territory.
The prospect of major operations taking place in territory with such a dense and vulnerable population is “deeply concerning”, say aid officials, who fear Gaza’s largest remaining hospital may have to be closed or evacuated.
Continue reading...Gadi Eisenkot launches blistering attack on Netanyahu’s campaign, saying ‘total victory’ over Hamas is unlikely
A senior minister in the Israeli war cabinet has said that only a ceasefire deal can win the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, and that Israel is unlikely to achieve its aim of “total victory” over the militant Islamist group.
Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, launched a blistering attack on the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the campaign against Hamas and failure to take responsibility for the failures that led to the bloody attack into Israel in October that triggered the current conflict.
Continue reading...Tens of thousands with life-threatening illnesses ‘defenceless’ after months without treatment, say doctors
Health services in Gaza are “decimated”, with medical staff exhausted after three months of war forced to extract shrapnel without adequate pain relief, conduct amputations without anaesthetics and watch children die of cancers because of a lack of facilities and medicine.
Dozens of interviews with doctors and medical administrators in Gaza reveal a catastrophic and deteriorating situation as health services struggle to cope with tens of thousands of casualties of the continuing Israeli offensive in the territory and the effects of the acute humanitarian crisis.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed. See all our coverage of the Middle East crisis here
There can be “no security and stability in the region” without a Palestinian state, said the spokesperson for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, reports Associated Press.
The remarks come in response to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection on Thursday of calls by the US to take steps toward the establishment of a Palestinian state after the war.
Continue reading...