Category Archives: Israel-Gaza war

Starmer faces difficult task persuading Trump to take different path on Gaza

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PM will be hoping to convince Trump to push Netanyahu to revive peace talks when UK and US leaders meet on Monday

Moments after Air Force One touched down at Prestwick on Friday for a trip in which politics will take as big a billing as golf, Donald Trump was asked about his relationship with Keir Starmer.

“I like your prime minister. He’s slightly more liberal than I am, as you’ve probably heard. But he’s a good man,” the US president told reporters. At a time when the UK wants Trump’s ear on numerous weighty issues, his response to questions about the “special relationship” will have given Downing Street some reassurance.

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Victorian Labor party members to push for ‘immediate’ federal recognition of a Palestinian state

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Exclusive: Labor Friends of Palestine to move three ‘urgency resolutions’ at weekend conference, but PM maintains no immediate plans for the move

Victorian Labor members will use this weekend’s state conference to demand the federal government “immediately” recognise a Palestinian state and impose sanctions on Israel – in what will be their strongest push to date on the issue.

It comes after Anthony Albanese on Sunday described civilian deaths in Gaza as “indefensible” but reiterated he had no immediate plans to recognise a Palestinian state and insisted further steps were needed to reach a two-state solution.

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Keir Starmer to urge Trump to resume US role in Gaza ceasefire talks

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No 10 sources say PM is ‘horrified’ by crisis and hopes to convince US to help end ‘unspeakable suffering’

Keir Starmer will personally press Donald Trump to revive ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas when they meet on Monday amid growing international alarm over the starvation crisis in Gaza.

The prime minister is expected to ask the US president, who is on a four-day break in Scotland, to push for a resumption of peace talks after the US and Israel withdrew their negotiation teams from Qatar.

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Two Australians on board boat intercepted by Israel while trying to transport aid to Gaza, Dfat confirms

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Officials in Tel Aviv are liaising with authorities and ‘stand ready to offer assistance’, Australian government spokesperson says

A boat carrying two Australians has been intercepted by Israeli troops, Israel’s foreign ministry has confirmed, as a pro-Palestinian activist group claims its crew have been subjected to “unlawful” detention while attempting to transport aid to Gaza.

The Handala, registry name Navaren, led by the activist group the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, was roughly 50km from the Egyptian coast and 100km west of Gaza when intercepted, an online tracking tool set up to plot the ship’s course showed.

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Albanese accuses Israel of ‘clearly’ breaching international law but resists push to recognise Palestinian state

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‘Quite clearly it is a breach of international law to stop food being delivered,’ PM tells ABC’s Insiders

Australia has no plans to imminently recognise a Palestinian state, Anthony Albanese says, cautioning further steps must be met for a two-state solution despite growing pressure inside the Labor party for the government to follow through on its long-held commitment.

The prime minister has also accused Israel of a breach of international law in blocking aid into Gaza, saying “you can’t hold innocent people responsible” for the actions of Hamas, and warning that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is “losing support” internationally.

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Macron plan to recognise Palestine puts pressure on Starmer to choose a course

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Prime minister risks either provoking mutiny in his cabinet and party over Gaza or alienating White House

France’s decision to recognise Palestine at the next UN general assembly is an attempt to build momentum for change and make a break from the major western powers’ impassivity in the face of Israel’s mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

Emmanuel Macron’s declaration, announced in typically dramatic fashion on social media late on Thursday night, draws a line between the paths followed by the US and France over the Gaza war, and significantly raises the pressure on the UK, Germany and other G7 powers to pick a side.

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Israel trying to deflect blame for widespread starvation in Gaza

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Officials and ministers either deny that Palestinians are being affected by hunger or say it is not Israel’s fault

Israel is pursuing an extensive PR effort to remove itself from blame for the starvation and killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is responsible.

As dozens of governments, UN organisations and other international figures have detailed Israel’s culpability, officials and ministers in Israel have attempted to suggest that there is no hunger in Gaza, that if hunger exists it is not Israel’s fault, or to blame Hamas or the UN and aid organisations for problems with distribution of aid.

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People in Gaza are ‘walking corpses’, says Unrwa, as agency says it has 6,000 aid trucks ready to enter – Middle East crisis live

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Philippe Lazzarini says Unrwa findings show one in five children is malnourished in Gaza City and says agency has food and medical supplies

Palestinian health officials said Thursday that two Palestinian teenage boys were killed by Israeli fire on Wednesday night in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel’s military said its forces had fired at Palestinians throwing molotov cocktails toward a highway, killing two near the West Bank town of Al-Khader.

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‘Extortion’: Columbia University’s deal with White House met with mixed reactions

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Some slammed the agreement with the Trump administration to reinstate $400m in federal funds while others praised it as an ‘excellent outcome’

Columbia University’s long anticipated deal with the Trump administration after months of negotiations has drawn both condemnation and praise from faculty, students, and alumni – a sign that the end of negotiations will hardly restore harmony on a campus profoundly divided since the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza.

The deal will reinstate $400m in federal funds the administration cut from the university after it accused it of allowing antisemitism to fester on campus. But it will cost Columbia some $220m in legal settlements, as well as a host of new measures that critics warn significantly restrict the university’s independence and will further repress pro-Palestinian speech.

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‘This is not action’: MPs respond to David Lammy’s condemnation of Israel

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Keir Starmer’s government struggling to convince MPs and public it is doing enough for civilians starving in Gaza

When David Lammy stood at the dispatch box to deliver a statement condemning Israel’s killing of starving civilians in Gaza on Monday, he was met with anger from MPs.

“We want action, and this is not action,” thundered one Labour MP. Another questioned: “Is this it?” A third asked: “At what point does our basic humanity require us to take stronger action? Many of us think the red line was passed a long time ago.”

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Ian Hislop calls arrest of man holding Private Eye cartoon at Gaza protest ‘mind-boggling’

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Jon Farley arrested under Terrorism Act at Leeds demonstration for holding sign making joke about Palestine Action ban

The terrorism arrest of a man for holding up a Private Eye cartoon during a protest at the weekend was “mind-boggling”, the magazine’s editor, Ian Hislop, has said, as the retired teacher called for an apology from police.

Jon Farley was picked up by police at a silent demonstration in Leeds on Saturday, which he described as a “pretty terrifying and upsetting experience”, for holding a sign that made a joke about the government’s proscription of the group Palestine Action from the last issue of the fortnightly satirical magazine.

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Ministers urged to help students trapped in Gaza with places at UK universities

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Forty people who have been offered scholarships unable to travel without biometric data they have no way of getting

Pressure is mounting on ministers to intervene on behalf of 40 students in Gaza who have been offered full scholarships to study at UK universities, but are unable to take up their places this September because of government red tape.

A high-level meeting is understood to have taken place at the Home Office on Tuesday after MPs and campaigners highlighted the students’ plight, calling on ministers to take action to help secure their safe passage to the UK. Some students are reported to have been killed while waiting, while others are said to be in constant danger.

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AFP news agency calls on Israel to allow evacuation of its freelance contributors

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Palestinian journalists working for French organisation say desperate hunger and lack of clean water is making them ill

News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) has called on Israel to allow the immediate evacuation of its freelance contributors and their families from the Gaza Strip, a day after they warned that they were struggling to work due to starvation.

In a statement, the French news agency said its freelancers faced an “appalling situation” in Gaza. A 21-month war with Israel has devastated the territory, a conflict triggered by Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel in October 2023.

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Israeli cruise ship turned away from Greek island by Gaza war protest

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Tourists greeted on Syros by banner saying Stop the Genocide and prevented from disembarking

A cruise liner carrying Israeli tourists has been forced to reroute to Cyprus after being turned away from the Greek island of Syros after a quayside protest over the Gaza war.

Around 1,600 Israeli passengers on board the Crown Iris were prevented from disembarking amid safety concerns when more than 300 demonstrators on the Cycladic isle made clear they were unwelcome over Israel’s conduct of the war and treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. A large banner emblazoned with the words Stop the Genocide was held aloft alongside Palestinian flags.

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Starmer under pressure from cabinet to recognise Palestinian statehood

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Exclusive: Wes Streeting among ministers pushing for action after calling Israeli attacks on aid sites ‘intolerable’

Keir Starmer is under pressure from cabinet ministers for the UK to immediately recognise Palestine as a state, as global outcry grows over Israel’s killing of starving civilians in Gaza.

The prime minister is understood to have been urged by a number of senior ministers in different cabinet meetings over recent months that the UK should take a leading role in issuing recognition.

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Global outcry grows over Israel’s killing of starving civilians in Gaza

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UN secretary general warns ‘last lifelines’ may soon collapse after Israeli forces attack WHO facilities in Deir al-Balah

Israel is facing intensifying international condemnation for its killing of starving Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and its attacks on humanitarian efforts, as the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the “last lifelines keeping people alive [in the strip] are collapsing”.

An angry chorus of senior figures, among them the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, and a senior Catholic cleric, expressed on Tuesday a growing sense of global horror over Israel’s actions.

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UK ban on Palestine Action is an abuse of power, high court told

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Intelligence assessment before proscription found that vast majority of group’s activities were lawful, court hears

An intelligence assessment before Palestine Action was banned under anti-terrorism laws found that the vast majority of its activities were lawful, a court has heard.

Raza Husain KC, appearing for Huda Ammori, a co-founder of the group, said Yvette Cooper’s decision to proscribe the group on 5 July was “repugnant” and an “authoritarian and blatant abuse of power”.

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Revealed: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication

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As Harvard’s feud with Trump escalated, so did tensions over an ‘education and Palestine’ issue of a prestigious journal. Scholars blame the ‘Palestine exception’ to academic freedom

In March 2024, six months into Israel’s war in Gaza, education in the territory was decimated. Schools were closed – most had been turned into shelters – and all 12 of the strip’s universities were partially or fully destroyed.

Against that backdrop, a prestigious American education journal decided to dedicate a special issue to “education and Palestine”. The Harvard Educational Review (HER) put out a call for submissions, asking academics around the world for ideas for articles grappling with the education of Palestinians, education about Palestine and Palestinians, and related debates in schools and colleges in the US.

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Clearing Gaza rubble could yield 90,000 tonnes of planet-heating emissions

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Processing debris from Israel’s destruction of homes, schools and hospitals could take four decades

Millions of tonnes of rubble left by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza could generate more than 90,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – and take as long as four decades to remove and process, a study has found.

Israel’s destruction of Palestinian homes, schools and hospitals in Gaza generated at least 39m tonnes of concrete debris between October 2023 and December 2024, which will require at least 2.1m dump trucks driving 18m miles (29.5m km) to transport to disposal sites, researchers said.

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WHO says residence and main warehouse in Gaza hit by Israeli forces

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Staff quarters attacked three times and four people detained, three temporarily, as IDF tanks enter Deir al-Balah

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the Israeli military attacked its staff residence and main warehouse in Deir al-Balah on Monday, compromising its operations in Gaza.

The WHO said its staff residence was attacked three times, with airstrikes causing a fire and extensive damage, and endangering staff and their families, including children.

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